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Jopling, Ellen Nancy

University of British Columbia

Adolescence is a developmental period marked by significant social change, involving shifts in roles, relationships, and responsibilities. These social shifts are accompanied by concurrent changes across biological, cognitive, and emotional domains. This dynamic change across multiple systems positions adolescence as a period of opportunity as well as vulnerability, as youth are at risk of stress becoming biologically embedded in a way that impacts long-term trajectories of mental and physical health. In particular, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis plays an important role in transducing social experiences into physiological changes that go on to have long-term impacts on health and well-being. While there is significant evidence in support of the concept of biological embedding, our understanding of the specific mechanisms influencing HPA dysregulation has been slow to develop. Filling this gap, the present dissertation aimed to investigate the impact of relevant sociocontextual factors on HPA-axis functioning during two major stressors during adolescence. Chapter 1 documents associations between attentional bias to threatening social stimuli and hyperactivity of the HPA axis during the high school transition. Chapter 2 then provides evidence of associations between loneliness and dysregulated diurnal cortisol during the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, Chapter 3 provides evidence of specificity in associations between markers of HPA axis activity and elevated inflammation. The present dissertation has broad implications. Clinically, this work identifies risk factors to be targeted to facilitate adolescents’ healthy regulation of cortisol during times of stress. Theoretically, findings extend current understanding of the influence of stress on youth wellbeing.

Text

2024-06-04

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/88406

Psychology

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/