Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ROSEBuD (Regulation Of Stress and Early-life Brain Development)
Reporting period: 2023-09-01 to 2025-08-31
Recent worldwide challenges, such as climate change, wars, immigration crises, and the COVID-19 pandemic, consist of significant stressors with a remarkable impact on the mental health of children and adolescents. Is there a way to protect our world from an upcoming mental health crisis?
ROSEBuD project, an EU project funded by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions, puts forward the idea that early-life stress regulation may be the answer. Stressors and even extreme stressors are inevitable, also during childhood. However, through the impressive synergy of nature and nurture, children have the essential capacity to overcome potential life-long consequences of early-life adversity. Complex, dynamic stress regulation processes play a crucial role in protecting the youth from future mental health symptoms.
The ROSEBuD project aims to study the prerequisites, the mechanism, and the potential long-term impact of a ubiquitous early-life stress regulation process: being around a caregiver. By focusing on (O1) specific features that enable a caregiver to modulate their child’s stress regulation system during their dyadic interaction, (O2) the characterization of the neural correlates of caregiver-dependent stress regulation in children, and (O3) the description of its effects on the formation of long- term memories, ROSEBuD aspires to formulate a comprehensive, evidence-based model of early-life stress regulation. Knowing more about early-life stress-regulation provides crucial insights into the developmental underpinnings of psychological symptoms (e.g. anxiety), as well as the capacity to acquire and maintain new episodic memories, which is the building block of academic achievement. Accordingly, the results of ROSEBuD aspire to advance our understanding of long-standing issues and inspire practice changes in clinical psychology, psychopathology, and education.
ROSEBuD project, an EU project funded by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions, puts forward the idea that early-life stress regulation may be the answer. Stressors and even extreme stressors are inevitable, also during childhood. However, through the impressive synergy of nature and nurture, children have the essential capacity to overcome potential life-long consequences of early-life adversity. Complex, dynamic stress regulation processes play a crucial role in protecting the youth from future mental health symptoms.
The ROSEBuD project aims to study the prerequisites, the mechanism, and the potential long-term impact of a ubiquitous early-life stress regulation process: being around a caregiver. By focusing on (O1) specific features that enable a caregiver to modulate their child’s stress regulation system during their dyadic interaction, (O2) the characterization of the neural correlates of caregiver-dependent stress regulation in children, and (O3) the description of its effects on the formation of long- term memories, ROSEBuD aspires to formulate a comprehensive, evidence-based model of early-life stress regulation. Knowing more about early-life stress-regulation provides crucial insights into the developmental underpinnings of psychological symptoms (e.g. anxiety), as well as the capacity to acquire and maintain new episodic memories, which is the building block of academic achievement. Accordingly, the results of ROSEBuD aspire to advance our understanding of long-standing issues and inspire practice changes in clinical psychology, psychopathology, and education.
During the outgoing phase and until the project’s early termination (at 15/07/2025), we achieved several of the tasks and deliverables towards the three objectives, in line with the set timeline.
In summary, in the context of the ROSEBuD project:
1. We designed and performed two complex studies in children 6-10 years old and their caregivers, addressing: (O1) The description of caregiver-child physiological synchrony in child stress and stress regulation, (O2) The description of the neural correlates of stress and stress regulation in childhood, and (O3) The characterization of stress and stress regulation effects on memory formation in childhood. The studies included behavioural tasks, neuroendocrine measures (cortisol and alpha-amylase), physiological measures (ECG & skin conductance), questionnaires, magnetoencephalography (MEG), and MRI.
2. We initiated collaborations between the two Institutes (Beneficiary: Foundation for Research & Technology, Hellas, Greece; Host: Swiss Center for Affective Sciences, University of Geneva, Switzerland) as well as with experts from other Institutes, to ensure cutting-edge methodologies in our settings, analyses, and perspectives.
3. We took part in advanced training activities (as educators and participants), and mentored and co-supervised (excellent) students to reinforce our project with up-to-date proficiency, creativity, and manpower.
4. We participated extensively in dissemination activities within and along with the Host Institute (including the Annual Research Fora of the Swiss Center of Affective Sciences, the Geneva Science Night, the Swiss and Global Stress Networks), getting direct feedback from experts and the general public for our project.
5. We have performed exploratory, preliminary analyses of our data in collaboration with excellent students and collaborators from the Beneficiary and Host Institutes, as well as from other Institutes. We intend to form an updated group of collaborators, including the central team from the two Institutes, students who participated in the project and are interested in taking part in the next steps, and external new collaborators who are interested in participating in analyses and writing. Our final aim is, in line with the original proposal and timeline, to achieve the objectives with publications of great quality and interdisciplinary impact, including methodological innovation within a reasonable time after the completion of the experiments.
In summary, in the context of the ROSEBuD project:
1. We designed and performed two complex studies in children 6-10 years old and their caregivers, addressing: (O1) The description of caregiver-child physiological synchrony in child stress and stress regulation, (O2) The description of the neural correlates of stress and stress regulation in childhood, and (O3) The characterization of stress and stress regulation effects on memory formation in childhood. The studies included behavioural tasks, neuroendocrine measures (cortisol and alpha-amylase), physiological measures (ECG & skin conductance), questionnaires, magnetoencephalography (MEG), and MRI.
2. We initiated collaborations between the two Institutes (Beneficiary: Foundation for Research & Technology, Hellas, Greece; Host: Swiss Center for Affective Sciences, University of Geneva, Switzerland) as well as with experts from other Institutes, to ensure cutting-edge methodologies in our settings, analyses, and perspectives.
3. We took part in advanced training activities (as educators and participants), and mentored and co-supervised (excellent) students to reinforce our project with up-to-date proficiency, creativity, and manpower.
4. We participated extensively in dissemination activities within and along with the Host Institute (including the Annual Research Fora of the Swiss Center of Affective Sciences, the Geneva Science Night, the Swiss and Global Stress Networks), getting direct feedback from experts and the general public for our project.
5. We have performed exploratory, preliminary analyses of our data in collaboration with excellent students and collaborators from the Beneficiary and Host Institutes, as well as from other Institutes. We intend to form an updated group of collaborators, including the central team from the two Institutes, students who participated in the project and are interested in taking part in the next steps, and external new collaborators who are interested in participating in analyses and writing. Our final aim is, in line with the original proposal and timeline, to achieve the objectives with publications of great quality and interdisciplinary impact, including methodological innovation within a reasonable time after the completion of the experiments.
The ROSEBuD project aims to describe the prerequisites, the mechanism, and the potential effects on emotional memory formation of stress regulation, via the presence of a caregiver in children 6-10 years old.
The contribution of the project is that we used a unique design, including (a) naturalistic stressors and settings, (b) a control condition to the presence of the parent -the presence of an experimenter, (c) the presence of a caregiver during the task, reading to their children the instructions, also during the measures of functional connectivity in MEG, (d) real-time stress reactivity in functional connectivity analyses, (e) taking into account both structural and functional connectivity by using both MEG and MRI recordings, (f) testing the consolidation of associative memory with emotional elements with natural stressors in children 6-10 years old. We moreover aim to use cutting-edge approaches in analyzing the multimodal data of each experiment, in collaboration with experts, in order to be able to suggest innovative methods to assess dyadic synchrony and inter-personal effects on stress reactivity.
Further research will be needed to explore the outcomes of the present study, test the findings, and investigate the impact on different ages and settings (e.g. in the classroom). Moreover, through our dissemination activities, we realized the prevalent need for stress and stress regulation training and education in the general public, and specifically in the target groups of the present study, i.e. parents, children, and teachers. We are currently in the process of forming a group of experts from the two countries (Greece & Switzerland) to design and actualize a workshop on stress and stress regulation for these target groups.
The contribution of the project is that we used a unique design, including (a) naturalistic stressors and settings, (b) a control condition to the presence of the parent -the presence of an experimenter, (c) the presence of a caregiver during the task, reading to their children the instructions, also during the measures of functional connectivity in MEG, (d) real-time stress reactivity in functional connectivity analyses, (e) taking into account both structural and functional connectivity by using both MEG and MRI recordings, (f) testing the consolidation of associative memory with emotional elements with natural stressors in children 6-10 years old. We moreover aim to use cutting-edge approaches in analyzing the multimodal data of each experiment, in collaboration with experts, in order to be able to suggest innovative methods to assess dyadic synchrony and inter-personal effects on stress reactivity.
Further research will be needed to explore the outcomes of the present study, test the findings, and investigate the impact on different ages and settings (e.g. in the classroom). Moreover, through our dissemination activities, we realized the prevalent need for stress and stress regulation training and education in the general public, and specifically in the target groups of the present study, i.e. parents, children, and teachers. We are currently in the process of forming a group of experts from the two countries (Greece & Switzerland) to design and actualize a workshop on stress and stress regulation for these target groups.