Distinguishing Youth with Conduct Disorder with Callous-Unemotional Traits using Cardiovascular Psychophysiology During Virtual Reality Fear Induction: Testing for Sex Differences

在虚拟现实恐惧诱导过程中使用心血管心理生理学区分行为障碍和冷酷无情特征的青少年：性别差异测试

• 批准号: 10405630
• 负责人: Nicholas David Thomson
• 金额: $ 49.3万
• 依托单位: VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-05-15 至 2026-04-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10405630
• 关键词: Adolescence; Adolescent; Affect; Appearance; Arousal; Attention; Autonomic nervous system; Behavior; Behavioral; Biological; Biological Markers; CD6 antigen; Cardiovascular system; Child; Chronic; Clinical; Conduct Disorder; Data; Development; Disease; Early Diagnosis; Electromyography; Emotional; Emotions; Empathy; Etiology; Face; Feeling; Fright; Gender; Goals; Guilt; Heterogeneity; Immersion; Intervention; Knowledge; Laboratories; Lead; Legal; Life; Measures; Mental Health; Mental disorders; Methods; Negative Valence; Occupational; Outcomes Research; Parasympathetic Nervous System; Pathway interactions; Patient Self-Report; Personality; Physiological; Positive Valence; Prevention; Psychophysiology; Punishment; Reporting; Research; Sex Differences; Sinus Arrhythmia; Societies; Subgroup; Symptoms; Technology; Temperament; Testing; Time; Treatment Effectiveness; Treatment Efficacy; Violence; Youth; antisocial behavior; base; boys; callous unemotional trait; criminal behavior; emotion dysregulation; experience; externalizing behavior; family burden; girls; high risk population; improved; indexing; information processing; innovation; physical conditioning; respiratory; screening; sex; social; theories; treatment strategy; virtual reality

ABSTRACT: Conduct disorder (CD) is one of the most prevalent and debilitating psychiatric disorders impacting our youth. Unfortunately, the effects of CD are not limited to these early years. Youth with CD are more likely to develop lifelong mental and physical health problems, which is why CD is responsible for 5.75 million years of healthy life lost. There is mixed evidence supporting the effectiveness of treatment for CD, and this may be because youth with CD have differing etiological mechanisms. Research has shown that there is heterogeneity among youth with CD, with a subgroup of CD youth displaying more severe behavioral and personality symptoms, called callous-unemotional (CU) traits. CU traits is a specifier for CD that designates a high-risk group of youth who engage in chronic violence and criminal behavior, placing a significant burden on families and society. The key distinction is that these youth show distinct personality symptoms that current CD interventions are not equipped to treat, such as callousness towards others, lack of empathy and guilt for their harmful behaviors, and shallow/diminished affect. Understanding the mechanisms behind CU traits is essential for equipping interventions with the knowledge needed to employ a targeted approach for treating CU traits. Longstanding theories suggest that fearlessness is a key mechanism in the development of CU traits. However, biological evidence supporting the association between CU traits and fearlessness is deficient, and the current state of this examination has been restricted because of ecological validity. We will examine the association between fear and CU traits in youth (13-17 years) with CD by measuring sympathetic (pre-ejection period) and parasympathetic nervous system reactivity (respiratory sinus arrhythmia) during immersion in cutting edge virtual reality (VR) fear induction. We will concurrently apply facial electromyography to assess levels of positive and negative valence. We will also determine sex differences in these associations, as well as provide evidence of how biological fear profiles contribute to the stability of CU traits over 12 months during the adolescent period. The potential benefits of the proposal are high. Based on our pilot data, we will test our hypothesis that youth with CU traits will display a unique biological profile to fear that cannot be explained by fearlessness, and these associations are sex-specific. Confirming this finding in youth with CD may lead to reshaping prior developmental theories of CU traits that could lead to improved screening and more favorable gender-responsive treatment strategies for our youth.

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