# Behavioral and inflammatory responses to stress: Implications for depression in youth exposed to adversity

> **NIH NIH K08** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES · 2020 · $172,368

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
Childhood adversity exposure is linked to recurrent and treatment resistant depression across the lifespan.
Childhood adversity is also associated with exaggerated inflammatory responses to stress. Acute inflammatory
responses can induce the behavioral phenotype for depression, including reduced motivation for rewards and
enhanced sensitivity to threat. In this study, we aim to determine the association between childhood adversity
and behavioral responses to acute psychological stress. We also aim to characterize the association between
childhood adversity and inflammatory responses to stress. Finally, we aim to test whether the magnitude of
inflammatory responses to acute stress mediate the behavioral response to threat. We hypothesize that youth
exposed to childhood adversity will demonstrate greater increases in threat sensitivity, reward motivation, and
markers of inflammation following acute psychological stress. Further, we hypothesize that inflammatory
responses to stress will mediate changes in behavior in response to acute stress. We will recruit a sample of
90 adolescents (ages 12-15) exposed to high (4+ adverse childhood events) and low (0-3 adverse childhood
events) adversity. During a laboratory visit, youth will complete several behavioral measures of reward
motivation and threat sensitivity, participate in an acute psychological stress paradigm (TSST-C), and then
complete measures of reward motivation and threat sensitivity 60 minutes after stress initiation. Throughout
this laboratory assessment, we will collect blood and saliva to measure systemic, cellular, and intracellular
markers of inflammation. We anticipate that data from this study will support our hypothesis that childhood
adversity is associated with exaggerated behavioral and inflammatory responses to stress. Completion of this
study will identify three modifiable risk factors (threat sensitivity, reward motivation, inflammation) for
depression in at risk youth, and support a program of research examining cognitive and behavioral strategies
that may mitigate these effects.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9982434
- **Project number:** 5K08MH112773-04
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES
- **Principal Investigator:** Kate Ryan Kuhlman
- **Activity code:** K08 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $172,368
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2017-08-01 → 2022-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9982434

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9982434, Behavioral and inflammatory responses to stress: Implications for depression in youth exposed to adversity (5K08MH112773-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9982434. Licensed CC0.

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