Reward motivations associated with bullying trajectories

欺凌是全世界最常见的青少年虐待形式，对心理、社会、学术和健康功能产生深远、持久的有害影响。霸凌的连锁效应每年给美国造成数十亿美元的损失，而目前的干预措施只产生了有限的改善。最近针对改变奖励过程的欺凌干预，特别是对相对奖励的偏好（例如，以牺牲他人为代价获得的奖励）显示出希望。然而，欺凌的轨迹如何与改变的奖励处理有关，以及肇事者如何处理相对奖励与绝对奖励（例如，获得的金钱或积分）相比，目前尚不清楚。阐明导致欺凌行为的生物行为奖励机制，可能有助于设计和实施更有生物学知识和经验支持的干预措施，从而更大程度地减少欺凌行为。R00独立之路奖的目标是探索欺凌与改变的奖励过程之间的关系，特别关注欺凌行为与绝对奖励偏好和相对奖励偏好之间的关系。R00奖项的一个主要重点将是通过与参与青少年暴力和虐待服务的学生、当地学校和社区伙伴合作，开展可转化为干预方案的欺凌研究。在K99期间，我接受了分层建模青年行为的指导，为青年设计功能磁共振成像任务，分析特定的机制，并利用研究结果进行可行的干预，广泛的跨层面（青年，家长，学校，机构）的支持。K99明确了欺凌行为的特定风险因素的作用，欺凌行为与绝对奖励反应的关系，并包括行为和神经成像任务的成功试点，该任务区分了绝对奖励和相对奖励的偏好和处理。K99的训练和结果现在允许R00提案的成功完成，R00提案在一个更大的，表型良好的样本中测试童年和青少年时期的欺凌行为与相对奖励偏好和绝对奖励偏好之间的关系。在评估特异性的同时，我将测试欺凌是否会预测对相对奖励和绝对奖励的行为偏好和神经反应的增加。结果将澄清与欺凌相关的奖励加工改变，与其他表型相比检验这些关联的特异性，并检验相对奖励偏好作为欺凌的解释因素与其他理论风险因素的关系。R00研究收集的数据将阐明霸凌行为背后的奖励机制，并为未来R01研究关注相对奖励偏好的神经发育、不同奖励偏好的稳定性及其对干预的可塑性奠定基础。该提案解决了有关欺凌的重要问题，这是NICHD使命的核心任务，并提供了继续推进申请人学术生涯和申请未来资助所需的基础数据。

Bullying is the most common form of youth abuse world-wide and is linked to profound, lasting, deleterious effects to psychological, social, academic and health functioning. The cascading effects of bullying costs the US billions of dollars annually, and current interventions produce only modest improvements. A recent bullying intervention targeting altered reward processes, specifically a preference for relative rewards (e.g. those earned at the expense of others) shows promise. However, how trajectories of bullying relate to altered reward processing, and how perpetrators process relative rewards in comparison to absolute rewards (e.g. money or points earned) is currently unknown. Explicating the biobehavioral reward mechanisms contributing to bully perpetration may allow for the design and implementation of more biologically-informed, empirically-supported interventions that can provide greater reductions in bullying. The goal of this R00 Pathway to Independence Award is to explore how bullying relates to altered reward processes, with a specific focus on how bully perpetration relates to preferences for absolute versus relative rewards. A primary focus of the R00 award will be focused on conducting bullying research translatable to intervention programming, by working with students, local schools, and community partners involved in youth violence and maltreatment services. During the K99, I received mentorship in hierarchical modelling youth behaviors, designing fMRI tasks for youth that assay specific mechanisms, and leveraging findings from research into feasible interventions with broad crosslevel (youth, parent, school, agency) buy-in. The K99 clarified the role of specific risk factors for bully perpetration, how bully perpetration related to absolute reward responses, and included the successful piloting of both a behavioral and neuroimaging task which differentiated the preference and processing of absolute versus relative rewards. The training and results from the K99 now allow for the successful completion of the R00 proposal, which tests how bullying behaviors during childhood and adolescence relate to the preference for relative vs. absolute rewards in a larger, well-phenotyped sample. I will test whether bullying predicts increased behavioral preference and neural response to relative vs. absolute rewards, while assessing for specificity. Results will clarify reward processing alterations related to bullying, examine the specificity of these associations compared to other phenotypes, and examine relative reward preference as an explanatory factor of bullying in relation to other theoretical risk factors. The data collected during the R00 proposal will clarify reward mechanisms underlying bully perpetration and set the stage for a future R01 focused on the neurodevelopment of relative reward preferences, the stability of different reward preferences, and their malleability to intervention. This proposal addresses important concerns about bullying, a mission core to the NICHD mission, and provides foundational data needed to continue advancing the applicant’s academic career and apply for future grants.