A critical test of Neural Models of Risk Among Adolescent Assault Victims

 描述(由申请人提供)：这项关于NIMH探索/发展助学金(R21)的建议旨在批判性地评估和扩展被攻击的青春期女孩中创伤和创伤后应激障碍的领先神经回路模型。现有的创伤和创伤后应激障碍的神经回路模型几乎完全集中在识别神经机制上，这些神经机制解释了观察到的对威胁的过度警惕和恐惧消退学习的缺陷。虽然这些模型有充分的经验支持，但它们无法解释已知的社会情况风险认知方面的缺陷，以及暴露于攻击和创伤后应激障碍人群中再次受害的比率增加。相比之下，我们的初步研究表明，被攻击的青春期女孩在社交学习任务中表现出更差的行为表现，前扣带回皮质和双侧前岛叶皮质的激活减少，这表明了一种新的机制来解释这些人群中已知的社会功能缺陷。基于这些先导数据，我们假设，扩展现有的神经电路模型，包括社会预测错误编码的弱脑和行为相关性，可以提高对遭受攻击的青春期女孩的创伤后应激障碍症状和功能缺陷的解释能力。我们建议招募对照，没有创伤后应激障碍的攻击，以及有创伤后应激障碍青春期女孩的攻击，并在功能磁共振期间管理威胁处理任务和我们以前使用的社交学习任务。参与者还将完成一项标准化的风险感知任务，在这项任务中，他们将看到描述日益危险的社会情况的书面插曲。目的1试图证明，当控制威胁处理任务中神经机制解释的差异时，被攻击的青春期女孩对社会预测错误的编码减弱，将减少的风险知觉中介到标准化的风险社会情境小场景。目的2试图证明，当控制威胁检测任务中神经机制解释的差异时，在被攻击的青春期女孩中，社会预测错误的编码减弱可以预测3个月的创伤后应激障碍症状的轨迹。拟议项目的主要目的是证明包含社会加工缺陷的神经回路模型的解释能力有所增强。拟议项目的成功完成将刺激人们对早期生活创伤和创伤后应激障碍的毒性影响的新概念，并有望导致改进预防和治疗计划。

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This proposal for a NIMH Exploratory/Developmental Grant Award (R21) seeks to critically evaluate and expand upon leading neurocircuitry models of trauma and PTSD among assaulted adolescent girls. Existing neurocircuitry models of trauma and PTSD focus almost exclusively on identifying the neural mechanisms that explain observed hypervigilance for threat and deficits in fear extinction learning. While these models have ample empirical support, they do not explain known deficits in risk perceptions of social situations and increased rates of revictimization among assault-exposed and PTSD populations. By contrast, our pilot study demonstrated that assaulted adolescent girls display both worse behavioral performance and decreased activation of anterior cingulate cortex and bilateral anterior insular cortex during a social learning task, which suggests a novel mechanism to explain known social functioning deficits in these populations. Based on these pilot data, we hypothesize that expanding existing neurorcircuitry models to include weakened brain and behavioral correlates of social prediction error encoding increases explanatory power for PTSD symptoms and functional deficits among assaulted adolescent girls. We propose to recruit control, assaulted without PTSD, and assaulted with PTSD adolescent girls and administer both a threat processing task and our previously used social learning task during fMRI. Participants would also complete a standardized risk perception task, in which they are presented with written vignettes depicting increasingly dangerous social situations. Aim 1 seeks to demonstrate that weakened encoding of social prediction errors among assaulted adolescent girls mediates decreased risk perceptions to the standardized risk social situation vignettes when controlling for variance explained by neural mechanisms on the threat processing task. Aim 2 seeks to demonstrate that weakened encoding of social prediction errors among assaulted adolescent girls predicts 3-month trajectories of PTSD symptoms when controlling for variance explained by neural mechanisms on the threat detection task. The overarching purpose of the proposed project is to demonstrate increased explanatory power of a neurocircuitry model that includes social processing deficits. Successful completion of the proposed project would stimulate new conceptualizations of the toxic effects of early life trauma and PTSD, and hopefully lead to improved prevention and treatment programs.