Attentional Bias Modification: Development and testing of a school-based "Cognitive Vaccine" for the reduction and prevention of child anxiety

注意力偏差修正：开发和测试基于学校的“认知疫苗”，以减少和预防儿童焦虑

• 批准号: MR/J011762/1
• 负责人: Thalia Eley
• 金额: $ 30.69万
• 依托单位: King's College London
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2012 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=MR%2FJ011762%2F1
• 关键词: Attentional; Bias; Modification; Development; testing

Childhood anxiety problems are so serious and common that the need for early intervention and the promotion of emotional well-being in children has been the focus of several UK government reports. Childhood anxiety often continues into adolescence and adulthood, and is associated with difficulties at school and with impaired social functioning and peer problems. It is also a major risk factor for experiencing other psychological and physical health problems. Targeting children at risk of developing anxiety, could lead to prevention programs aimed at helping vulnerable children, especially during periods of high stress. Preventative interventions at this early stage can set the individual back onto a healthy path avoiding considerable later distress and cost to both the individual and society. By identifying and understanding the factors that make some children more vulnerable to developing anxiety, we should be able to treat them and prevent them from experiencing anxiety. In this way, we can develop treatments that act like a vaccine - increasing children's immunity against feeling very anxious when faced with stress. One factor that is known to be important for developing anxiety is the way people's brains process emotional information, such as pictures of facial expressions or emotional words. There is evidence that children who have elevated anxiety pay greater attention to threatening information, for example an angry or disgusted face. Targeting how children pay attention to emotional information may be a promising way of preventing and treating childhood anxiety. A simple method for changing how children pay attention to emotional information already exists; the attentional bias modification task (ABM). ABM is a simple computerised task that trains children to get into the habit of not paying attention to threatening information. In this project, we want to assess whether ABM may act as a vaccine against feeling anxious, in response to a stressful experience such as having to do a presentation in front of an audience, or taking end of year exams. We are going to perform three studies with a group of children aged 9 to 11 years who are experiencing higher than normal levels of anxiety. All three studies will compare the effect of ABM with an inactive control condition not designed to change how children pay attention to emotional information. Study 1 will establish the type of emotional information it is most useful to direct children's attention to. Specifically, we are interested in whether it is most effective to make children pay greater attention to positive or neutral information. Study 2 will provide information on the best way to deliver the treatment; that is how regularly the children should complete the treatment. Study 3 will test how effective ABM is in preventing anxiety, by measuring whether it affects how children pay attention to emotional information, and how much anxiety, children report generally. We will measure the effects of ABM on children's anxiety response to an experimental stress task (performing a talk and doing a difficult maths problem). We will also explore the effects of ABM on children's anxiety surrounding the end of year national curriculum exams (SATs), which we know that many children find stressful. These measures will tell us whether ABM is likely to prevent children from feeling anxious and whether we are ready to test ABM with children who are very anxious in large scale clinical trials.

儿童焦虑问题是如此严重和普遍，需要早期干预和促进儿童的情绪健康一直是几个英国政府报告的重点。儿童期的焦虑往往会持续到青春期和成年期，并与学校的困难和受损的社会功能和同伴问题有关。它也是经历其他心理和身体健康问题的主要风险因素。针对有焦虑风险的儿童，可能会导致旨在帮助弱势儿童的预防计划，特别是在高压力时期。在这一早期阶段的预防性干预可以使个人回到健康的道路上，避免以后对个人和社会造成相当大的痛苦和代价。通过识别和理解使一些孩子更容易发展焦虑的因素，我们应该能够治疗他们并防止他们经历焦虑。通过这种方式，我们可以开发出像疫苗一样的治疗方法--提高儿童在面对压力时对焦虑的免疫力。一个已知的对焦虑的发展很重要的因素是人们大脑处理情感信息的方式，比如面部表情或情感词语的图片。有证据表明，焦虑程度较高的儿童会更加关注威胁性信息，例如愤怒或厌恶的面孔。针对儿童如何注意情绪信息可能是预防和治疗儿童焦虑的一种有希望的方法。一个简单的方法来改变儿童如何注意情绪信息已经存在;注意力偏差修正任务（ABM）。ABM是一个简单的计算机化任务，训练孩子们养成不注意威胁信息的习惯。在这个项目中，我们想评估ABM是否可以作为一种疫苗来对抗焦虑感，以应对压力体验，比如必须在观众面前做演讲，或者参加年终考试。我们将对一组9至11岁的儿童进行三项研究，这些儿童的焦虑水平高于正常水平。这三项研究都将比较ABM与非主动控制条件的效果，而非旨在改变儿童对情感信息的注意力。研究1将确定对引导儿童注意力最有用的情感信息类型。具体来说，我们感兴趣的是，让孩子更多地关注积极或中性信息是否最有效。研究2将提供关于提供治疗的最佳方式的信息;即儿童应该如何定期完成治疗。研究3将测试ABM在预防焦虑方面的有效性，通过测量它是否会影响儿童对情绪信息的注意力，以及儿童通常报告的焦虑程度。我们将测量ABM对儿童对实验性压力任务（执行谈话和做困难的数学问题）的焦虑反应的影响。我们还将探讨ABM对孩子们在年底国家课程考试（SAT）周围焦虑的影响，我们知道许多孩子都觉得压力很大。这些措施将告诉我们ABM是否可能防止儿童感到焦虑，以及我们是否准备在大规模临床试验中对非常焦虑的儿童进行ABM测试。

项目成果

Non-replication of the association between 5HTTLPR and response to psychological therapy for child anxiety disorders.

• DOI: 10.1192/bjp.bp.114.154997
• 发表时间: 2016-02
• 期刊: The British journal of psychiatry : the journal of mental science
• 作者: Lester KJ;Roberts S;Keers R;Coleman JR;Breen G;Wong CC;Xu X;Arendt K;Blatter-Meunier J;Bögels S;Cooper P;Creswell C;Heiervang ER;Herren C;Hogendoorn SM;Hudson JL;Krause K;Lyneham HJ;McKinnon A;Morris T;Nauta MH;Rapee RM;Rey Y;Schneider S;Schneider SC;Silverman WK;Smith P;Thastum M;Thirlwall K;Waite P;Wergeland GJ;Eley TC
• 通讯作者: Eley TC

A Genome-Wide Test of the Differential Susceptibility Hypothesis Reveals a Genetic Predictor of Differential Response to Psychological Treatments for Child Anxiety Disorders.

对差异易感性假设的全基因组检验揭示了对儿童焦虑症的心理治疗反应的遗传预测指标。

• DOI: 10.1159/000444023
• 发表时间: 2016
• 期刊: Psychotherapy and psychosomatics
• 影响因子: 22.8
• 作者: Keers R;Coleman JR;Lester KJ;Roberts S;Breen G;Thastum M;Bögels S;Schneider S;Heiervang E;Meiser-Stedman R;Nauta M;Creswell C;Thirlwall K;Rapee RM;Hudson JL;Lewis C;Plomin R;Eley TC
• 通讯作者: Eley TC

No Significant Evidence of Cognitive Biases for Emotional Stimuli in Children At-Risk of Developing Anxiety Disorders.

• DOI: 10.1007/s10802-015-0122-8
• 发表时间: 2016-10
• 期刊: Journal of abnormal child psychology
• 影响因子: 3.6
• 作者: Ewing DL;Dash S;Thompson EJ;Hazell CM;Hughes Z;Lester KJ;Cartwright-Hatton S
• 通讯作者: Cartwright-Hatton S

Genome-wide association study of facial emotion recognition in children and association with polygenic risk for mental health disorders.

• DOI: 10.1002/ajmg.b.32558
• 发表时间: 2017-10
• 期刊: American journal of medical genetics. Part B, Neuropsychiatric genetics : the official publication of the International Society of Psychiatric Genetics
• 作者: Coleman JRI;Lester KJ;Keers R;Munafò MR;Breen G;Eley TC
• 通讯作者: Eley TC

Paediatric Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Depressive Symptoms: Clinical Correlates and CBT Treatment Outcomes.

• DOI: 10.1007/s10802-014-9943-0
• 发表时间: 2015-07
• 期刊: JOURNAL OF ABNORMAL CHILD PSYCHOLOGY
• 影响因子: 3.6
• 作者: Brown, H. M.;Lester, K. J.;Jassi, A.;Heyman, I.;Krebs, G.
• 通讯作者: Krebs, G.