Interpersonal Contributors to Depression in Sexual Minority Adolescents: An Examination of Exposure to Acute Stressors and Neural Reactivity to Interpersonal Emotional Images

Sexual minority (SM) adolescents are at a higher risk of depression compared to their heterosexual peers, indicating a need for multimethod research to identify risk and resilience factors for SM youth. In a sample of 165 adolescents who completed an interview-based acute stress exposure assessment and an interpersonal emotional images task to elicit the late positive potential (LPP) derived from electroencephalogram (EEG), we aimed to investigate (1) differences in the severity of acute interpersonal stress exposure (including peer and family stressors) and depressive symptoms in SM relative to heterosexual adolescents, (2) neural responses to interpersonal emotional images as moderators of the association between SM identity and depressive symptoms, and (3) whether these interactions persist when accounting for disparities in exposure to recent interpersonal stressors. SM adolescents reported higher depressive symptoms and were exposed to more severe recent peer (but not family) stressors than heterosexual adolescents. LPP responses to both positive and negative interpersonal images moderated the association between SM identity and depressive symptoms, such that a relatively blunted LPP potentiated the association. Interactions remained significant when accounting for the severity of peer stressors, suggesting the unique role of neural responses to interpersonal emotional images in depressive symptoms in SM adolescents.