CARE
With our collaborator Autumn Kujawa, we are launching a new study funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, called the CARE study – Charting Affect and Reward during Early Childhood. This study will include 450 children between the ages of 4 to 6 enrolled at Penn State or Vanderbilt University. We will follow children and parents across two years to examine changes in emotions and reward responses during this important developmental period and better understand factors that promote healthy development of positive emotions and rewards to reduce risk for emotional and behavioral problems.
BEAM
With our collaborator Eric Nelson, we are working on a study funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, called the BEAM study—Brains, Emotion Regulation, and Adolescent Moods Study. In this study, we are examining how individual differences in emotion regulation styles are implicated in the development and course of depression in children and adolescents, ages nine to fourteen years. Results will aid in identifying biomarkers associated with the onset and progression of MDD in high-risk youth, which can further be used to enhance targeted prevention and intervention strategies for MDD.
Happy Families
With our collaborator Autumn Kujawa, we are developing and piloting a novel preventive intervention aimed to enhance positive emotions and reward responsiveness in children of parents with histories of depression or anhedonia. This work is supported by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health.
