Cited by 14Stress Responses and CortisolNeural and Behavioral Psychology StudiesAnxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes

Neuroanatomical correlates of perceived stress controllability in adolescents and emerging adults

Open access
Fassett-Carman, Alyssa N., Smolker, Harry, Hankin, Benjamin L., Snyder, Hannah R., Banich, Marie T.·2022·Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience

Abstract

Stressful life events predict changes in brain structure and increases in psychopathology, but not everyone is equally affected by life stress. The learned helplessness theory posits that perceiving life stressors as uncontrollable leads to depression. Evidence supports this theory for youth, but the impact of perceived control diverges based on stressor type: perceived lack of control over dependent (self-generated) stressors is associated with greater depression symptoms when controlling for the frequency of stress exposure, but perceived control over independent (non-self-generated) stressors is not. However, it is unknown how perceived control over these stressor types is associated with brain structure. We tested whether perceived lack of control over dependent and independent life stressors, controlling for stressor exposure, is associated with gray matter (GM) in a priori regions of interest (ROIs; mPFC, hippocampus, amygdala) and across the cortex in a sample of 108 adolescents and emerging adults ages 14-22. There were no associations across the full sample between perceived control over either stressor type and GM in the ROIs. However, less perceived control over dependent stressors was associated with greater amygdala gray matter volume in female youth and greater medial prefrontal cortex thickness in male youth. Furthermore, whole-cortex analyses revealed less perceived control over dependent stressors was associated with greater GM thickness in cortical regions involved in cognitive and emotional regulation. Thus, appraisals of control have distinct associations with brain morphology while controlling for stressor frequency, highlighting the importance of differentiating between these aspects of the stress experience in future research.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.3758/s13415-022-00985-2

Cites

90 of 90 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Fassett-Carman, A. N., Smolker, H., Hankin, B. L., Snyder, H. R., & Banich, M. T.
Affiliations
  • Brandeis University (US)
  • University of Colorado Boulder (US)
  • University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (US)
Corresponding author
Fassett-Carman, Alyssa N.
Venue
Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience
Published
2022-01-28
Volume
22
Issue
4
Pages
655-671
ISSN
  • 1530-7026 (ISSN-L)
  • 1531-135X
OpenAlex
W4213239797
Cited by
14
References
90
Citations by year
2026: 3 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 4
FWCI
1.63
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Cognitive Affective & Behavioral Neuroscience (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
Funders
  • National Institute of Mental Health (T32 MH019929)
  • National Institute of General Medical Sciences (T32 GM084907)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Behavioral Neuroscience › Stress Responses and Cortisol
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
Keywords
learned helplessness, life events, gray matter volume, gray matter thickness, adolescents, emerging adults, amygdala, medial prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, sex differences, brain structure
MeSH terms
Adolescent, Adult, Brain, Female, Helplessness, Learned, Humans, Male, Stress, Psychological, Prefrontal Cortex, Young Adult, Gray Matter

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review