MIMIC
Moods in Mothers and In Children-3 (MIMIC-3)
This project is a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) funded multi-wave longitudinal
study examining the role of children's attentional biases as a mechanism of risk in
the intergenerational transmission of depression, and how the form and function of
these biases may change across the transition from childhood to adolescence. This
project focuses on 250 mother-child pairs drawn from the community. Children are aged
7-14 at the start of the study and then are followed every 6 months for 2 years. Additional
details of the study can be found here.
BEAR
Babies' Emotions, Attention, and Relationships (BEAR)
Children’s attentional biases for sad faces may represent a key mechanism of risk
for the intergenerational transmission of depression that develops as early as infancy.
Infants' attentional avoidance has been proposed as an emotion regulation strategy
in which shifts in attention are used to regulate negative affect/arousal caused by
exposure to their mothers' depression. Although potentially adaptive in the short
term, this is likely to increase risk for depression in the future. We are examining
these hypotheses in women with and without a history of major depression and their
6-12-month-old infants. This project is funded by grants from the National Institute
of Mental Health and the National Science Foundation. Additional details of the study
can be found here.
Completed Research
IDEA
Integrating DNA, Emotions, & Attention (IDEA) Project
This project is a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) funded study addressing
the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) domain of Negative Valence Systems. This project
involves a one-time assessment of 1,000 children aged 7-11 years and their parent.
The goal of this study is to provide a fine-grained examination of children's attentional
biases using both behavioral (eyetracking) and physiological (event-related potential;
ERP) indices to determine which specific components of children's attention are biased
in relation to their broad symptoms of depression and anxiety, as well as the more
specific symptom domains of low positive affect and physiological hyperarousal. In
this study, we are also examining environmental, genetic, and epigenetic influences
on these biases. Additional details of the study can be found here.
