Biobehavioral Mechanisms for Severe Disruptive Behavior in Adolescent Girls

描述(申请人提供)：破坏性行为障碍(DBD)和症状在男性中更常见，但在女性中呈上升趋势，其对女孩的身心健康和生活质量的影响是毁灭性的。女性DBD的发病和增加通常表现在青春期，这是一个以荷尔蒙剧烈变化和伴随青春期成熟为特征的发育阶段。我们的工作模型强调，这种发展的同时发生并不是巧合。这项拟议研究的首要目标是检查压力和性激素是否作为DBD症状的生物行为途径发挥作用。拟议的项目将检查DBD的组成部分，特别关注冷酷/冷漠的特征，作为可靠预测DBD严重性和持久性的重要性格脆弱性。此外，神经生物学证据表明，压力和性激素与CU特征的表达有关，具有显著的活动和调节神经回路，实例化同理心和冷酷无情。关于女性青少年DBD的研究很少，更没有研究症状表达的生物行为机制。此外，许多关于DBD的途径的文献主要是从对男性的研究中推断出来的；当对女性进行检查时，她们通常表现出轻度到中度的DBD症状和CU特征。目前的调查将对该领域产生重大影响，因为它针对的是一群研究不足的女性，这些女性具有一系列DBD症状和严重程度较高的CU特征。我们已经获得许可，可以在南橡树女子学校检查压力和性激素，这是一所惩教机构，为威斯康星州最严重的青少年女性罪犯提供治疗。唾液将在两天内无创地收集十次，以捕捉皮质醇、睾酮、脱氢表雄酮(DHEA)和雌二醇的昼夜节律。这一收集策略与最近在监禁男性青少年中进行的一项调查相平行，从而允许在不产生额外成本的情况下，对CU性状表达和DBD症状表达背后的生物行为机制中的性别相似性和性别差异进行探索性研究。这项研究的最终结果将是获得一系列假定的生物标志物，这些标志物将成为该领域中了解DBD风险、表达和预防的有用工具。捕捉彼此相互作用的多种激素是创新的，有可能导致CU特征表达和DBD风险的“生物签名”。该项目将为未来DBD和CU特征的生物行为机制研究计划提供基础，帮助弥合板凳研究和通过跨学科研究应用于被判刑青年面临的现实世界问题之间的差距。调查小组由新的/早期完成的调查人员和具有数十年跨学科研究经验的经验丰富的导师/顾问组成。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Disruptive behavior disorders (DBD) and symptoms are more prevalent in males, yet they are on the rise in females and their impact is devastating for girls' mental and physical health and quality of life. The onset and rise in DBD in females typically manifests in adolescence, a developmental stage characterized by dramatic hormonal changes and concomitant pubertal maturation. Our working model emphasizes that this developmental co-occurrence is not a coincidence. The overarching goal of the proposed research is to examine if stress and sex hormones operate as biobehavioral pathways to DBD symptoms. The proposed project will examine the components of DBD, specifically focusing on callous/unemotional traits as an important dispositional vulnerability which reliably predicts DBD severity and persistence. Moreover, neurobiological evidence implicates stress and sex hormones in the expression of CU traits, with notable activity and modulation of the neurocircuitry which instantiates empathy and callousness. There is little research on DBD in female adolescents, and even less which investigates biobehavioral mechanisms underlying symptom expression. Moreover, much of the literature that has been conducted about pathways to DBD largely extrapolates from research with males; when females are examined, they typically express DBD symptoms and CU traits in the mild-moderate range of severity. The present investigation will have a significant impact on the field because it targets an under-studied population of females with a range of DBD symptoms and CU traits with a high range of severity. We have received permission to examine stress and sex hormones in Southern Oaks Girls School, a correctional facility that offers treatment for the most severe adolescent female offenders in the state of Wisconsin. Saliva will be noninvasively collected ten times across two days to capture the diurnal rhythm of cortisol, testosterone, dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), and estradiol. This collection strategy parallels a recent investigation in incarcerated male adolescents, thereby permitting exploratory investigation of sex similarities and sex differences in the biobehavioral mechanisms underlying CU trait expression and DBD symptom expression without incurring additional cost. The end- product of the research will be to obtain a battery of putative biomarkers which will be useful tools within the field's arsenal to understand DBD risk, expression, and prevention. Capturing multiple hormones which interact with each other is innovative, with the potential to result in a "biosignature" of CU trait expression and DBD risk. This project will provide the foundation for a future program of research on biobehavioral mechanisms for DBD and CU traits, helping to bridge the gap between bench research and application to real-world issues facing adjudicated youth through interdisciplinary research. The investigative team is comprised new/early accomplished investigators and highly experienced mentors/consultants with decades of experience as interdisciplinary researchers.