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Does internalized stigma predict neural reactivity to social exclusion in depressed persons living with HIV?
Location: 62
Mentor: Dr. Roger McIntosh
Depression affects more than one-third of people living with HIV (PLWH). PLWH are routinely confronted with heightened psychosocial stressors like stigma and discrimination, which are enveloped in the construct of social ostracism. This study aimed to compare the blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) responses during the Cyberball task as a function of internalized HIV-stigma (high vs. low). The Cyberball task is based on a social ostracism paradigm, which uses social exclusion (81 sec) and 2 inclusion (61 sec) conditions of a virtual ball tossing game that spanned over five minutes. We derived whole brain maps of BOLD activity during the task and created a contrast between the exclusion and inclusion conditions. The scan was followed by a questionnaire and distress scale to measure distress levels from 1 (not at all) to 9 (very much so). We employed an independent sample t-test to explore the unique contributions of HIV stigma to the exclusion-inclusion BOLD contrast from the Cyberball task in 31 depressed PLWH. The HIV-stigma scale and the intersectional stigma scale were utilized. In the Cyberball task, social exclusion is typically associated with greater activity in the subgenual anterior cingulate. Preliminary results suggest that depressed PWH show lower BOLD response in the subgenual cingulate during social exclusion compared to depressed PWH. When comparing persons with high versus low stigma on the HIV-stigma scale, we observed __(Pending)__. When considering heightened exposures to discrimination and stigma experienced by some PWH we expect the comparison of the contrast to show that HIV stigma will cause depressed persons to elicit higher neural reactivity to psychological distress prompted by social ostracism.
