Understanding Pleasure and Stress Responses in Teenagers
Multisystem Stress Response Biotypes: Deriving Novel Physiological and Neural Risk Factors for Anhedonia in Adolescence
This work looks at how stress affects a teenager's ability to feel pleasure, hoping to find new ways to help young people.
Quick facts
| Grant type | R01 grant |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | Univ of North Carolina Chapel Hill NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (Chapel Hill, United States) |
| Project ID | NIH-11137727 on NIH RePORTER |
What this research studies
Many teenagers experience anhedonia, which is a reduced ability to feel or anticipate pleasure, and this can significantly impact their quality of life. This feeling often starts during adolescence, a time of big changes in the body and brain, and current ways to help are limited. We believe that stress plays a big role in anhedonia, and we want to understand how the body's different stress response systems, like hormones and the nervous system, work together. By looking at these systems in a new, combined way, we hope to uncover specific patterns that contribute to anhedonia in young people.
Who could benefit from this research
Good fit: Ideal candidates for future related studies would likely be adolescents between 12 and 20 years old who experience difficulties with feeling pleasure.
Not a fit: Patients outside the adolescent age range or those without symptoms of anhedonia may not directly benefit from this specific research focus.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, this work could lead to a much better understanding of anhedonia in adolescents, paving the way for more effective and personalized treatments.
How similar studies have performed: While previous work has looked at single stress response systems, this approach is novel in combining multiple systems to understand anhedonia, building on new evidence for multi-system approaches.
Where this research is happening
Chapel Hill, United States
- Univ of North Carolina Chapel Hill — Chapel Hill, United States (Active)
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Belger, Aysenil — Univ of North Carolina Chapel Hill
- Study coordinator: Belger, Aysenil
About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page below.