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. 2020 Oct;49(10):2149-2159.
doi: 10.1007/s10964-020-01216-y. Epub 2020 Mar 6.

Reward Sensitivity, Cognitive Response Style, and Inflammatory Response to an Acute Stressor in Adolescents

Daniel P Moriarity  1 , Tommy Ng  1 , Erin E Curley  1 , Brae Anne McArthur  1 , Lauren M Ellman  1 , Christopher L Coe  2 , Lyn Y Abramson  2 , Lauren B Alloy  3
Affiliations

Reward Sensitivity, Cognitive Response Style, and Inflammatory Response to an Acute Stressor in Adolescents

Daniel P Moriarity et al. J Youth Adolesc. 2020 Oct.

Abstract

Inflammation is gaining support as a biological mediator between stress and many negative outcomes that have heightened risk during adolescence (e.g., mood disorders). Thus, an important line of inquiry is evaluating whether risk factors for mood psychopathology also are associated with heightened inflammatory responses to stress during this developmental period. Two prominent risk factors that interact to predict mood psychopathology are reward sensitivity and perseverative cognitive response styles, which also have been associated with heightened inflammatory proteins. These factors could influence inflammation by synergistically amplifying stress reactivity. Ninety-nine late adolescents (Mage = 18.3 years, range = 15.6-21.9 years) completed measures of reward sensitivity, cognitive response style, and blood draws before and 60-min after a modified Trier Social Stress Task to determine levels of inflammation. Higher reward drive interacted with more perseverative response style ratios (rumination relative to distraction + problem-solving) to predict larger increases in interleukin-6 (a proinflammatory protein). Follow-up analyses found that reward drive interacted with all three components of the ratio to predict change in interleukin-6. Thus, these results suggest that high reward drive and perseverative cognitive response styles are associated with increased inflammatory response to social stress in adolescents, a potential physiological mechanism linking these risk factors to mood psychopathology during this developmental period.

Keywords: Coping; Inflammation; Reward; Rumination; Stress.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest

The authors report no conflict of interests.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1
BAS Drive and CRSQ ratio (Rumination/(Problem-Solving + Distraction)) interact to predict change in IL-6 post-Trier Social Stress Task Note: Predictors are centered, CRSQ = Children’s Response Style Questionnaire, IL = interleukin, pg/L = picogram/Liter, Low = −1 SD from mean, Moderate = mean, High = +1 SD from mean.
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