Measuring the biological embedding of racial trauma among Black Americans utilizing the RDoC approach

Abstract

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) initiative aims to understand the mechanisms influencing psychopathology through a dimensional approach. Limited research thus far has considered potential racial/ethnic differences in RDoC constructs that are influenced by developmental and contextual processes. A growing body of research has demonstrated that racial trauma is a pervasive chronic stressor that impacts the health of Black Americans across the life course. In this review article, we examine the ways that an RDOC framework could allow us to better understand the biological embedding of racial trauma among Black Americans. We also specifically examine the Negative Valence System domain of RDoC to explore how racial trauma is informed by and can help expand our understanding of this domain. We end the review by providing some additional research considerations and future research directives in the area of racial trauma that build on the RDoC initiative.

Racial Stress and Trauma and the Development of Adolescent Depression: A Review of the Role of Vigilance Evoked by Racism-Related Threat

“…73,[109][110][111][112][113][114] Taken together, these findings suggest that ALANA youth are likely to express heightened vigilance for racism-related threats across multiple units of analysis, which may put them at elevated risk for RST and later depressive symptoms. 90 Vigilance for Racism-Related Threats Consistent with RST models describing biological embedding 13 and relevant developmental and ecological contexts, 34 generalized developmental models of adversity maintain that trauma exposures specifically involving threat of harm can lead to biopsychosocial changes in youth that influence how they process and attend to threat-relevant information in the external environment. 115 The terms 'vigilance' or 'hypervigilance' to threat are commonly used in the psychological literatures on anxiety, depression, and trauma to describe a pattern of both voluntary and involuntary (automatic) selective processing of threat-relevant cues within the environment, relative to cues that are positive or neutral.…”

“…The National Institutes of Health recently defined racism as “a socially structured action that is unfair or unjustified” and that is based on race or ethnicity, which are regarded as social (not biological) constructs, 12 though the effects of racism are often biological in nature. 13 Racism, inclusive of unequal actions, beliefs, and behaviors towards ALANA individuals, permeates most aspects of their daily living, including employment, academic, and retail sectors, as well as during police encounters. 14 Often research examining racism as a source of adversity centers on its behavioral expression, racial discrimination.…”

“…Although very little research has examined how the embodiment of RST may unfold across development, the current generation of adolescents and young adults are among the first to grow up with almost daily exposure to viral media depicting racialized violence, 81 which will likely have long lasting effects on how the brain and related neurobiological systems process potential threat. 13 Such patterns of threat processing will develop in conjunction with cognitive schemas that are shaped by racism, which can facilitate increased perceptions of potential threat even in times of safety. 6,107 For example, a recent observational study of Black adolescents found that as personal experiences of racism increased across individual, institutional, and cultural levels, so did anticipatory racism-related stress responses across both cognitive-affective and physiological domains.…”

“…Occurring in parallel and in interaction with the psychological impact propagated by systems that support racism (both online and off), there is also a biological embedding of RST among ALANA individuals. 13 Specifically, Carter and colleagues propose that dimensions of threat processing [eg, responses to acute, sustained, and potential threat, as described in the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) 'Research Domain Criteria' (RDoC) framework] are a critical mechanism of neurobiological embedding. Relevant to the construct of sustained threat, Clark and colleagues (1999) biopsychosocial model illustrates that chronic stress from racial discrimination and threat over time contributes to heightened allostatic load (ie, the accumulation of wear and tear on the body and brain via chronic stress processes).…”

Associations of maternal emotion regulation with child white matter connectivity in Black American mother–child dyads

“…Marginalized populations, including people of color (specifically, Black Americans), and economically disadvantaged families have been largely ignored in this line of research. Black communities in the United States face a disproportionately high burden of chronic stress and trauma due to racial discrimination and systemic inequities, which are in turn associated with mental and physical health disparities (Carter et al, 2021;Kirkinis et al, 2021). Despite this fact, Black Americans have been historically ignored in intergenerational research (Barnes et al, 2021).…”