Dimensions of adversity in association with adolescents' depression symptoms: Distinct moderating roles of cognitive and autonomic function.

Exposure to adverse events is prevalent among youths and robustly associated with risk for depression, particularly during adolescence. The Dimensional Model of Adversity and Psychopathology (DMAP) distinguishes between adverse events that expose youths to deprivation versus threat, positing unique mechanisms of risk (cognitive functioning deficits for deprivation, and altered fear and emotion learning for threat) that may require different approaches to intervention. We examined whether deprivation and threat were distinctly associated with behavioral measures of cognitive processes and autonomic nervous system function in relation to depression symptom severity in a community sample of early adolescents (n = 117; mean age 12.73 years; 54.7% male). Consistent with DMAP, associations between threat and depression symptoms, and between economic deprivation and depression symptoms, were distinctly moderated by physiological and cognitive functions, respectively, at baseline but not follow-up. Under conditions of greater cognitive inhibition, less exposure to deprivation was associated with lower symptom severity. Under conditions of blunted resting-state autonomic response (electrodermal activity and respiratory sinus arrhythmia), greater exposure to threat was associated with higher symptom severity. Our findings support the view that understanding risk for youth depression requires parsing adversity: examining distinct roles played by deprivation and threat, and the associated cognitive and biological processes.