Race-Related Differences in Protective Effects of Emotion Regulation Against GrimAge Acceleration Are Driven by Assaultive Trauma

Chowdhary, Aishwarya
Holloway, Terrell
Xu, Ke
Sinha, Rajita
Harvanek, Zachary M.

Department of Psychiatry, Yale University
Department of Psychiatry, Connecticut Veteran Healthcare System, West Haven, Connecticut, United States
Yale Stress Center, Yale University

Sandra Mattar served as action editor.

Rajita Sinha has research collaborations with Aelis Farma, Aptinyx Inc., and CT Pharma, and she is on the scientific advisory board of Embera Neurotherapeutics. The current submission is unrelated to these collaborations. Aishwarya Chowdhary, Terrell Holloway, Ke Xu, and Zachary M. Harvanek have no competing interests to declare.

Funding for this study was from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Common Fund, UL1-DE019586 (Rajita Sinha, National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research), PL1-DA024859 (Rajita Sinha, National Institute on Drug Abuse), R01-AA013892 (Rajita Sinha), NIH R01DA047063 (Ke Xu, National Institute on Drug Abuse), R01DA047820 (Ke Xu, National Institute on Drug Abuse), NIH T32MH019961 (Terrell Holloway, Zachary M. Harvanek, National Institute of Mental Health), and NIH R25MH071584 (Zachary M. Harvanek, National Institute of Mental Health). Zachary M. Harvanek is also supported by the Yale Physician Scientist Development Award and Clinical and Translational Science Award (NIH UL1 TR001863) from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences. The authors acknowledge the Yale Center of Genome Analysis for DNA methylation profiling.

Aishwarya Chowdhary played a supporting role in formal analysis and methodology and an equal role in visualization and writing–original draft. Terrell Holloway played an equal role in conceptualization, methodology, visualization, writing–original draft, and writing–review and editing. Ke Xu played an equal role in funding acquisition, methodology, resources, and validation. Rajita Sinha played an equal role in conceptualization, funding acquisition, methodology, resources, supervision, validation, and writing–review and editing. Zachary M. Harvanek played a lead role in formal analysis, software, and visualization and an equal role in conceptualization, methodology, supervision, writing–original draft, and writing–review and editing.

Zachary M. Harvanek, Yale Stress Center, Yale University, 2 South Church Street, Suite 209R, New Haven, CT, 06519, United States [email protected]

Received April 23, 2024

revised November 24, 2024

Accepted December 28, 2024

Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, & Policy Publish Ahead of Print, April 14, 2025. | DOI: 10.1037/tra0001888

Objective: Age-adjusted mortality analyses consistently show increased mortality in non-Hispanic Black adults compared to other racial/ethnic groups. While the underlying causes are multifaceted, the potential role for psychological resilience aspects such as emotion regulation has not been explored. Here, we examine (a) racial differences in emotion regulation among White and Black adults, (b) the potential links between these differences and adversity, and (c) the relationship between emotion regulation, adversity, and biological aging. Method: Four hundred fifty-nine healthy volunteers (21.1% Black) were enrolled in a cross-sectional study where we assessed emotion regulation with the Difficulties with Emotion Regulation Scale, lifetime adversity using the Cumulative Adversity Inventory, and biological age using GrimAge. Results: Black participants had better emotion regulation than White participants with difficulty in regulating emotions being associated with greater lifetime adversity throughout the sample. However, the interaction between race and emotion regulation difficulties was significant for both lifetime adversity and traumatic events, with Black participants showing a stronger association between more adversity (specifically assaultive trauma) and worse emotion regulation. Remarkably, we found a significant three-way interaction between adversity, emotion regulation, and race, with emotion regulation protecting against the effects of adversity on GrimAge acceleration specifically in Black participants. Conclusions: Our findings highlight a potential protective role of emotion regulation against accelerated aging in Black adults, specifically at the intersection of adversity and epigenetic aging. Further research to understand racial differences in adversity and specific facets of resilience is required to gain a deeper understanding of race-related disparities in healthy aging.