Support from family and friends important to help prevent depression in teenagers

cjb250 — Fri, 20 May 2016 07:19:46 +0000

Adolescence is a key time in an individual’s development, and is a period where some teenagers begin to show signs of major depression. One of the major risk factors for depression in adolescence is childhood family adversity, such as poor parenting and lack of affection, emotional, physical or sexual abuse, family financial problems or the loss of a family member. Another major risk factor for depression is bullying by peers – and the combined experience of childhood family adversity and peer bullying is associated with increased severity of depression symptoms.

Studies suggest that friendships and supportive family environments may help protect adolescents from depression if they have experienced peer bullying and childhood family adversity. However, no study has simultaneously examined the complex interplay of early life adversity, bullying, family support and friendships on later adolescent depression.

Researchers at the Department of Psychiatry at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge studied almost 800 teenagers (322 boys and 449 girls), and used mathematical modelling to examine the impact of friendships and family support at age 14 on depressive symptoms at age 17 in adolescents who had previously experienced childhood family adversity and primary school bullying.

“Teenage years can be difficult for everyone, but we found that this is particularly the case for those teens who have had a difficult family environment,” explains Dr Anne-Laura van Harmelen, the study’s first author. “Adolescents who had experienced negative family environments are more likely to be bullied at school, and less likely to receive family support in adolescence. We also found that children who were bullied in primary school were less likely to have supportive friendships in adolescence.

“In fact, we found a strong relationship between having a negative family environment and being bullied at primary school. This puts teens at a double disadvantage and means they are more likely to experience more severe symptoms of depression in their late teens.”

Boys who had been bullied were less likely than girls to develop strong friendships in adolescence, which the researchers suggest may be because boys experienced more severe bullying or were more sensitive to bullying.

Crucially, the researchers also found that supportive family or friends in early adolescence could help reduce depressive symptoms in later teenage years. It is not clear from the results how social support influences later life mental health. However, the researchers suggest several possibilities, including that supportive friends and family environments may help enhance children’s ability to cope with adverse situations by improving their self-esteem and offering stress-relief and through helping them develop effective interpersonal skills.

“Our work really shows how important it is that children and teenagers have strong support from their family and friends, particularly if their childhood has been a difficult one,” adds Professor Ian Goodyer, senior author. “It also suggests a role for interventions such as helping parents in at-risk families develop their parenting and support skills or helping bullied teens build their confidence and social skills to help find and maintain friendships.”

̽��ֱ��research was funded primarily by the Wellcome Trust and the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research.

Reference
Van Harmelen, AL et al. Friendships and Family Support Reduce Subsequent Depressive Symptoms in At-Risk Adolescents. PLOS ONE; 4 May 2016; DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0153715

̽��ֱ��importance of friendships and family support in helping prevent depression among teenagers has been highlighted in research from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge. ̽��ֱ��study, published in the open access journal PLOS ONE, also found that teenagers who had grown up in a difficult family environment were more likely than their peers to be bullied at school.

Teenage years can be difficult for everyone, but we found that this is particularly the case for those teens who have had a difficult family environment

Anne-Laura van Harmelen

Michael Coghlan

Zoe and Friend

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

Licence type:

Attribution

3D microchip created

hps25 — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 13:04:18 +0000

Scientists from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge have created, for the first time, a new type of microchip which allows information to travel in three dimensions. Currently, microchips can only pass digital information in a very limited way – from either left to right or front to back. ̽��ֱ��research was published today, 31 January, in Nature.

Dr Reinoud Lavrijsen, an author on the paper from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said: “Today’s chips are like bungalows – everything happens on the same floor. We’ve created the stairways allowing information to pass between floors.”

Researchers believe that in the future a 3D microchip would enable additional storage capacity on chips by allowing information to be spread across several layers instead of being compacted into one layer, as is currently the case.

For the research, the Cambridge scientists used a special type of microchip called a spintronic chip which exploits the electron’s tiny magnetic moment or ‘spin’ (unlike the majority of today’s chips which use charge-based electronic technology). Spintronic chips are increasingly being used in computers, and it is widely believed that within the next few years they will become the standard memory chip.

To create the microchip, the researchers used an experimental technique called ‘sputtering’. They effectively made a club-sandwich on a silicon chip of cobalt, platinum and ruthenium atoms. ̽��ֱ��cobalt and platinum atoms store the digital information in a similar way to how a hard disk drive stores data. ̽��ֱ��ruthenium atoms act as messengers, communicating that information between neighbouring layers of cobalt and platinum. Each of the layers is only a few atoms thick.

They then used a laser technique called MOKE to probe the data content of the different layers. As they switched a magnetic field on and off they saw in the MOKE signal the data climbing layer by layer from the bottom of the chip to the top. They then confirmed the results using a different measurement method.

Professor Russell Cowburn, lead researcher of the study from the Cavendish Laboratory, the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Department of Physics, said: “Each step on our spintronic staircase is only a few atoms high. I find it amazing that by using nanotechnology not only can we build structures with such precision in the lab but also using advanced laser instruments we can actually see the data climbing this nano-staircase step by step.

“This is a great example of the power of advanced materials science. Traditionally, we would use a series of electronic transistors to move data like this. We’ve been able to achieve the same effect just by combining different basic elements such as cobalt, platinum and ruthenium. This is the 21st century way of building things – harnessing the basic power of elements and materials to give built-in functionality.”

̽��ֱ��research was funded by the European Research Council, the Isaac Newton Trust, and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO).

New type of microchip created which not only moves information from left to right and back to front, but up and down as well.

We can actually see the data climbing this nano-staircase step by step.

Professor Russell Cowburn, lead researcher of the study from the Cavendish Laboratory, the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Department of Physics

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. If you use this content on your site please link back to this page.

Yes

̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO)

Support from family and friends important to help prevent depression in teenagers

3D microchip created