Childhood Emotionality and the Emotion-Modulated Startle

描述（由申请人提供）：本研究的主要目的是进一步了解气质与儿童情绪和行为障碍之间的关系。儿童精神病理学的症状（例如，抑郁症、对立行为）是功能失调、过度、适应不良或使人衰弱的，它们会给儿童带来问题。这项研究是从遗传，生物和行为水平的分析结果。这项研究的主要假设是情绪调节惊吓介导了儿童气质和精神病理学症状之间的联系。我们从动物研究中得知，情感性前脑区域调节惊吓反应的大小。惊吓在消极情绪状态下被放大，在积极情绪状态下被减弱。因此，惊吓成为激活情感脑回路的标志。此外，惊吓程度受气质类型和精神病理学症状的影响，使其成为理解关系中所涉及的过程的有用工具。这项研究将扩大可用于儿童情绪研究的方法库。与其他情绪测量方法相比，情绪调节惊吓的优势包括它对不容易在行为中观察到的适度情绪水平的敏感性以及相对独立于诱发环境。它不容易受到评分者偏见或显示规则的影响。声学惊吓探头将嵌入到情绪诱发视频剪辑和惊吓幅度将编码从录像带。惊吓反应的行为编码是一种有效的方法，不需要肌电图测量，因此可以经济地用于大发育样本的自然环境中。结果将阐明情绪调节惊吓的气质/症状关系的作用，扩大我们的方法研究儿童情绪，并确定生物行为标记的儿童精神病理学有助于阐明基因功能。此外，研究结果为更广泛的研究计划提供了第一步，该计划旨在为儿童精神病理学的诊断，预防和治疗提供信息。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The major goal of this study is to further our understanding of the relationship between temperament and childhood mood and behavioral disorders. Symptoms of child psychopathology (e.g., depression, oppositional behaviors) are dysfunctional, excessive, maladaptive, or debilitating and they cause problems for children. This study is informed by findings from genetic, biological and behavioral levels of analysis. The principal hypothesis of the proposed study is that the emotion-modulated startle mediates the association between temperament and symptoms of psychopathology in children. We know from animal studies that affective forebrain regions modulate the magnitude of the startle response. Startle is amplified during negative, and attenuated during positive emotional states. Thus, startle becomes a marker for activation of affective brain circuitry. In addition, startle magnitude is influenced by both temperamental type and symptoms of psychopathology, making it a useful tool in understanding processes involved in the relationship. This study will expand the repertoire of methods available for the study of emotion in children. Advantages of the emotion-modulated startle over other measures of emotion include its sensitivity to moderate levels of emotion that are not readily observed in behavior and relative independence from the eliciting circumstance. It is not vulnerable to rater biases or affected by display rules. Acoustic startle probes will be embedded into emotion-eliciting videoclips and startle magnitude will be coded from videotape. Behavioral coding of the startle response is an effective method that does not require electromyographic measurement and thus may economically be used in naturalistic settings with large developmental samples. Results will clarify the role of emotion-modulated startle for the temperament/symptom relationship, expand our methods of studying emotion in children, and identify biobehavioral markers of child psychopathology useful in elucidating gene function. In addition, results provide a first-step in a more extensive research program that works to inform diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of child psychopathology.