Symposia
Suicide and Self-Injury
Jeremy G. Stewart, Ph.D., Other
Queen’s University
Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Emily Zhang, BA
Research Assistant
Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University
New York, New York
Alma Bitran, BS
Research Assistant
Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University
New York, New York
Gabrielle Craddock
Undergraduate Student
Department of Psychology, Queen's University
Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Natasha Drobotenko, MSc
Graduate Student
Department of Psychology, Queen's University
Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Randy Auerbach, PhD, ABPP
Associate Professor of Medical Psychology (in Psychiatry)
Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University
New York, New York
Suicide is a leading cause of death among adolescents worldwide. Approximately 17% of adolescents report suicide ideation, and nearly 20% of these ideators attempt suicide (Nock et al., 2013). Given promising research linking anhedonia to suicide (Auerbach et al., 2022), studies have tested whether reward-related neurophysiological markers are associated with suicidal thoughts and behaviors among adolescents, with some studies showing evidence for a link between blunted reward-related event-related potentials (ERPs) and suicide ideation (Gallyer et al., 2021). However, no research has directly examined social reward (i.e., peer acceptance versus rejection), which may be more germane to understanding suicide risk during adolescence (Miller & Prinstein, 2019; Stewart et al., 2019).
To directly address this gap, the current study probed the ERPs related to peer feedback from 89 adolescents (Mage=15.48, SDage=1.85). Specifically, 57 depressed adolescents (30 ideators, 27 attempters) and 32 non-depressed community controls completed the Chatroom Task (Guyer et al., 2011), in which they received equal amounts of acceptance (i.e., a peer is interested) and rejection (i.e., peer is not interested) feedback, while EEG data were acquired. Preliminary analyses indicated that relative to controls, ideators (p< 0.05) and attempters (p< 0.01) found rejection trials significantly more unpleasant. There were, however, no group differences in ratings on acceptance trials. ERP analyses focused on the P300, which is maximal in posterior regions of the scalp, peaks 300-400 ms post stimulus, and indexes initial allocation of attention to emotionally salient stimuli.
There was a main effect of Feedback Valence such that the P300 was potentiated for acceptance versus rejection, F(1,55)=17.98, p< 0.001, ηp2=0.25. This effect was qualified by a significant interaction with Group, F(2,55)=3.43, p=0.040, ηp2=0.11; among controls (p< 0.01, ηp2=0.17) and ideators (p< 0.001, ηp2=0.30), the P300 was significantly more positive for acceptance, but there was no effect of feedback valence among attempters (p>0.05, ηp2=0.04). Processing of EEG data remain ongoing with future analyses to focus on canonical reward ERPs (e.g., Reward Positivity).
Our findings suggest that adolescent attempters may not preferentially deploy early attention to positive social information like those with no history of suicidal behavior. Future research should examine how altered processing of social feedback may contribute to the escalation of suicide risk in adolescence.