National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.
Psychiatry Res. 2011 May 15;187(1-2):261-6. doi: 10.1016/j.psychres.2010.09.005. Epub 2010 Oct 20.
While trauma affects both parents and their children, minimal research examines the role of information-processing perturbations in shaping reactions to trauma experienced by parents and, in turn, the effect this trauma has on their children. This study examines familial associations among trauma, psychopathology, and attention bias. Specifically, group differences in psychopathology and attention bias were examined in both adults and their children based on trauma exposure. In addition, the association between attention bias in parents and attention bias in their children was examined. Parents exposed to the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks and their children were recruited from the New York City Metropolitan area. Levels of trauma exposure, psychiatric symptoms, and attention bias to threat, as measured with the dot-probe task, were each assessed in 90 subjects, comprising of 45 parents and one of their children. These measures were examined in parents and their children separately; each parent and child was categorized on the presence of high or low levels of trauma exposure. Although trauma exposure did not relate to psychopathology, parents who were highly exposed to trauma showed greater attention bias towards threat than parents with low trauma exposure. However, the children of high trauma-exposed parents did not show enhanced attention bias towards threat, though threat bias in the high trauma-exposed parents did negatively correlate with threat bias in their children. This association between trauma and attention bias in parents was found four-to-five years after 9/11, suggesting that trauma has enduring influences on threat processing. Larger, prospective studies might examine relationships within families among traumatic exposures, psychopathology, and information-processing functions.
虽然创伤会影响父母及其子女，但很少有研究探讨信息处理干扰在塑造父母对创伤的反应中的作用，以及这种创伤对其子女的影响。本研究考察了创伤、精神病理学和注意偏向之间的家族关联。具体来说，根据创伤暴露情况，在成年人及其子女中检查了精神病理学和注意偏向的组间差异。此外，还研究了父母的注意偏向与其子女的注意偏向之间的关联。从纽约市大都市区招募了经历过 9/11 世界贸易中心袭击的父母及其子女。使用点探测任务评估了 90 名受试者（包括 45 名父母和他们的一名子女）的创伤暴露水平、精神病理学症状和对威胁的注意偏向。这些测量在父母和子女中分别进行；根据创伤暴露的高低，对每个父母和孩子进行分类。尽管创伤暴露与精神病理学无关，但高度暴露于创伤的父母对威胁的注意偏向大于低创伤暴露的父母。然而，高创伤暴露父母的孩子并没有表现出对威胁的注意偏向增强，尽管高创伤暴露父母的威胁偏向与他们孩子的威胁偏向呈负相关。这种父母创伤与注意偏向之间的关联是在 9/11 之后四到五年发现的，表明创伤对威胁处理具有持久的影响。更大规模的前瞻性研究可能会在家庭内研究创伤暴露、精神病理学和信息处理功能之间的关系。
