Preschool Internalizing Psychopathology: Behavioral Phenotypes and Stress Physiology

 描述(由申请人提供)：焦虑和情绪失调是学龄前儿童最常见的、通常是持续存在的情绪困难，会造成重大的个人、家庭和经济负担。然而，这些行为在幼儿中是发育正常的，这些行为在临床上有意义的水平在很大程度上是未知的。如果没有与发育敏感方法相一致的既定标准，就很难区分持续、损害情绪和行为问题的轻度、暂时性行为和RIK。研究仅仅依靠父母的判断来报告孩子行为的主观频率，主要集中在外在问题上。关于儿童焦虑和情绪失调的日常频率的信息，以及情绪困难的家庭和生理关联，将有助于理解可能增加临床风险的行为变化。本研究的主要目的是实施一种多层次的方法，在规范的个体差异和行为模式、家庭环境和压力生理学之间产生有发展意义的区别，这些模式与3-5岁儿童早期出现的内在化精神病理学的发展有关。为了达到这一目的，将使用一种新的父母报告每日日记方法，通过评估大样本(N=550)学龄前儿童每天焦虑和情绪失调的频率来产生维度表型。为了验证内化表型并加强典型行为与临床相关行为的区分，第二个目标将评估儿童的观察到的行为、损害、父母精神病理学、行为和关系满意度以及子样本(n=200)中的应激源，第三个目标将评估急性和慢性应激生理学，包括唾液炎症标记物(C-反应蛋白和细胞因子)以及通过毛发样本测量的累积下丘脑垂体轴皮质醇活性。这些努力将推动NIMH任务更好地了解精神疾病的轨迹。特别是，这项工作与战略目标1.4和战略目标2.1是一致的，战略目标1.4是通过评估生物和行为成分来开发有效的维度表型，生物和行为成分澄清精神障碍的边界并描绘行为的全部变异，战略目标2.1强调识别早期出现的精神病理学的生物和行为标记物的重要性。从这项建议中获得的知识将通过以下方式显著推进该领域：1)提供关于早期出现的精神病理学现象学的发展敏感信息；2)通过评估焦虑和情绪失调的全部变异来推进跨诊断、维度方法；3)识别反映早期偏差的生物标记物 此外，与R15机制相一致，本研究将通过为学生提供发展精神病理学的多方法研究的深入体验，来加强PI的研究环境。

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Anxiety and mood dysregulation are among the most common, often persistent, emotional difficulties in preschool-aged children that cause substantial personal, familial, and economic burden. However, these behaviors are developmentally normative in young children and the level at which such behaviors may be clinically significant is largely unknown. Without established norms identified with developmentally sensitive methods, it is difficult to distinguish mild, transient behaviors from rik for persistent, impairing emotional and behavior problems. Studies have relied solely on parents' judgment to report the subjective frequency of children's behavior and focused primarily on externalizing problems. Information about the daily frequencies of children's anxiety and mood dysregulation, along with familial and physiological correlates of emotional difficulties, wil permit an understanding of the variation in behavior that may increase clinical risk. The primary goal of the present study is to implement a multi-level approach to generate developmentally meaningful distinctions between normative individual differences and patterns of behavior, family environment, and stress physiology that pertain to the development of early-emerging internalizing psychopathology in 3-5-year-old children. To achieve this aim, a novel parent-report daily diary method will be used to generate dimensional phenotypes by assessing the daily frequency of anxiety and mood dysregulation in a large sample (N = 550) of preschool-aged children. To validate the internalizing phenotypes and enhance differentiation of typical from clinically-concerning behavior, the second aim will be to assess children's observed behavior, impairment, parental psychopathology, behavior, and relationship satisfaction, and stressors in a subsample (n = 200) and the third aim will assess acute and chronic stress physiology, including salivary inflammatory markers (C- reactive protein and cytokines) as well as cumulative hypothalamic pituitary axis cortisol activity measured via hair samples. These efforts will advance the NIMH mission to better understand mental illness trajectories. In particular, this work is consistent with Strategic Objective 1.4 to develop valid dimensional phenotypes by assessing biological and behavioral components that clarify the boundaries of mental disorders and delineate the full variation of behavior, and Strategic Objective 2.1 that emphasizes the importance of identifying bio- and behavioral markers of early-emerging psychopathology. Knowledge gained from this proposal will significantly advance the field by 1) providing developmentally sensitive information on the phenomenology of early- emerging psychopathology, 2) advancing the transdiagnostic, dimensional approach by assessing the full variation of anxiety and mood dysregulation, 3) identifying biomarkers that reflect early deviation in emotional development, and 4) inform prevention and intervention efforts for internalizing psychopathology; in addition, consistent with the R15 mechanism, this study will strengthen the PI's instutition's research environment by providing students in-depth experience with multi-method research in developmental psychopathology.