Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience of Atypical Empathy in Conduct Disorder

项目摘要 本研究将比较评估三种关于生物心理机制的假说 支持行为障碍（CD）中的非典型同理心。意义：一生中的反社会行为 造成了巨大的公共卫生负担。尽管社会因素的重要性无可争议， 儿童CD的神经生物学因素仍有待进一步研究。对他人的同情心 被假设在抑制攻击性和其他形式的反社会行为和缺陷方面起着关键作用 在社会交往中会导致严重的干扰。因此，研究非典型的作用， 儿童CD中移情关注非常重要。创新：拟议的研究将是第一个 青春期前CD儿童非典型共情的功能磁研究 共振成像它将为一个急需的综合生物心理学模型提供经验基础， CD患者共情功能障碍的基本大脑行为过程。多层次的科学 在处理CD等复杂现象时，分析至关重要。往往， 在健康人群和精神病人群中，对同理心的评估仅依赖于自我报告的测量 只提供一种信息。方法：为了实现我们的科学目标，我们将从男性那里获得 符合CD诊断标准的9-11岁女性儿童（N = 60）和一组非CD对照 儿童（N = 60）的一些神经生物学和行为措施的反应，看到别人的痛苦。 这些措施包括：（a）脑结构解剖和功能连接（B）神经血流动力学 对视觉刺激的反应，通常引起共情的关注，（c）主观评级的影响引起的 （d）对描述他人痛苦的刺激的接近倾向的行为测量，以及 (e)自主神经系统活动的测量。我们假设，当看到别人痛苦时，孩子们 CD患者在涉及两种疼痛的疼痛基质区域表现出更大的神经血流动力学反应， 第一手疼痛体验的感觉辨别和情感方面。行为措施将 表明CD儿童在看到他人痛苦时， 比较孩子。此外，患有CD的儿童将表现出更少的解剖连接和功能 PFC和杏仁核之间的连接，这与减少自我调节是一致的， 同情他人的情绪方面。环境和研究人员：我们的 一个经验丰富的研究者和顾问团队，包括CD、功能性神经成像和 认知神经科学，特别是在移情领域，以及心理生理测量。的 芝加哥大学为本项目提供了强大的环境和资源。

Project Summary 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.