Self-Regulation Failure: Identifying and Modifying a Risk Phenotype

描述(申请人提供)：人类行为包括调节我们自己的心理状态以追求预期目标的独特能力，使我们的行为符合内部/外部标准，管理我们的情绪，以及应对出现的挑战和机会。自我调节指的是人们为了追求个人目标而有意或自动地启动、维持和终止自己的思想和行为的过程。当人们考虑到一系列可追溯到有问题的目标追求的公共卫生问题时，理解自我监管的重要性就变得显而易见。许多会增加人们患病、残疾和死亡风险的行为--如肥胖、饮食失调、吸烟、酗酒、自杀和吸毒--都涉及到自我调节的困难。因此，适应不良的自我调节是导致大量心理、社会和健康问题的重要因素。我们相信，通过将行为科学的现有理论和研究与相关学科的平行发现相结合，可以在理解和克服自我调节问题方面取得重大进展。认知神经科学(具体地说，眼眶前额叶皮质在追求目标的自我调节中的作用)和成像遗传学(具体地说，编码儿茶酚-O-甲基转移酶[COMT]的基因的可遗传变异性如何影响动机显著刺激的处理)和成像遗传学(具体地说，编码儿茶酚-O-甲基转移酶[COMT]的基因的可遗传变异性如何影响动机显著刺激的处理)的最新发展，为自我调节的失败如何对特定的个体亚群导致慢性适应不良行为和增加对一系列重大健康问题的脆弱性提供了协同视角。这个R01应用程序的目的是：(1)验证一个假想的基因/环境/自我调节风险表型，该表型赋予自我调节失败的脆弱性，以及(2)测试一套新的认知/行为技术，我们预测这些技术将显著逆转导致自我调节失败的功能障碍。这项拟议的研究将在两个样本中进行：青少年，他们容易引发一些危及健康的行为和心理问题，以及大学生，他们中的一些人已经经常从事此类行为，并表现出心理困难。我们预测，三个因素的组合-调节焦点的个体差异、COMT基因和长期未能实现特定类型的个人目标-创建了一条自我调节途径，导致具有重大公共卫生影响的无序行为。 公共卫生相关性：此R01应用程序的目标是：(1)进行一项翻译研究计划，以验证假设的基因/环境/自我调节风险表型对自我调节失败的易感性，以及(2)测试一套新的认知/行为技术，我们预测这些技术将显著逆转导致自我调节失败的功能障碍。我们预测，我们将在青少年和大学生样本中观察到，三个因素的组合--调节焦点的个体差异、COMT基因和长期未能实现特定的个人目标--创建了一条自我调节途径，通向一系列具有重大公共健康影响的紊乱行为和心理状态，包括吸烟、酗酒、情绪障碍、肥胖、饮食障碍和冲动。基于这一模型，我们预计基于理论的短暂改变技术将被证明是有效的，并最终将在未来的研究中为有效的更广泛的治疗和预防干预提供基础。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Human behavior involves the unique capacities to regulate our own psychological states to pursue desired goals, bring our behavior in line with internal/external standards, manage our emotions, and cope with challenges and opportunities that arise. The term self-regulation denotes the processes through which people intentionally or automatically initiate, maintain, and terminate their own thoughts and behaviors in the service of pursuing personal goals. The importance of understanding self-regulation becomes obvious when one considers the array of public health problems that can be traced to problematic goal pursuit. Many behaviors that put people at increased risk for illness, disability, and death - such as obesity, eating disorders, smoking, alcohol abuse, suicidality, and drug addiction - involve difficulties with self-regulation. Thus, maladaptive self-regulation is an important contributory factor in a large number of psychological, social, and health-related problems. We believe that significant progress can be made in understanding and overcoming self- regulatory problems by combining existing theory and research in behavioral science with parallel findings in related disciplines. Recent developments in cognitive neuroscience (specifically, the role of the orbitofrontal cortex in self-regulation of goal pursuit) and imaging genetics (specifically, how heritable variability in the gene encoding catechol-O- methyltransferase [COMT], an enzyme that controls extracellular dopamine in the frontal cortex, influences processing of motivationally salient stimuli) offer synergistic perspectives on how failure in self-regulation could, for a particular subset of individuals, lead to chronically maladaptive behavior and increase vulnerability to a range of significant health problems. The aims of this R01 application are: (1) to validate a hypothesized gene/environment/self-regulation risk phenotype conferring vulnerability to failures of self- regulation, and (2) to test a novel set of cognitive/behavioral techniques that we predict will acutely reverse the dysfunctions that underlie self-regulatory failure. The proposed research will be conducted in two samples: adolescents, who are vulnerable to initiation of a number of health-risking behaviors and psychological problems, and college students, some of whom already engage regularly in such behaviors and manifest psychological difficulties. We predict that a combination of three contributory factors - individual differences in regulatory focus, COMT genotype, and chronic failure to attain a particular kind of personal goal - creates a self- regulation pathway to disordered behaviors with significant public health implications. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The aims of this R01 application are: (1) to conduct a program of translational research validating a hypothesized gene/environment/self-regulation risk phenotype conferring vulnerability to failures of self-regulation, and (2) to test a novel set of cognitive/behavioral techniques that we predict will acutely reverse the dysfunctions that underlie self-regulatory failure. We predict that we will observe, in both adolescent and college student samples, that a combination of three contributory factors - individual differences in regulatory focus, COMT genotype, and chronic failure to attain a particular kind of personal goal - creates a self- regulation pathway to a broad array of disordered behaviors and psychological states with significant public health implications, including tobacco use, alcoholism, mood disorders, obesity, eating disorders, and impulsivity. Based on this model, we anticipate that the theory- based brief change techniques will prove efficacious and will ultimately provide a basis for effective broader-scale therapeutic and preventive interventions in future studies.