Cognitive Correlates of Childhood Anxiety Disorders

描述（由申请人提供）：这个K23提案是一个5年计划，以发展候选人，儿童精神病学家，成为一个独立的研究人员调查儿童焦虑症的认知基础。长期目标是成为一名从事儿童焦虑症的发展行为和神经研究的学术研究人员。这项工作将推进病理生理学的知识，并导致更好的预防，评估和治疗方法。主要培训目标是在认知和发展科学方面打下坚实的基础;次要培训目标是学习fMRI方法，统计学和焦虑研究工具。这些技能将使候选人能够使用认知范式和fMRI进行临床导向的基于发展的研究，以研究儿童焦虑的行为和神经基础。这些目标将通过以下方式实现：1）认知心理学，功能磁共振成像和统计学课程; 2）在临床/研究环境中进行广泛的指导，以及3）执行两项相关研究，这将有助于调查认知和焦虑之间的发展关系的更大的研究机构。该项目的具体目标是检查：1）8至12岁患有和不患有焦虑症的儿童在两种认知过程中的行为差异，威胁感知和情感记忆，以及2）神经差异，特别是在杏仁核，眶额皮质（OFC）和前扣带回（ACC）中，这些认知过程是基础。这些目标是基于先前的动物，成人和初步的儿童数据，这些数据揭示了焦虑与自我报告的恐惧，记忆和这三个大脑区域的神经生理学变化之间的强烈关联。中心假设是，儿童焦虑症与增强的感知和记忆的威胁刺激，这些行为偏差与增强杏仁核，OFC，ACC的活动。国际知名的发展认知心理学家Maggie Bruck博士将担任主要导师。一个由8名专家组成的小组将在对候选人的发展至关重要的一个领域提供专门培训。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This K23 proposal is a 5-year plan to develop the candidate, a child psychiatrist, into an independent researcher investigating the cognitive underpinnings of childhood anxiety disorders. The long-term goals are to become an academic researcher conducting developmental behavioral and neural studies of childhood anxiety disorders. This work will advance knowledge of pathophysiology, and lead to better prevention, assessment, and treatment methods. The primary training objective is to develop a firm grounding in the cognitive and developmental sciences; the secondary training objectives are to learn fMRI methods, statistics, and anxiety research instruments. These skills will enable the candidate to conduct clinically oriented developmentally-based research using cognitive paradigms and fMRI to study the behavioral and neural underpinnings of childhood anxiety. These objectives will be achieved through: 1) coursework in cognitive psychology, fMRI, and statistics; 2) extensive mentorship in a clinical/research environment, and 3) execution of two related studies that will contribute to a larger body of research investigating developmental relationships between cognition and anxiety. The specific aims of the project are to examine: 1) behavioral differences in 2 cognitive processes, threat perception and emotional memory, in 8 to 12 year old children with and without anxiety disorders, and 2) neural differences, particularly in the amygdala, orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), and anterior cingulate (ACC) that underlie these cognitive processes. The aims are based on prior animal, adult, and preliminary child data that reveal strong associations between anxiety and selfreported fear, memory, and neurophysiologic changes in these three brain regions. The central hypothesis is that childhood anxiety disorders are associated with enhanced perception and memory for threat stimuli, and that these behavioral biases correlate with enhanced amygdalar, OFC, and ACC activity. Dr. Maggie Bruck, an internationally renowned developmental cognitive psychologist, will serve as the primary mentor. A panel of 8 experts will each provide specialized training in an area that is critical to the candidate's development.