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Principal Investigator: RANDY PATRICK AUERBACH
Organization: UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH AT PITTSBURGH
Fiscal Year: 2024
Award: $964,336
Funding agency: National Institute of Mental Health
Project Summary
Over the past 15 years, suicide rates among adolescents have increased ~60%. Recently, problematic
social media use has been linked to the emergence of suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STB), perhaps reflecting
greater interpersonal stress exposure. Understanding the type, timing, and severity of interpersonal stress
exposure is critical to understand STB risk, which requires carefully characterizing exposures present in their
digital lives through a deep interrogation of real-time interactions within social media. In line with the Stress
Generation Framework, adolescents experiencing psychiatric disorders possess characteristics that increase
the occurrence of interpersonal stress, which may include negative social media exposures. Accordingly, this
project will identify social neural susceptibilities that may increase the occurrence of negative social media
exposures and examine physiological processes that are impacted by negative social media exposures over
time. Our study will include adolescents ages 14-17 (N=300), which will be oversampled for youth at high risk
for suicide (n=200), defined as STB in the past 3 months and/or a past-year suicide attempt. Additionally, we will
recruit adolescents with psychiatric disorders but without a lifetime history of STB (n=100), providing an
opportunity to identify biological markers and temporally refined social media exposures that characterize risk
for STB as opposed to identifying risk factors that associate with psychiatric disorders more broadly.
Comprehensive clinical assessments will be completed at baseline, and additionally, we will probe past-year
user-generated content to assess dynamic changes in negative exposures to characterize core interpersonal
processes across social media platforms, including: (a) online victimization (e.g., harassment, hate speech), (b)
reduced social capital (e.g., reduced social network size), and (c) reduced social support (e.g., reduced
engagement, reciprocity of messaging). We also will collect baseline fMRI neural responses characterizing social
processes and assess chronic HPA axis activity. At the 2-, 4-, and 6-month follow-up assessments, interviews,
social media data, HPA axis activity, and self-reports will be re-assessed. The overarching goals is to examine
the relationship between biological processes and social media exposures, particularly with regards to
elucidating suicide risk. First, we will test whether social neural network alterations increase susceptibility to
negative social media exposures. Second, we will test whether negative social media exposures negatively
impact HPA axis activity. Last, we will test whether negative social media exposures, social neural alterations,
HPA axis activity, and their interactions lead to the emergence of suicide events (i.e., actual, interrupted, or
aborted attempts; active suicidal ideation with method, intent, or plan; emergency department visits or psychiatric
hospitalizations for STB). Through this comprehensive approach, we will address a critical public health initiative
by identifying those who are susceptible to negative social media exposures, and providing actionable markers
to reduce the needless loss of life among young people.
Terms: <17 year old><17 years of age><Address><Adolescent><Adolescent Youth><Aeroseb-HC><Age><Amygdala><Amygdaloid Body><Amygdaloid Nucleus><Amygdaloid structure><Anterior><Biological><Biological Function><Biological Markers><Biological Process><Buffers><Cause of Death><Central Lobe><Cetacort><Characteristics><Chronic><Clinical><Clinical assessments><Cort-Dome><Cortef><Cortenema><Cortisol><Cortispray><Cortril><Coupling><Data><Dermacort><Development><ED visit><ER visit><Eldecort><Emergency care visit><Emergency department visit><Emergency hospital visit><Emergency room visit><Enrollment><Evaluation><Event><Exhibits><Exposure to><Feedback><Feeling suicidal><Functional MRI><Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging><Future><Generations><Goals><HPA axis><Hair><Hate><History><Hydrocortisone><Hydrocortone><Hytone><Insula><Insula of Reil><Interruption><Interview><Island of Reil><Lead><Life><Link><Measures><Mediating><Mental disorders><Mental health disorders><Methods><Natural Language Processing><Nutracort><Organism-Level Process><Organismal Process><Pathway interactions><Patient Self-Report><Pb element><Persons><Physiologic><Physiologic Processes><Physiological><Physiological Processes><Predisposition><Preventative intervention><Process><Proctocort><Psychiatric Disease><Psychiatric Disorder><Public Health><Recording of previous events><Reporting><Research><Risk><Risk Behaviors><Risk Factors><Risky Behavior><Sampling><Self-Report><Severities><Social Environment><Social Network><Social Processes><Social support><Speech><Stress><Suicidal thoughts><Suicide><Suicide attempt><Susceptibility><Testing><Time><Victimization><Violence><Youth><Youth 10-21><age 17 years><ages><amygdaloid nuclear complex><at risk behavior><bio-markers><biologic><biologic marker><biomarker><developmental><digital><enroll><experience><fMRI><fatal attempt><fatal suicide><follow up assessment><followup assessment><harassment><heavy metal Pb><heavy metal lead><high risk><histories><hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis><hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis><hypothalmus-pituitary-adrenal axis><ideation><innovate><innovation><innovative><inpatient psychiatric care><inpatient psychiatric treatment><intent to die><intervention for prevention><juvenile><juvenile human><media consumption><media use><mental illness><natural language understanding><neural><neural correlate><neural network><non fatal attempt><nonfatal attempt><novel><pathway><peer><prevention intervention><preventional intervention strategy><preventive intervention><psychiatric hospitalization><psychiatric illness><psychological disorder><recruit><response><seventeen year old><seventeen years of age><social><social capital><social climate><social context><social media><social support network><socioenvironment><socioenvironmental><suicidal><suicidal adolescent><suicidal adolescents><suicidal attempt><suicidal behavior><suicidal ideation><suicidal risk><suicidal thinking><suicidal youth><suicidal youths><suicidality><suicide behavior><suicide ideation><suicide rate><suicide risk><suicides><temporal measurement><temporal resolution><theories><thoughts about suicide><time measurement><violent><violent behavior>