Effects of Childhood Maltreatment on Research Domain Neurocircuits

研究领域标准(RDoC)项目由NIMH发起，旨在提供一种新的方法来 对精神障碍的评估可能更适合NIMH的研究任务。RDoC基于 假设精神疾病是大脑回路的紊乱，大脑回路由工作的区域和途径组成 一起完成特定的任务，如果改变可能会导致精神病态。我们特别是 对儿童期虐待的影响感兴趣，因为虐待和家庭功能障碍是 导致精神疾病的主要可预防原因。我们的主要重点是划定关键和敏感期 早期生活压力时的大脑发育可能会改变RDoC相关的神经回路。此外，我们还 辩称，被虐待和未被虐待的人有相同的主要精神诊断是 在临床和神经生物学上是截然不同的。这意味着大脑成像的发现，比如减少 海马体体积或杏仁核反应增强，可见于有抑郁症病史的抑郁症患者 虐待，但不适用于没有受到虐待的抑郁症患者。因此，也迫切需要 了解RDoC相关神经回路异常是否与焦虑症状或 快感缺乏症适用于所有受试者，或仅限于有虐待史的受试者。我们的目标是测试这些 通过对包括340例未用药的MRI扫描的数据集的二次分析来进行假设 个人年龄在18-25岁之间。这些受试者是从社区招募的，并已完成 虐待和虐待暴露年表，提供关于暴露严重程度的回溯性数据 儿童时期每一年都会遭受十种虐待。超过一半的样本患有 抑郁或焦虑。将检查两个电路。一个电路在检测和检测中起着重要的作用 对威胁作出反应，并帮助决定我们的飞行反应之战。另一条线路涉及到 预测和评估奖励的成本/收益，以确定为它们工作的努力程度。 传统的统计方法将被用来识别易受早期生命影响的区域和途径 压力，然后将使用数据挖掘技术来描述虐待的类型和时间 对这些结构的影响最大。这一信息很重要，因为它将使我们了解 暴露的类型使儿童处于焦虑和抑郁的最大风险及其相关的神经生物学 机械装置。此外，这些信息还可能揭示治疗可能最有益的时间。

The Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) project was initiated by NIMH to provide a new approach to the assessment of mental disorders that may better suit the research mission of the NIMH. RDoC is based on the premise that mental illnesses are disorders of brain circuits, which consist of regions and pathways that work together to accomplish particular tasks, and if altered can result in psychopathology. We are especially interested in the impact of childhood maltreatment, as maltreatment and household dysfunction are the leading preventable causes of mental illness. Our primary focus is to delineate critical and sensitive periods in brain development when early life stress may alter RDoC-associated neurocircuits. Further, we have also argued that maltreated and non-maltreated individuals with the same primary psychiatric diagnosis are clinically and neurobiologically distinct. What this means is that brain imaging findings, such as reduced hippocampal volume or heightened amygdala response, may be seen in depressed individuals with histories of maltreatment but not in depressed individuals who were not maltreated. Hence, there is also a pressing need to know whether RDoC-associated neurocircuit abnormalities associated with symptoms of anxiety or anhedonia apply to all subjects or are specific to those with histories of maltreatment. Our aim is to test these hypotheses through secondary analyses of a data set that consists of MRI scans from 340 unmedicated individuals 18-25 years of age. These subjects were recruited from the community and have completed the Maltreatment and Abuse Chronology of Exposure scale that provides retrospective data on severity of exposure to ten types of maltreatment across each year of childhood. More than half of the total sample suffered from depression or anxiety. Two circuits will be examined. One circuit plays an important role in detecting and responding to threats and helps determine our fight of flight response. The other circuit is involved in predicting and evaluating the cost/benefits of rewards in order to determine how hard to work for them. Conventional statistical methods will be used to identify regions and pathways that are susceptible to early life stress, and data mining techniques will then be used to delineate the type and time of maltreatment that had the greatest effect on these structures. This information is important as it will enable us to understand what types of exposure place children at greatest risk for anxiety and depression and their associated neurobiological mechanisms. Further, this information may also reveal times when treatments may be most beneficial.