Biological Embedding of Protective Factors and Resilience
Exposure to childhood adversity is one of the strongest risk factors for depression across the life course, increasing risk by at least twofold. Although these exposures are clearly harmful, there is substantial variation in how people respond to adversity. Not all children who experience early-life adversity go on to develop mental health problems. This finding raises the question: Are there modifiable factors early in life that protect against the effects of adversity, contribute to resilient biological processes, and prevent new onsets of depression?
Family- and community-level factors, including maternal social support, parenting behaviors, grandparent involvement, peer support, and school quality, are established promotive factors for depression, even among children with a history of adversity. Emerging research also suggests DNA methylation (DNAm), a well-studied epigenetic modification, may function as a pathway to explain the biological embedding of these promotive factors. In this project, we aim to identify the extent to which DNAm mediates, or partially explains, the effect of positive life experiences on risk for depression across childhood to adulthood.
Findings from this research will help identify not just windows of vulnerability when childhood adversity and DNAm changes are most harmful, but also windows of opportunity when enriching family- level caregiving environments and community-level resources may be more impactful.
This project is in collaboration with Dr. Erin Dunn and is funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).
The Lussier Lab 