Mapping Dimensional Aspects of Biobehavioral Threat Reactivity in Young, Violence-Exposed Children: Linkages to Fear and Distress

项目概要： 人际暴力（IV）每年影响美国五分之一以上的幼儿。为年轻 儿童，IV暴露最常发生在家庭环境中，形式是伴侣暴力， 严厉/虐待的父母。暴露于IV的儿童代表了一个异质性群体。一部分儿童 发展跨越以恐惧为特征的多个诊断类别的心理问题， 痛苦症状现有的模型广泛地暗示了生物应激系统的破坏在疾病的病因学中的作用。 暴力相关的症状，但缺乏特异性解释异质性症状表现， 年幼的孩子。推进这一科学需要新的实验室和分析方法来评估和 在多个生物行为水平上合成威胁反应。受研究领域标准的启发 （RDoC）倡议，我们建议通过利用以人为本的方法来识别独特的配置文件来实现这一目标 威胁反应在多个层次的生物行为功能，以前从未一起研究过年轻人 儿童：观察行为，注意力偏差，自主反应，惊吓，事件相关脑电位。的 所提出的工作的基本科学前提是，威胁反应性是一个中心中间过程 将早期IV型与幼儿的这种临床脆弱性联系起来的表型。拟议的样本将 包括360名儿童，年龄4 - 6岁，接受（n = 240）和未接受（n = 120）IV暴露，随访时间超过1年。 我们提出三个目标。目标1是将生物行为威胁反应特征映射到维度模式 暴露于IV和未暴露于IV的幼儿的恐惧和痛苦。我们假设我们会发现 高反应性和低反应性特征，其与相对于非极端特征的更大症状相关，并且 高反应性将与恐惧有关，而低反应性将与基线和超过1年的痛苦有关。 目的2是测试威胁反应性谱是否作为中间表型， 随着时间的推移，暴力暴露和症状之间的联系。我们假设儿童接触更多的 严重的IV更可能被归类为高反应性或低反应性，并且该特征类型将介导该联系 在基线和1年后的IV和症状之间。此外，鉴于幼儿对儿童的高度依赖， 在暴力环境中，自我调节的关系和对监管能力的威胁，我们 假设母亲共同调节孩子负面情绪能力将塑造这些风险途径。 因此，目标3是检验母亲对孩子负面情感的反应性将在孩子的行为中发挥作用的假设。 随着时间的推移，在塑造威胁反应途径方面发挥着独特的作用。我们假设情绪反应 养育（用多方法方案评估）将缓冲IV和威胁反应性之间的关联 在1年内，暴露和症状轨迹之间的差异。这项研究将提供关键的洞察力， 暴力相关的精神病理学的病因学与发展新的方法， 对这些极易受伤害的幼儿进行识别、预防和干预。

PROJECT SUMMARY: Interpersonal violence (IV) affects more than 1 in 5 young children in the United States annually. For young children, IV exposure most commonly occurs within the family context in the forms of partner violence and harsh/abusive parenting. Children exposed to IV represent a heterogeneous group. A portion of children develop psychological problems that cut across multiple diagnostic categories characterized by fear and distress symptoms. Existing models broadly implicate disruptions in biological stress systems in the etiology of violence-associated symptoms, but lack specificity for explaining heterogeneous symptom presentations in young children. Advancing this science requires novel laboratory and analytic methods for assessing and synthesizing threat reactivity across multiple biobehavioral levels. Inspired by the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) initiative, we propose to achieve this by leveraging person-centered methods to identify unique profiles of threat reactivity across multiple levels of biobehavioral functioning never before studied together in young children: observed behavior, attention bias, autonomic reactivity, startle, event-related brain potentials. The fundamental scientific premise of the proposed work is that threat reactivity is a central intermediate phenotype linking early IV to this clinical vulnerability in young children. The proposed sample will include 360 children, ages 4 to 6 years, with (n = 240) and without (n = 120) IV exposure followed over 1 year. We advance three aims. Aim 1 is to map biobehavioral threat reactivity profiles to dimensional patterns of fear and distress in IV exposed and non-exposed young children. We hypothesize that we will identify hyper- and hypo-reactive profiles that link to greater symptoms relative to a non-extreme profile, and that hyper-reactivity will relate to fear, whereas hypo-reactivity will relate to distress at baseline and over 1 year. Aim 2 is to test whether threat reactivity profiles serve as intermediate phenotypes in explaining the link between violence exposure and symptoms over time. We hypothesize that children exposed to more severe IV will more likely be classified as hyper- or hypo-reactive and that profile type will mediate the link between IV and symptoms at baseline and 1 year later. Further, given high dependency of young children’s self-regulation on caregiving relationships and threats to regulatory capacity in violent environments, we hypothesize that mothers’ ability to co-regulate their children’s negative affect will shape these risk pathways. Thus, Aim 3 is to test the hypothesis that maternal responsiveness to child negative affect will play a unique role in shaping threat reactivity pathways over time. We hypothesize that emotionally-responsive parenting (assessed with a multi-method protocol) will buffer the associations between IV and threat reactivity profiles and between exposure and symptom trajectories over 1 year. This study will provide critical insight into the etiology of violence-related psychopathology with key implications for developing novel approaches for identification, prevention, and intervention for these highly vulnerable young children.