Investigation of socio-affective and socio-cognitive mechanisms in the processing of witnessed traumatic events

亲眼目睹的创伤事件，如亲眼目睹的人际暴力、危及生命的事故和恐怖袭击，属于最普遍的创伤经历类型，可造成巨大的个人和社会负担。然而，人们几乎不知道为什么个人会对实际发生在另一个人身上的经历产生不良反应和心理症状。基于现有的理论模型和社会神经科学的经验发现，可以假设，采取观点和移情反应是最初的加工步骤，随后是不同的社会情感和认知功能，如同情、移情关注、移情痛苦和内疚，这些功能可以与消极或积极的情感和心理健康结果相关联。确认不同的社会情感和认知途径，在神经水平上对其进行解剖，并确定导致这些不同途径的生物和心理因素，可以改善对目击创伤的不良反应的预测，并揭示早期干预的有价值的目标。这项研究的目的是使用实验室设计来研究急性、目击创伤事件处理过程中的社会情感和认知机制。主要研究问题如下：(1)在生理、行为和神经水平上评估的自我和其他相关社会情感状态(如共情痛苦、同情心)是否预测暴露在实验室见证的急性创伤事件后随后的症状发展(侵入)？(2)同理心与(A)过度唤醒的倾向和(B)消极思维过程的倾向相结合是否预测他人与自我相关状态和症状的发生和发展？为了回答这些问题，健康的人将使用已建立的创伤电影范式，接触到模拟的目睹创伤。将评估下一周的直接主观和生物应激反应以及症状的发展情况。这项研究将在两个研究地点进行，研究设计类似，不同的是，所使用的范例被调整为在一个地点的核磁共振扫描仪内应用，以便能够在神经水平上额外评估社会情感和认知过程。

Witnessed traumatic events such as witnessed interpersonal violence, life-threatening accidents and terrorist attacks are among the most prevalent types of traumatic experiences and can cause immense individual and societal burden. However, little is known why individuals can develop adverse reactions and psychological symptoms to experiences that have actually happened to another person. Based on existing theoretical models and empirical findings in social neuroscience, it can be assumed that perspective-taking and empathic responding are initial processing steps, followed by diverging socio-affective and -cognitive functions such as compassion, empathic concern, empathic distress and guilt, which can be associated with either negative or positive affective and mental health outcomes. Conforming different socio-affective and -cognitive pathways, their dissection on the neural level and the identification of biological and psychological factors that contribute to these different pathways could improve the prediction of adverse reactions to witnessed trauma and reveal valuable targets for early interventions. The study aims to examine socio-affective and -cognitive mechanisms in the processing of an acute, witnessed traumatic event using a laboratory design. The main research questions are as follows: (1) Do self- and other-related socio-affective states (e.g. empathic distress, compassion) as assessed on a physiological, behavioral and neural level predict subsequent symptom development (intrusions) following exposure to an acute laboratory witnessed traumatic event? (2) Does empathy combined with (a) liability to hyperarousal and (b) liability to negative thinking processes predict the occurrence of other- vs self-related states and symptom development? To answer these questions, healthy individuals will be exposed to an analogue witnessed trauma using an established trauma film paradigm. Immediate subjective and biological stress reactivity as well as the development of symptoms in the subsequent week will be assessed. The study will be conducted at two study sites with similar study designs except that the used paradigms are adapted for the application inside an MRI scanner at one site to be able to additionally assess socio-affective and -cognitive processes on a neural level.