Adolescent Social Phobia and Neurophysiological Function

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The goal of this Research Career Award is to develop the applicant's ability to conduct independent translationally oriented clinical research. The applicant is trained in experimental methodology, child psychology and neuroscience. This background enables the applicant to critically review the relevant literature and develop methodological procedures based on neuroscience models that can be adapted to study brain function in children. This grant would provide the training and mentoring necessary for the applicant to use these methods and theories to begin to reveal the neural correlates of developmental psychopathology. The applicant will be mentored in child psychiatry, psychiatric diagnostic procedures and in the use of adapting neuroimaging procedures for the study of psychiatric disorders. Animal research provides an effective pathophysiological model for anxiety. Using fear provoking paradigms, animal model approaches delineate a neural circuit that includes the amygdala and the orbito-frontal cortex in anxiety-related behaviors. Research in adults with anxiety disorders documents perturbations in the same regions in response to fear provoking stimuli, particularly emotionally evocative faces. However, very little work has been conducted to document comparable perturbations in adolescents with anxiety. The research objective for the present proposal is to use animal models of anxiety as a guide to reveal the neurophysiological and behavioral correlates of adolescent social phobia. Specifically, healthy adolescents and those with social phobia will be presented with fear provoking stimuli (emotional faces), while brain activation is measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging. Such work will help to reveal the neurophysiological correlates of adolescent social phobia. The long-term goal is to identify neurobiological and behavioral events that underlie the development of childhood anxiety disorders.