Learning to fear social interactions: Dysregulated neural mechanisms of social learning in adolescent social anxiety

项目摘要/摘要 社交焦虑障碍(SA)是一种常见的慢性疾病，严重影响患者的生活质量。典型的发病发生在早期 青春期，当社会关系变得更加突出和复杂的时候。因此，很难从 细微的相互作用可能会增强SA。尽管SA与次优的自适应学习速率有关 在非社会和不确定/不稳定的环境中，对SA和学习之间的关系知之甚少 在与同龄人的社交互动中引发症状。此外，在SA中，社会反馈与 与突显和奖赏处理有关的神经回路的失调连接，这是 学习的关键枢纽。尽管存在这种重叠，但支持从社交网络学习的神经机制 在SA中，反馈仍然相对未被发掘。治疗社交学习障碍可能会减少急性SA 在症状变得慢性之前，从而降低成人SA的高昂社会成本。取得的进展 这一目标因成熟的计算方法有限地扩展到隔离 社会学习的神经机制。建议的项目通过配对来解决这些限制 使用功能磁共振成像进行计算建模，以确定同行价值、同行反馈的有效性和 同伴反馈的波动性调节关于同伴的社会学习的神经基础及其与 青春期SA。该项目将研究青少年的行为和神经反应(N=60； 10-15岁)，与据称的同龄人进行各种SA到实时社交互动，同时接受 功能核磁共振扫描。本研究的目标与NIMH战略计划(目标1)一致：界定 复杂行为的机制，特别是环境因素，如社会经验，以及 神经机制影响社交焦虑行为。这项拟议的研究将确定神经回路 通过与SA相关的互动参与复杂的社交学习。这些发现将提供 治疗SA的新靶点。拟议的培训计划包括讲习班、体验式学习、 和导师关系，旨在发展申请人在计算建模、神经成像 以及对SA障碍的临床评估。这项拟议的研究将在坦普尔大学的临床 心理学项目，该项目在进行有影响力的NIMH资助的研究和 培养研究科学家。

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Social anxiety (SA) disorder is prevalent, chronic, and impairs quality of life. Typical onset occurs in early adolescence, when social relationships become more salient and complex. Thus, difficulty learning from nuanced interactions may potentiate SA. Although SA is associated with suboptimal adaptive learning rates in non-social and uncertain/volatile contexts, little is known about relations between SA and learning during symptom-eliciting social interactions with peers. Moreover, in SA, social feedback is associated with dysregulated engagement of neural circuits implicated in salience and reward processing, which are critical hubs for learning. Despite this overlap, the neural mechanisms that support learning from social feedback remain relatively unexplored in SA. Treating deficits in social learning may diminish acute SA symptoms before they become chronic, thereby reducing the high societal cost of adult SA. Progress towards this goal has been hindered by the limited extension of well-established computational methods to isolating the neural mechanisms of social learning. The proposed project addresses these limitations by pairing computational modeling with fMRI to determine the extent to which peer value, valence of peer feedback and volatility of peer feedback modulate the neural bases of social learning about peers and their relation to adolescent SA. The proposed project will study the behavioral and neural responses of adolescents (N=60; age 10-15yrs) with a range of SA to real-time social interactions with purported peers while undergoing an fMRI scan. Aims of this study are consistent with the NIMH strategic plan (Objective 1): defining the mechanisms of complex behaviors, specifically how environmental factors, such as social experiences, and neural mechanisms influence socially anxious behavior. The proposed study will determine neural circuits involved in complex social learning through interactions that are associated with SA. Such findings will provide novel treatment targets for SA. The proposed training plan, which consists of workshops, experiential learning, and mentorship, are designed to develop the applicant's expertise in computational modeling, neuroimaging and clinical assessment of SA disorder. The proposed study will take place within Temple University's clinical psychology program, which has a successful track record of conducting impactful NIMH-funded research and training research scientists.