Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience of Atypical Empathy in Conduct Disorder

描述(由申请人提供)：这项拟议的研究将比较评估三种关于品行障碍(CD)非典型移情的生物心理机制的假说。意义：一生中的反社会行为造成了巨大的公共健康负担。尽管社会因素的重要性毋庸置疑，但关于儿童CD涉及的神经生物学因素仍有许多需要了解。对他人的移情关怀被认为在抑制攻击性和其他形式的反社会行为方面发挥了关键作用，而移情能力的缺失会导致社交活动的严重干扰。因此，研究非典型移情关怀在儿童CD中的作用具有重要意义。创新：这项拟议的研究将是首次使用功能磁共振成像对患有CD的青春期前儿童进行非典型共情的神经生物学研究。这将为CD中涉及功能障碍移情的基本脑行为过程的急需的综合生物心理学模型提供经验基础。在处理CD等复杂现象时，多层次的科学分析至关重要。太多时候，对健康和精神疾病人群的同理心的评估仅仅依赖于自我报告的方法，只提供一种信息。方法：为了实现我们的科学目标，我们将从符合CD诊断标准的9-11岁男性和女性儿童(N=60)和一组非CD对照组儿童(N=60)中获得一些神经生物学和行为指标，以衡量在观看他人疼痛时的反应。这些措施包括：(A)大脑结构解剖和功能连通性，(B)通常引起共鸣关注的视觉刺激的神经血液动力学反应，(C)对观看他人疼痛所引起的影响的主观评级，(D)对描述他人疼痛的刺激的接近倾向的行为衡量，以及(E)自主神经系统活动的衡量。我们假设，当观看其他痛苦的儿童时，CD儿童将在疼痛矩阵的区域表现出更大的神经血流动力学反应，这些区域涉及到第一手疼痛体验的感觉辨别和情感方面。行为测量将表明，与对照儿童相比，患有CD的儿童在看到他人痛苦时体验到更积极的情感反应。此外，患有CD的儿童将在PFC和杏仁核之间表现出较少的解剖连接和功能连接，这与对处于困境中的其他人的移情关怀的情感方面的自我调节减弱是一致的。环境和研究人员：我们经验丰富的研究人员和顾问团队包括CD、功能神经成像和认知神经科学方面的专家，特别是在同理心和心理生理测量领域。芝加哥大学为这一项目提供了强有力的环境和资源。与公共卫生相关：由于大多数犯罪都是青少年所犯，青少年的反社会行为造成了巨大的公共卫生负担。反社会行为不仅在身体和心理上伤害受害者，而且反社会青年因暴力、药物滥用和自杀而被监禁、受伤和死亡的风险很高。这项拟议的转化性研究将导致对与品行障碍儿童功能障碍的移情关怀有关的基本大脑行为过程的综合理解，并提出新的治疗和预防方法。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The proposed study will comparatively evaluate three hypotheses regarding biopsychological mechanisms underpinning atypical empathy in conduct disorder (CD). Significance: Antisocial behavior across the lifespan creates an enormous public health burden. Despite the indisputable importance of social factors, much remains to be learned about neurobiological factors involved in childhood CD. Empathic concern for others has been hypothesized to play a key role in inhibiting aggression and other forms of antisocial behavior and deficits in empathy lead to profound disturbances in social interaction. Therefore, studies of the role of atypical empathic concern in childhood CD are of great importance. Innovation: The proposed study would be the first neurobiological study of atypical empathy in pre-adolescent children with CD using functional magnetic resonance imaging. It will provide the empirical basis for a much-needed integrative biopsychological model of the basic brain-behavior processes involved in dysfunctional empathy in CD. Multiple levels of scientific analysis are fundamentally important when addressing complex phenomena such as CD. Too often, the assessment of empathy in both healthy and psychiatric populations has relied solely on self-report measures that provide only one kind of information. Approach: To achieve our scientific aims we will obtain from male and female 9-11 year old children who meet diagnostic criteria for CD (N = 60) and a group of non-CD control children (N = 60) a number of neurobiological and behavioral measures of responses to viewing others in pain. These measures include: (a) structural brain anatomy and functional connectivity (b) neuro-hemodynamic responses to visual stimuli that typically evoke empathic concern, (c) subjective ratings of the affect elicited by viewing others in pain, (d) behavioral measures of approach tendencies to stimuli depicting pain in others, and (e) measures of autonomic nervous system activity. We hypothesize that when viewing others in pain, children with CD will exhibit greater neuro-hemodynamic response in areas of the pain matrix involved in both the sensory-discriminative and affective aspects of the first-hand experience of pain. The behavioral measures will indicate that children with CD experience a more positive affective response to seeing others in pain than comparison children. Furthermore, children with CD will exhibit both less anatomical connection and functional connectivity between the PFC and the amygdala, which would be consistent with diminished self-regulation of emotional aspects of empathic concern for others in distress. Environment and Investigators: Our experienced team of investigators and consultants includes experts on CD, functional neuroimaging and cognitive neuroscience, especially in the area of empathy, and psychophysiological measurement. The University of Chicago provides a strong environment and resources for this project. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Because most crime is committed by juveniles, antisocial behavior in youth creates an enormous public health burden. Antisocial behavior not only harms victims in physical and psychological ways, but antisocial youth are at high risk for incarceration, injury and death from violence, substance abuse, and suicide. The proposed translational study will lead to an integrative understanding of basic brain-behavior processes involved in dysfunctional empathic concern in children with conduct disorder and suggest new approaches to treatment and prevention.