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

亲眼目睹的创伤事件，如目睹人际暴力、危及生命的事故和恐怖袭击，是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，很少有人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实证发现，可以假设换位思考和共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、共情关注、共情痛苦和内疚，这些功能可能与消极或积极的情感和心理健康结果相关。符合不同的社会情感和认知通路，在神经水平上对它们进行解剖，并确定导致这些不同通路的生物和心理因素，可以提高对目击创伤不良反应的预测，并为早期干预提供有价值的目标。本研究旨在检验社会情感和认知机制在处理急性，亲眼目睹创伤事件使用实验室设计。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他人相关的社会情感状态（如共情痛苦、同情）能否预测暴露于急性实验室目击创伤事件后的后续症状发展（入侵）？(2)共情与(a)过度觉醒倾向和(b)消极思维过程倾向相结合是否能预测他人相关状态与自我相关状态的发生和症状发展？为了回答这些问题，健康个体将使用已建立的创伤胶片范式暴露于模拟亲眼目睹的创伤。将评估立即的主观和生物应激反应以及随后一周的症状发展。该研究将在两个具有相似研究设计的研究地点进行，除了所使用的范式在一个地点的MRI扫描仪内进行了调整，以便能够在神经层面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.