Yale Clinical Affective Neuroscience and Development Lab

Next up is Gabrielle Martin! Gabi is a summer undergraduate research assistant in the CANDLab and she is visiting from Howard University as a part of the SURF program. She is interested in neurobiological and endocrine interactions, particularly how these kinds of interactions impact communities of color.

This summer, she assisted in research on associations among trauma exposure, psychopathology, and fronto-limbic circuitry in young adults. Gabi found that when trauma occurred through the ages of 0-9 years old, there was an associated increase in adult anxiety and depression symptoms. In addition, trauma between the ages of 10-14 years old was associated with increased resting state functional connectivity of the amygdala and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). With this correlated activity, there may be stronger connectivity between the amygdala, which is typically involved in the experience and expression of emotions, and the mPFC, which supports various social cognitive functions. Trauma severity was not correlated with depressive/anxious symptoms or resting state functional connectivity of the amygdala and mPFC.

These findings are very interesting and we’re so proud of the work that Gabi did with our team this summer! We can’t wait to see how Gabi continues to grow in her future studies as well as how others can learn from this work. We’re so grateful we had the chance to spend this summer with Gabi!

Thank you so much for taking the time to check out some of the work that we’ve been up to this summer. :-)

This week we are highlighting the exciting work of our two summer undergraduate research assistants! First is Belle!

Belle is one of our summer undergraduate research assistants visiting from Sewanee: The University of the South! We’re so glad to have Belle here and to share the research that she has produced with our lab this summer. In her research, she explored the effect of stressor controllability and anxiety on physiological and self-reported stress. Among participants without prior control in a task, those with anxiety disorders had increased physiological responses in comparison to those who did not have anxiety disorders. Among participants who had prior control, there was no significant difference in physiological response.

In the future, Belle is interested in the ways in which pediatric psychology can be applied and disseminated amongst the medical field, specifically in hospital settings. We’re so lucky to have had the chance to work with Belle this summer and to get to learn from her exciting research! We’re excited to see where Belle goes in the future with her endeavors. :-)