Project report
The Longitudinal THRIVE study Protocol: Social and Neurobiological Mechanisms of Risk and Resilience in Young People with a History of Childhood Adversity
Buimer EEL, König M, Wessels P, Dorsman H, Haverhals A et al. ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001The THRIVE study is a longitudinal research project investigating how childhood adversity affects young people's mental health, social relationships, and brain function. The study will follow 288 young adults aged 18-24 who experienced childhood adversity over one year, using questionnaires, stress hormone measurements, cognitive tests, and brain imaging. The research aims to understand how social support and cognitive processes protect young people from mental health problems after adversity, to inform better interventions.
Key points
- Childhood adversity is one of the strongest predictors of mental health problems in young people
- The study examines whether social support from peers can moderate the negative effects of childhood adversity on cognitive and emotional processing
- Research design includes baseline assessment, intensive neurobiological testing (cortisol, brain imaging, cognitive tasks), and four follow-up assessments over one year
- The study was co-created with a Youth Task Force of young adults with lived experience of childhood adversity
- Findings aim to inform development of interventions that foster resilience in young people affected by adversity
Limitations
This is a study protocol, not results from completed research, so there are no outcome findings yet. The study focuses on young adults aged 18-24, so findings may not apply to younger children or adolescents.
Abstract
IntroductionChildhood adversity (CA) is among the strongest predictors of mental health problems. CA refers to experiences that are likely to require significant adaptation by an average child and that represent a deviation from the expectable environment. CA-related alterations in social and cognitive functioning may result in the thinning of social networks and increases in stressful peer interactions, which subsequently lead to mental health problems. The THRIVE study takes a longitudinal approach to investigate these proposed prospective relationships by examining whether and how social, cognitive, and neurobiological mechanisms interact to shape friendship support, stressful peer interactions, and mental health functioning over time.Methods and analysisThe ongoing THRIVE study aims to recruit 288 participants aged 18-24 years who retrospectively self-report CA. This longitudinal study comprises six sessions in total. Participants complete an online baseline assessment of mental health, social support, stress experiences, and early life experiences, followed by an in-unit deep-phenotyping session. Assessments include self-report measures, cortisol measures, computerized cognitive tasks, and functional neuroimaging paradigms assessing stress and social evaluation. Participants subsequently complete four online follow-up assessments at 3-month intervals. Using data collected at the in-unit session, we aim to test whether CA is associated with biased emotion processing, blunted feedback learning and enhanced stress responses, and whether social support from peers may moderate these effects. The longitudinal design further enables us to test whether CA contributes to mental health problems through its impact on cognitive functioning, which over time leads to reduced social support and increased social stress. By elucidating how cognitive and social functioning contribute to mental health outcomes following CA, the THRIVE study aims to inform the development of interventions that foster resilience in young people.Ethics and disseminationThe THRIVE study was approved by the Medical Ethics Committee Leiden-The Hague-Delft (NL80017.058.21). The study was co-created with the Augeo Youth Task Force, a panel of young adults with lived experience of CA, who contribute throughout the research process. Findings will be disseminated through scientific publications, conference presentations, preprints, and public engagement activities.