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Project

Understanding neural sensitivity for threat and facial expressions in individuals with childhood trauma

Childhood trauma (CT) leads to an admixture of psychiatric symptoms such as anxiety, depression and psychosis. However, the underlying etiological processes linking CT to cascading negative developmental effects are still unclear. The capacity to perceive and discriminate emotional faces is vital for social interaction and mostly considered a phenomenon of visual learning, which requires adequate exposure to facial expression in the developmental process. Thus, it can be speculated that, due to the deviant emotional environment, CT victims may develop hypersensitivity for negative expressions and further generalize threat to safe and ambiguous cues, resulting in inadequate assessment of social situations. This study will introduce fast periodic visual stimulation (FPVS) frequency-tagging EEG, a new and reliable implicit measure to quantify neural sensitivity at the individual subject-level, in CT victims. By combining FVPS with behavioral and physiological measurements (eye-tracking, EMG, skin conductance, heart rate), we aim to pinpoint the aberrant neurobiological mechanisms of face processing in CT victims, and relate it to fear generalization and threat detection. Additionally, we will examine whether such a mechanism may be specifically implicated in young adults with CT or more generally implicated in psychiatric symptomatology.

Date:7 Sep 2020 →  Today
Keywords:childhood trauma, FPVS, facial expressions, threat
Disciplines:Cognitive neuroscience, Biological psychiatry
Project type:PhD project