Phase 2
CIRCA Investigators
2022 - present
Research Project Leaders
2025 - present
"A Novel Gut-Brain Pathway Underlying Early Life Stress"
My CIRCA-funded project investigates how early life stress programs the gut–brain axis through alterations in specific commensal microbial populations. The study examines how stress-induced microbial changes during critical developmental windows influence neuroimmune signaling, emotional regulation, and vulnerability to neuropsychiatric disorders later in life. Using integrative behavioral, molecular, and microbiome-based approaches, this work aims to identify mechanistic pathways linking gut microbial dysbiosis to long-term brain dysfunction. Ultimately, the project seeks to uncover novel microbiota-targeted therapeutic strategies that may mitigate the enduring effects of early life adversity on mental health.
"Linking Daily Parental PACEs to Parenting and Preschoolers’ Self-Regulation Growth: A Burst-Design Longitudinal Study"
Parental adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) can impact the next generation’s self-regulation (SR) development via disrupted parental stress response and decreased parenting quality. The intergenerational and cumulative adverse and resilient experiences (ICARE) model emphasizes that ACEs can transmit intergenerationally, and development is a neurobiological adaptation to both stress and protective and compensatory experiences (PACEs). Accordingly, the protective effects of PACEs against ACEs should be seen as a dynamic interplay between contexts and development. Existing literature on PACEs, stress, parenting, and child SR development relies primarily on between-person comparisons, assuming PACEs, parenting, and child SR as relatively static constructs. Emerging empirical evidence captured short-term changes in PACEs, parenting, and SR, indicating the way parental PACEs are linked to child SR is a dynamic within-person process. No previous studies have examined the within-person dynamic relation between daily PACEs, parental stress, parenting, and long-term child SR development. The proposed study will examine the dynamic daily interplay among parental PACEs, stress, parenting, and child SR and examine the link between dynamic interplay and long-term SR growth. A sub-sample of the study will examine whether parents and their preschoolers’ heart rate variability captured by wrist wearables corresponds with parent-report parental stress and child SR. The proposed study combines intensive longitudinal design and traditional longitudinal design, which allows researchers to account for heterogeneity in the dynamic process from PACEs to SR as well as the long-term outcomes. The proposed project will also examine whether parental daily PACEs are associated with elevated daily stress and decreased parental intrusiveness and elevated parental sensitivity, which in turn, is related to better preschoolers’ daily SR and bigger one-year growth in SR. This study can provide data supporting larger-scale studies that examine within-family mechanisms from PACEs to child SR among parents with different histories of ACEs. Understanding the within-person dynamic pathway from PACEs to long-term child SR growth allows future intervention scientists to stop the intergenerational transmission of ACEs through real-time promotion of parenting quality and child SR.
"VERA: Vaping, Executive control, Reward, and Adversity"
Substance use disorders can lead to a host of negative consequences for an individual’s health, career, and relationships. People who have experienced Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are more likely to develop substance use problems earlier in life and may find it more difficult to quit. This study examines how early life experiences influence the severity of drug withdrawal symptoms in e-cigarette users—particularly nicotine craving and self-control. We are recruiting adults who use e-cigarettes (vapes) and have had at least one ACE. Over several weeks, participants will use a study-provided e-cigarette that records their vaping habits. They will also complete MRI brain scans while performing tasks that measure self-control, bodily awareness, and responses to vaping cues. By combining brain imaging, behavioral testing, and detailed vaping data, we aim to uncover how childhood adversity shapes the brain’s response to nicotine withdrawal. Our ultimate goal is to develop better, personalized strategies to help people quit or reduce nicotine and other substance use.
Research Project Leaders
2022-2025
"Study of the Regulation of Emotions in Youth"
​Adolescent mental health problems increasingly constitute a major public health threat. Emotion regulation skills are a protective factor for adolescent mental health and can be developed through parent-adolescent interactions. This project seeks to better understand parental influences on the neurobiology underlying adolescent emotion regulation. Knowledge gained from this project and related future directions will enhance the lives of adolescents by improving our understanding of how parenting can be used to affect brain development to promote positive socioemotional outcomes.
"The Impact of Maternal Adversity and Attachment Security on Infant Stress Reactivity: Prenatal Epigenetic Pathways"
​​Maternal ACEs and maternal attachment security are two critical but underexplored predictors of the transmission of adversity and adaptation across the lifespan and generations. Data from this study will clarify the perinatal, intergenerational epigenetic pathways from maternal risk and protective factors to infant stress reactivity. Results will help clarify mother-infant stress profiles and protections that may be amenable to intervention to promote healthy stress regulation across generations.
Pilot Project Leaders
2025 - present
"Development, Relationships, and Emotions Across Motherhood"
This study investigates how infant sleep quality mediates the relationship between maternal early adversity and parental sensitivity during the first six months postpartum. Maternal early adversity is associated with compromised caregiving quality, increasing the risk of negative developmental outcomes in children. However, the mechanisms underlying these associations remain unclear. We hypothesize that disrupted infant sleep mediates this relationship by influencing maternal sensitivity, particularly during challenging caregiving contexts. We will recruit 60 pregnant participants and use a longitudinal design to assess maternal adversity, infant sleep quality, and parenting behaviors. Objective sleep data will be collected using Nanit baby monitors, which unobtrusively track infant sleep metrics such as total sleep time and caregiver interventions over six months. Parenting quality will be evaluated through observational coding of mother–infant interactions during distressing and non-distressing contexts at a six-month lab visit. By identifying longitudinal sleep disruptions as a potential mediator, this project addresses a critical gap in understanding the intergenerational transmission of adversity. Results will provide preliminary data for future intervention studies targeting sleep quality to enhance parent-child relationships. This innovative approach leverages advanced technology and longitudinal data collection to improve developmental outcomes for at-risk families.
"Early Childhood Unpredictability in the Social Brain: An Interdisciplinary Approach"
Early childhood unpredictability, an emerging dimension of early life adversity characterized by unpredictable environmental variations across time and context, has significant impacts on child development and is increasingly recognized for its role in shaping social-cognitive and mental health outcomes. However, the neurobiological effects of early childhood unpredictability remain unknown: How does early childhood unpredictability impact the developing brains? This project’s overall objective is to pinpoint how early childhood unpredictability translates into neural unpredictability in the social brain, and how such neural unpredictability, in turn, contributes to both risk and resilience in social-cognitive development and mental health. The project’s results will provide novel theoretical insights into the neurodevelopmental pathways through which early life adversity shapes both neural and behavioral trajectories. The results will offer practical implications for targeted therapies and inform policies and interventions in caregiving, education, employment, and housing, fostering protective and compensatory experiences to enhance resilience and mitigate the adverse effects of unpredictable environments on young children.
Pilot Project Leaders
2022 - 2025
"Role of Cortical Astrocytes Underlying Early Life Adversity"
Early life stress (ELS) is associated with a number of psychiatric and medical conditions later in life, thought to be caused by subsequent disruptions in biological processes involved in regulation of stress responses. Given that these alterations have long-lasting effects, there is a great need for effective preventative interventions. The long-term goal of this project is to identify early interventions that may most powerfully mitigate risk for psychiatric illness among adolescents with exposure to early life stress (ELS), with a focus on interventions that can be widely and effectively implemented, have the potential for long-lasting benefits, and can effectively engage targeted neurobiological processes and networks. The specific aims of the present study are to 1) examine how ELS impacts biological processes associated with regulation of stress, and 2) identify how MBI impacts affective symptoms and biological processes dysregulated by ELS.
The proposed study will utilize a multi-method design to examine the effect of mindfulness on biological processes (i.e., stress responses) disrupted by exposure to ELS among adolescents age 14 to 16. Adolescents will first complete self-report measures of childhood adverse experiences, trauma, and neglect. Forty eligible adolescents will be next randomly assigned to either a six-week mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) intervention or treatment as usual (TAU). Pre- and post-intervention assessment will include (a) self-report measures of symptoms and emotion regulation, (b) a blood draw for assessment of inflammatory markers and gene expression, and (c) a stress task with saliva cortisol collected before and after this task. This study supports the efforts to reduce the effects of early adversity in children by testing an impact of an effective psychological intervention on disrupted biological processes caused by early adversity. Successful achievement of the proposed aims will contribute to a) the knowledge base needed to reduce the effects of trauma and stress in children and families and b) the development of easily implemented and disseminated preventative interventions.