Chiara Neilson’s research while affiliated with University of Colorado Boulder and other places

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Publications (9)


Study procedures & measurement of engagement
Participant engagement throughout the study
Change in anxiety by wellness group
Self-Guided Mindfulness Reduces College Student Anxiety: A Scalable, Preregistered Pilot Study
  • Article
  • Publisher preview available

May 2024

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63 Reads

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1 Citation

Mindfulness

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Chiara Neilson

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Objectives Undergraduate and graduate students have reported rising rates of anxiety that were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, possibly related to heightened intolerance of uncertainty. The present preregistered pilot study investigated whether psychoeducational wellness programs based on behavioral activation or mindfulness were associated with greater improvement in anxiety relative to a survey-only control condition over 8 weeks during the COVID-19 pandemic. Moderating or mediating effects of intolerance of uncertainty were tested. Method University students (n = 298) were recruited in the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic and randomly assigned to one of three groups: one of two psychoeducational wellness programs (based on mindfulness or behavioral activation, respectively) or a survey-only control. Symptoms were assessed longitudinally over 8 weeks. Analyses tested for group differences in anxiety over time, as well as the moderating effect of intolerance of uncertainty at baseline and group differences in changes in intolerance of uncertainty over time. Results Results showed that anxiety significantly improved across all groups (p < 0.01, ηp² = 0.18). Participants in the mindfulness psychoeducational group reported a significantly greater decline in anxiety over the 8 weeks than participants in other (survey-only control or behavioral activation-based) groups (p-values ≤ 0.04, ηp² ≥ 0.01). Higher engagement (frequency) in either mindfulness or behavioral activation was associated with reduced anxiety (p < 0.01, ηp² = 0.25). Intolerance of uncertainty neither moderated nor mediated these effects. Conclusions Results suggest that scalable, psychoeducation-based programming may reduce anxiety among students, representing a promising option to augment other campus resources. Preregistration Analyses were preregistered on Open Science Framework (https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/WX25V) following the completion of data collection; no data visualization or analysis took place prior to the analysis preregistration.

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Neurocognitive Risk Phenotyping to Predict Mood Symptoms in Adolescence

December 2023

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40 Reads

Journal of Psychopathology and Clinical Science

Predicting mood disorders in adolescence is a challenge that motivates research to identify neurocognitive predictors of symptom expression and clinical profiles. This study used machine learning to test whether neurocognitive variables predicted future manic or anhedonic symptoms in two adolescent samples risk-enriched for lifetime mood disorders (Sample 1, n = 73, ages = 13–25, M [SD] = 19.22 [2.49] years, 68% lifetime mood disorder) or familial mood disorders (Sample 2, n = 154, ages = 13–21, M [SD] = 16.46 [1.95] years, 62% first-degree family history of mood disorder). Participants completed cognitive testing and functional magnetic resonance imaging at baseline, for behavioral and neural measures of reward processing and executive functioning. Next, participants completed a daily diary procedure for 8–16 weeks. Penalized mixed-effects models identified neurocognitive predictors of future mood symptoms and stress-reactive changes in mood symptoms. Results included the following. In both samples, adolescents showing ventral corticostriatal reward hyposensitivity and lower reward performance reported more severe stress-reactive anhedonia. Poorer executive functioning behavior was associated with heightened anhedonia overall in Sample 1, but lower stress-reactive anhedonia in both samples. In Sample 1, adolescents showing ventral corticostriatal reward hypersensitivity and poorer executive functioning reported more severe stress-reactive manic symptoms. Clustering analyses identified, and replicated, five neurocognitive subgroups. Adolescents characterized by neural or behavioral reward hyposensitivities together with average-to-poor executive functioning reported unipolar symptom profiles. Adolescents showing neural reward hypersensitivity together with poor behavioral executive functioning reported a bipolar symptom profile (Sample 1 only). Together, neurocognitive phenotypes may hold value for predicting symptom expression and profiles of mood pathology.



Diagram of Random Intercept Cross-Lagged Panel Model (RI-CLPM). Note. ISit, observed internalizing symptoms of unit i at occasion t. ERit, observed emotion regulation of unit i at occasion t. B, between-person effects. W, within-person effects. ae1–ae4, autoregressive effects of emotion regulation from a previous time-point to the next time-point. ai1–ai4, autoregressive effects of internalizing symptoms from a previous time-point to the next time-point. b, between-person correlations between emotion regulation and internalizing symptoms. c1–c4, cross-lagged effects of emotion regulation from a previous time-point on internalizing symptoms at the next time-point. r1–r5, residual correlations between emotion regulation and internalizing symptoms at each time-point. Gender was coded as a binary variable. Bidirectional arrows indicate correlations. Unidirectional arrows indicate regressions
Standardized Model Results for Maladaptive Emotion Regulation on Depression. Note. Dit, observed depression symptoms of unit i at occasion t. MEit, observed maladaptive emotion regulation of unit i at occasion t. B, between-person effects. W, within-person effects. Gender was coded as a binary variable (− 1 = male, 1 = female). Bidirectional arrows indicate correlations. Unidirectional arrows indicate regressions
Standardized Model Results for Adaptive Emotion Regulation on Depression. Note. Dit, observed depression symptoms of unit i at occasion t. AEit, observed adaptive emotion regulation of unit i at occasion t. B, between-person effects. W, within-person effects. Gender was coded as a binary variable (− 1 = male, 1 = female). Bidirectional arrows indicate correlations. Unidirectional arrows indicate regressions
Standardized Model Results for Maladaptive Emotion Regulation on Anxiety. Note. Ait, observed anxiety symptoms of unit i at occasion t. MEit, observed maladaptive emotion regulation of unit i at occasion t. B, between-person effects. W, within-person effects. Gender was coded as a binary variable (− 1 = male, 1 = female). Bidirectional arrows indicate correlations. Unidirectional arrows indicate regressions
Standardized Model Results for Adaptive Emotion Regulation on Anxiety. Note. Ait, observed anxiety symptoms of unit i at occasion t. AEit, observed adaptive emotion regulation of unit i at occasion t. B, between-person effects. W, within-person effects. Gender was coded as a binary variable (− 1 = male, 1 = female). Bidirectional arrows indicate correlations. Unidirectional arrows indicate regressions
Longitudinal Relations Between Emotion Regulation and Internalizing Symptoms in Emerging Adults During the Covid-19 Pandemic

March 2023

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399 Reads

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12 Citations

Cognitive Therapy and Research

Background Maladaptive and adaptive emotion regulation are putative risk and protective factors for depression and anxiety, but most prior research does not differentiate within-person effects from between-person individual differences. The current study does so during the early part of the Covid-19 pandemic when internalizing symptoms were high. Methods A sample of emerging adult undergraduate students (N = 154) completed online questionnaires bi-weekly on depression, anxiety, and emotion regulation across eight weeks during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic (April 2nd to June 27th, 2020). Results Depression demonstrated significantly positive between-person correlations with overall maladaptive emotion regulation, catastrophizing, and self-blame, and negative correlations with overall adaptive emotion regulation and reappraisal. Anxiety demonstrated significantly positive between-person correlations with overall maladaptive emotion regulation, rumination, and catastrophizing, and a negative correlation with reappraisal. After controlling for these between-person associations, however, there were generally no within-person associations between emotion regulation and internalizing symptoms. Conclusions Emotion regulation and internalizing symptoms might be temporally stable individual differences that cooccur with one another as opposed to having a more dynamic relation. Alternatively, these dynamic mechanisms might operate over much shorter or longer periods compared to the two-week time lag in the current study.


Amygdala and nucleus accumbens activation during reward anticipation moderates the association between life stressor frequency and depressive symptoms

March 2023

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24 Reads

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1 Citation

Journal of Affective Disorders

Background: Life stressors confer risk for depressive symptoms, but individuals vary in the extent of their sensitivity to life stressors. One protective factor may be an individual's level of reward sensitivity, e.g., a stronger neurobiological response to environmental rewards may mitigate emotional responses to stressors. However, the nature of neurobiological reward sensitivity that corresponds with stress resilience is unknown. Further, this model is untested in adolescence, when life stressor frequency and depression increase. Methods: We tested the hypothesis that stronger reward-related activation in the left and right nucleus accumbens (NAc), amygdala, and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) attenuates the strength of the stress-depression relation. We measured BOLD activation throughout Win and Lose blocks of a monetary reward task, as well as during anticipation and outcome phases of the task. Participants (N = 151, ages 13-19) were recruited to be stratified on risk for mood disorders to enhance variance in depressive symptoms. Results: Activation during anticipation of rewards in the bilateral amygdala and NAc, but not mPFC, buffered the association between life stressors and depressive symptoms. This buffering effect was not found for reward outcome activation or activation across Win blocks. Conclusions: Results highlight the importance of reward anticipation activation of subcortical structures in attenuating the stress-depression link, suggesting that reward motivation may be a cognitive mechanism through which this stress buffering occurs.


Mood Symptom Dimensions and Developmental Differences in Neurocognition in Adolescence

November 2022

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53 Reads

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4 Citations

Clinical Psychological Science

Adolescence is a critical period of neurocognitive development and increased prevalence of mood pathology. In this cross-sectional study, we replicated developmental patterns of neurocognition and tested whether mood symptoms moderated developmental effects. Participants were 419 adolescents ( n = 246 with current mood disorders) who completed reward-learning and executive-functioning tasks and reported on age, puberty, and mood symptoms. Structural equation modeling revealed a quadratic relationship between puberty and reward-learning performance that was moderated by symptom severity: In early puberty, adolescents reporting higher manic symptoms exhibited heightened reward-learning performance (better maximizing of rewards on learning tasks), whereas adolescents reporting elevated anhedonia showed blunted reward-learning performance. Models also showed a linear relationship between age and executive functioning that was moderated by manic symptoms: Adolescents reporting higher mania showed poorer executive functioning at older ages. Findings suggest neurocognitive development is altered in adolescents with mood pathology and suggest directions for longitudinal studies.


Response Styles Factor Model. Note. ***p < .001, **p < .01, *p < .05. Associations between response styles factors and perceived stress severity and internalizing factors in the same model. Main effect model is shown
Individual Response Styles Model. Note. ***p < .001, **p < .01, *p < .05. Associations between individual response styles and perceived stress severity and internalizing factors in the same model. Main effect model is shown
LASSO Scatterplots. Note. LASSO modeling identified (A) perceived stress severity, (B) intolerance of uncertainty, and (C) brooding as optimal predictors of the common internalizing factor, and (D) perceived stress severity and (E) escape/avoidance as optimal predictors of the loss of interest-specific factor
Coping with COVID Stress: Maladaptive and Adaptive Response Styles Predicting College Student Internalizing Symptom Dimensions

July 2022

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99 Reads

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3 Citations

Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment

The COVID-19 pandemic significantly disrupted daily life for undergraduates and introduced new stressors (e.g., campus closures). How individuals respond to stressors can interact with stress to increase disorder risk in both unique and transdiagnostic ways. The current study examined how maladaptive and adaptive stress response styles moderated the perceived severity of COVID-related stressors effect on general and specific internalizing dimensions at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in a combined undergraduate sample across two universities (N = 451) using latent bifactor modeling and LASSO modeling to identify optimal predictors. Results showed that perceived stress severity and maladaptive response styles (not adaptive response styles or interactions between stress and response styles) were associated with both common and specific internalizing dimensions. Results suggest additive associations of stress severity and maladaptive coping with internalizing symptoms during the pandemic's beginning, and provide important insights for screening, prevention, and intervention during future public health crises. Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10862-022-09975-7.


General and Specific Dimensions of Mood Symptoms Are Associated With Impairments in Common Executive Function in Adolescence and Young Adulthood

April 2022

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203 Reads

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3 Citations

Both unipolar and bipolar depression have been linked with impairments in executive functioning (EF). In particular, mood symptom severity is associated with differences in common EF, a latent measure of general EF abilities. The relationship between mood disorders and EF is particularly salient in adolescence and young adulthood when the ongoing development of EF intersects with a higher risk of mood disorder onset. However, it remains unclear if common EF impairments have associations with specific symptom dimensions of mood pathology such as blunted positive affect, mood instability, or physiological arousal, or if differences in common EF more broadly relate to what is shared across various symptom domains, such as general negative affect or distress. To address this question, bifactor models can be applied to simultaneously examine the shared and unique contributions of particular mood symptom dimensions. However, no studies to our knowledge have examined bifactor models of mood symptoms in relation to measures of common EF. This study examined associations between common EF and general vs. specific symptom dimensions (anhedonia, physiological arousal, and mania) using structural equation modeling in adolescents and young adults with varying severity of mood symptoms ( n = 495, ages = 13–25 years, 68.69% female). A General Depression factor capturing shared variance across symptoms statistically predicted lower Common EF. Additionally, a factor specific to physiological arousal was associated with lower Common EF. Anhedonia-specific and Mania-specific factors were not significantly related to Common EF. Altogether, these results indicate that deficits in common EF are driven by, or reflect, general features of mood pathology that are shared across symptom dimensions but are also specifically associated with physiological arousal.


Behavioral Mediators of Stress-Related Mood Symptoms in Adolescence & Young Adulthood

July 2021

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79 Reads

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8 Citations

Journal of Affective Disorders

Background Stress is a risk factor for unipolar and bipolar mood disorders, but the mechanisms linking stress to specific symptoms remain elusive. Behavioral responses to stress, such as impulsivity and social withdrawal, may mediate the associations between stress and particular mood symptoms. Methods This study evaluated behavioral mediators of the relationship between self-reported intensity of daily stress and mood symptoms over up to eight weeks of daily diary surveys. The sample included individuals with unipolar or bipolar disorders, or with no psychiatric history (n = 113, ages 15-25). Results Results showed that higher daily stress was related to higher severity of mania, and this pathway was mediated by impulsive behaviors. Higher stress also predicted higher severity of anhedonic depression, and social withdrawal mediated this relationship. A k-means clustering analysis revealed six subgroups with divergent profiles of stress-behavior-symptom pathways. Limitations Given the observational study design, analyses cannot determine causal relationships amongst these variables. Further work is needed to determine how relationships between these variables may vary based on stressor type, at different timescales, and within different populations. Conclusions Findings support a theoretical model in which impulsivity and social withdrawal act as behavioral mediators of the relationship between stress and mood symptoms. Additionally, distinct patterns of reactivity distinguished subgroups of people vulnerable to particular types of mood symptoms. These results provide novel information about how stress-reactive behaviors relate to specific mood symptoms, which may have clinical relevance as targets of intervention.

Citations (6)


... There are various studies which have provided empirical evidence for the fact that these students show enhancements in different cognitive areas including working memory, focused attention, and even problem solving, which directly relates to academic achievement as postulated by Pascoe et al., (2019). For instance, students who took mindfulness programs had a 4-8% improvement in GPA and this was attributed to program duration of more than 6months (Moser et al., 2024). Further, mindfulness practices have been associated with low levels of test anxiety mainly in pressured school systems with value added results that are higher in subjects that necessitate high level thinking like math and reading. ...

Reference:

THE INFLUENCE OF MINDFULNESS AND STRESS MANAGEMENT PROGRAMMES ON STUDENTS' CONDUCT AND ACADEMIC SUCCESS
Self-Guided Mindfulness Reduces College Student Anxiety: A Scalable, Preregistered Pilot Study

Mindfulness

... Emotion regulation is the process by which individuals regulate their emotions based on the environment they are in, and the way people change their emotional responses (Niu et al., 2023). It consists of extrinsic and intrinsic processes that are responsible for detecting, assessing, and changing emotional responses (Thompson, 1994). ...

Longitudinal Relations Between Emotion Regulation and Internalizing Symptoms in Emerging Adults During the Covid-19 Pandemic

Cognitive Therapy and Research

... Participants in Sample 2 are part of an ongoing multiyear study (the current study focuses on the first wave of assessment, and other procedures and time points will be reported elsewhere). Subsets of Samples 1 and 2 were included in a pooled behavioral analysis reported elsewhere (Kaiser et al., 2023). This study is the first to investigate neurocognitive prediction, or to report on neuroimaging data, in either sample. ...

Mood Symptom Dimensions and Developmental Differences in Neurocognition in Adolescence
  • Citing Article
  • November 2022

Clinical Psychological Science

... These findings have been well discussed in the literature, in which university students who demonstrated better university adjustment generally experience lower levels of stress and better overall success [31]. Likewise, those who practice active and positive coping tend to report lower levels of stress than those who engage in negative and avoidance coping [62][63][64]. With this result in mind, higher education institutions are strongly encouraged to foster a welcoming environment and sense of community to their students to provide resilience factors against perceived stress levels. ...

Coping with COVID Stress: Maladaptive and Adaptive Response Styles Predicting College Student Internalizing Symptom Dimensions

Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment

... The Tripartite Model of Anxiety and Depression (Clark & Watson, 1991) divided internalizing symptoms into three dimensions: a) general distress that is shared between depression and anxiety; b) anhedonia that is unique to depression; and c) anxious arousal that is unique to anxiety (Anderson & Hope, 2008). Common, depressionspecific, and anxiety-specific internalizing symptoms have been shown to have differential effects on cognitive performance Peterson et al., 2022). The current study attempts to connect sleep research with this contemporary understanding of clinical symptomology, examining whether common and specific dimensions of internalizing symptoms interact with sleep to predict biased emotional memory consolidation. ...

General and Specific Dimensions of Mood Symptoms Are Associated With Impairments in Common Executive Function in Adolescence and Young Adulthood

... Roselinde H. Kaiser 1 overlaps with a sample of adolescents in which other, nonoverlapping behavioral hypotheses were tested (Peterson et al., 2021(Peterson et al., , 2022. Participants in Sample 2 are part of an ongoing multiyear study (the current study focuses on the first wave of assessment, and other procedures and time points will be reported elsewhere). ...

Behavioral Mediators of Stress-Related Mood Symptoms in Adolescence & Young Adulthood
  • Citing Article
  • July 2021

Journal of Affective Disorders