# Adolescent Physiological and Emotional Stress Reactivity and Substance Use

> **NIH NIH F31** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES · 2020 · $37,292

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
Psychophysiological responses to stress may provide a means for identifying youth at high risk for substance
use. The sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and parasympathetic nervous system (PNS)—the two branches
of the autonomic nervous system—are two ideal physiological systems. They are both sensitive to social stress
and reliably related to psychological constructs related to substance use: impulsivity and emotion regulation,
respectively. Moreover, blunted SNS and PNS reactivity have been linked with poorer mental health in youth
and greater substance use in adults. However, limited work has examined how stress reactivity relates to
substance use during adolescence, which is especially critical given that substance use increases during this
time and early substance use can increase risk for substance use disorders. This proposal aims to address this
gap by analyzing how SNS and PNS reactivity to stress relate to substance use in adolescence using two data
sets. First, in the CHAMACOS dataset, links will be tested between SNS and PNS reactivity—as well as cross-
system profiles of responses—at age 14 and substance use at age 14 and 16. This analysis provides a robust
test of utility of these physiological responses for identifying concurrent and prospective substance use during
a period when substance use is rapidly increasing. Then, links between substance use and both physiological
and affective reactivity to stress will be tested in the Study of Family Health. In addition to completing the stress
paradigm, adolescents reported their mood and stressors experienced for 14 days through daily diaries. PNS
reactivity may relate to substance use because PNS activity indexes capacity for emotion regulation, and poor
emotion regulation can increase proclivity for substance use. This aim will assess how physiological responses
to a validated stressor and psychological responses to ecological stressors relate to substance use and
thereby provide insight regarding why physiological responses relate to substance use. Finally, sex differences
in links between substance use and stress responses will be assessed in both datasets. Researchers have
hypothesized that impulsivity and emotion regulation—and, by extension, their physiological correlates—relate
to substance use differently in males and females. Results will further clarify whether sex influences adolescent
substance use and whether interventions should be tailored differently for males and females. Taken together,
findings from this proposal will assess the utility of SNS and PNS reactivity for concurrent (Aims 1 and 2) and
prospective substance use (Aim 1), interrogate the psychological means by which PNS reactivity may relate to
substance use (Aim 2), and explore sex differences in these patterns (Aim 3). This information can be used for
identification of youth at higher risk for substance use, developing interventions (e.g., targeting biofeedback,
emotion regulation), an...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10069219
- **Project number:** 1F31DA051181-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES
- **Principal Investigator:** Danny Rahal
- **Activity code:** F31 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $37,292
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2020-08-01 → 2022-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10069219

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10069219, Adolescent Physiological and Emotional Stress Reactivity and Substance Use (1F31DA051181-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10069219. Licensed CC0.

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