Depression, Stressful Life Events, and the Impact of Variation in the Serotonin Transporter: Findings from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health)

This article is an analysis of stressful life events, the buffering hypothesis, and alcohol use in a national sample of 1,418 respondents 60 years of age and over. The results indicate that older adults who experience stressful losses are significantly more likely to drink excessively than those who have not experienced such losses or who have experienced them to a lesser extent. Increased drinking among older adults may therefore be a reaction to life circumstances in which alcohol represents an attempt to cope with traumatic loss, personal as well as within the kinship network. Supportive resources of spouse, family, friends, and church appear to have a stress-buffering effects that reduces the excessive-drinking response to life crisis. Data suggest, however, that older persons are vulnerable to the magnitude of losses experienced as they grow older and lose more of their family, friends, and peers. These stressors appear to seriously impact their drinking behavior and are not effectively buffered. Respondents report that drinking may increase during periods of prolonged exposure to emotionally depleting life change and loss, when supportive needs may exceed the capacities of personal and social support resources.

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The risk for depression conferred by stressful life events is modified by variation at the serotonin transporter 5HTTLPR genotype: evidence from the Spanish PREDICT-Gene cohort

Molecular Psychiatry ◽

10.1038/sj.mp.4001981 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 12 (8) ◽

pp. 748-755 ◽

Cited By ~ 80

Author(s):

J A Cervilla ◽

◽

E Molina ◽

M Rivera ◽

F Torres-González ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Life Events ◽

Serotonin Transporter ◽

Stressful Life Events ◽

Stressful Life ◽

Risk For Depression

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Longitudinal investigation of the role of temperament and stressful life events in childhood anxiety

Development and Psychopathology ◽

10.1017/s0954579413000989 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 26 (2) ◽

pp. 437-449 ◽

Cited By ~ 13

Author(s):

Suzanne Broeren ◽

Carol Newall ◽

Helen F. Dodd ◽

Ruth Locker ◽

Jennifer L. Hudson

Keyword(s):

Anxiety Disorder ◽

Life Events ◽

Stressful Life Events ◽

Negative Life Events ◽

Childhood Anxiety ◽

Diagnostic Interview ◽

Anxiety Symptoms ◽

Positive Behavior ◽

Stressful Life ◽

The Impact

AbstractThe current study investigated the longitudinal relationships among behavioral inhibition (BI), life events, and anxiety in a sample of 102 BI children and 100 behaviorally uninhibited (BUI) children aged 3 to 4 years. Children's parents completed questionnaires on BI, stressful life events, and anxiety symptoms, and were administered a diagnostic interview three times in a 5-year period. In line with our hypotheses, negative life events, particularly negative behavior-dependent life events (i.e., life events that are related to the children's own behaviors), and the impact of negative life events were predictive of increases in subsequent anxiety symptoms, the likelihood of having an anxiety disorder, and increased number of anxiety diagnoses over the 5-year follow-up period. Experiencing more positive, behavior-independent life events decreased the risk of being diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. Furthermore, differences were found in life events between BI and BUI children. That is, BI children experienced fewer positive and specifically positive behavior-dependent life events, and the impact of these positive life events was also lower in BI children than in BUI children. However, BI did not interact with life events in the prediction of anxiety problems as hypothesized. Therefore, this study seems to indicate that BI and life events act as additive risk factors in the development of anxiety problems.

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Interaction between serotonin transporter promoter polymorphism (5-HTTLPR), age-related stressful life events and trait neuroticism on depressive symptomatology in non-clinical volunteers

Journal of Affective Disorders ◽

10.1016/j.jad.2010.02.018 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 122 ◽

pp. S38

Author(s):

E. Verschoor⁎ ◽

C.R. Markus

Keyword(s):

Life Events ◽

Serotonin Transporter ◽

Stressful Life Events ◽

Depressive Symptomatology ◽

Promoter Polymorphism ◽

Stressful Life ◽

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The Impact of Stressful Life Events on Excessive Alcohol Consumption in the French Population: Findings from the GAZEL Cohort Study

PLoS ONE ◽

10.1371/journal.pone.0087653 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 9 (1) ◽

pp. e87653 ◽

Cited By ~ 20

Author(s):

Sara L. Tamers ◽

Cassandra Okechukwu ◽

Alex A. Bohl ◽

Alice Guéguen ◽

Marcel Goldberg ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Cohort Study ◽

Alcohol Consumption ◽

Life Events ◽

Stressful Life Events ◽

Stressful Life ◽

French Population ◽

Excessive Alcohol Consumption ◽

Excessive Alcohol ◽

The Impact

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Ex post-facto study of long-term stress in a sample of adoptees

Anales de Psicología ◽

10.6018/analesps.32.1.184541 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 32 (1) ◽

pp. 9

Author(s):

Amelia Díaz ◽

Eugenia Infanzón ◽

Ángela Beleña

Keyword(s):

Life Events ◽

Spanish Civil War ◽

Stressful Life Events ◽

Stressful Life ◽

Adoption Process ◽

Posttraumatic Symptoms ◽

Ex Post ◽

Ex Post Facto ◽

Ex Post Facto Study ◽

The Impact

In this work we study the impact of relinquishment and the adoption process in posttraumatic symptoms and stressful life events in a group of 55 adults that were adopted as children after the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). The effects of institutionalization, maltreatment and traumatic revelation of the adopted status have also been studied. No significant differences were found between institutionalized and non-institutionalized adoptees in posttraumatic symptomatology and stressful life events frequency. However, maltreated adoptees scored significantly higher in intrusion, arousal and stressful life events frequency than non-maltreated. Similar differences were found in the comparison between adoptees with and without traumatic revelation; those adoptees who suffered traumatic revelation presented significantly higher intrusion, arousal and stressful life events frequency than those who did not suffer traumatic revelation. Traumatic revelation, alone or in association with maltreatment, seems to play an important role in posttraumatic symptoms in the sample studied.

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High emotion differentiation buffers against internalizing symptoms following exposure to stressful life events in adolescence: An intensive longitudinal study

10.31234/osf.io/q4uy8 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Erik C Nook ◽

John Coleman Flournoy ◽

Alexandra M Rodman ◽

Patrick Mair ◽

Katie A McLaughlin

Keyword(s):

Longitudinal Study ◽

Life Events ◽

Internalizing Problems ◽

Internalizing Symptoms ◽

Stressful Life Events ◽

Negative Emotion ◽

Stressful Life ◽

Emotion Differentiation ◽

Affective Science ◽

The Face

Exposure to stressful life events is strongly associated with internalizing psychopathology, and identifying factors that reduce vulnerability to stress-related internalizing problems is critical for development of early interventions. Drawing on research from affective science, we tested whether high emotion differentiation—the ability to specifically identify one’s feelings—buffers adolescents from developing internalizing symptoms when exposed to stress. Thirty adolescents completed a laboratory measure of emotion differentiation before an intensive year-long longitudinal study in which exposure to stress and internalizing problems were assessed at both the moment-level (n=4,921 experience sampling assessments) and monthly-level (n=355 monthly assessments). High negative and positive emotion differentiation attenuated moment-level coupling between perceived stress and feelings of depression, and high negative emotion differentiation eliminated monthly-level associations between stressful life events and anxiety symptoms. These results suggest that high emotion differentiation buffers adolescents against anxiety and depression in the face of stress, perhaps by facilitating adaptive emotion regulation.

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