Strength of family bond predicts disrupted neural habituation to visual familial threat in adolescence

Sharp, Paul Benjamin

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/90657 Copy

Description

Title

Strength of family bond predicts disrupted neural habituation to visual familial threat in adolescence

Author(s)

Sharp, Paul Benjamin

Issue Date

2016-04-26

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Heller, Wendy

Committee Member(s)

Telzer, Eva H.

Department of Study

Psychology

Discipline

Psychology

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

M.A.

Degree Level

Thesis

Keyword(s)

• Multivoxel pattern analysis (MVPA)
• Anxiety
• Amygdala
• Family Stressors
• Habituation

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Familial stressors, such as low family connectedness, confer risk for affective pathologies, yet little is known regarding how they uniquely impinge on neural systems involved in adaptive threat processing. METHODS: MVPA analysis of fMRI data was used in a novel way to measure disrupted neural habituation in a threat network comprising nodes of the limbic system across several classes of stimuli including unpredictable familial and nonfamilial threat and joy. In the present longitudinal design, measures of family connectedness were collected for adolescents (n=22, age=14.38) at the study's outset, and a year later, a neuroimaging protocol was carried out. RESULTS: For those low in family connectedness, elevated sensitivity scores derived from MVPA reflected that the encoding of unpredictable familial threat was more stable across time, indicating reduced habituation to familial threat. Reduced habituation was specific to familial threat, as null relationships were found between family connectedness and MVPA sensitivity to familial joy, nonfamilial threat, and nonfamilial joy. CONCLUSIONS: Results suggest that familial stressors may confer specific biological disruptions to risk-related stimuli, in this case, threatening maternal images. The present novel experimental paradigm and use of MVPA provide the foundation for further exploring how MVPA can be used to test for selective habituation to specific stimuli germane to other environmental risk factors for internalizing pathologies.

Graduation Semester

2016-05

Type of Resource

text

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/90657

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2016 Paul Sharp

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