< Back to previous page

Project

Assessing and improving hippocampal pattern separation, threat perception and fear generalization in traumatized adults with aerobic exercise.

Adults exposed to traumatic experiences during childhood are at greatly increased risk for depression, anxiety and psychosis. Volumetric alterations of the hippocampus and amygdala are typically found in this group. This project aims to examine pattern separation, the hippocampus-dependent process differentiating whether a real-time event is related to previous experiences or represents truly novel input, in individuals aged between 16 and 24 who were exposed to childhood trauma. Faulty pattern separation of ambiguous environmental input is hypothesized to lead to increased threat perception (assessed using an experimental Virtual Reality task) and fear generalization (assessed using an experimental task). In addition, we aim to examine whether aerobic exercise is able to improve hippocampal/amygdalar pattern separation and, as a consequence, also reduce symptoms of anxiety, depression and psychosis.
Date:1 Oct 2018 →  30 Sep 2022
Keywords:childhood trauma, pattern separation, fear generalization, psychopathology, threat anticipation, aerobic exercise
Disciplines:Psychiatry and psychotherapy, Nursing, Other paramedical sciences, Clinical and counselling psychology, Other psychology and cognitive sciences