Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA.
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA.
Dev Sci. 2018 Jul;21(4):e12608. doi: 10.1111/desc.12608. Epub 2017 Nov 8.
Callous-unemotional (CU) traits are characterized by a lack of guilt and empathy, and low responsiveness to distress and fear in others. Children with CU traits are at-risk for engaging in early and persistent conduct problems. Individuals showing CU traits have been shown to have reduced neural responses to others' distress (e.g., fear). However, the neural components of distress responses in children with CU traits have not been investigated in early childhood. In the current study, we examined neural responses that underlie the processing of emotionally valenced vocal stimuli using the event-related potential technique in a group of preschoolers.
Participants between 2 and 5 years old took part in an auditory oddball task containing English-based pseudowords spoken with either a fearful, happy, or a neutral prosody while electroencephalography data were collected. The mismatch negativity (MMN) component, an index of the automatic detection of deviant stimuli within a series of stimuli, was examined in association with two dimensions of CU traits (i.e., callousness-uncaring and unemotional dimensions) reported by primary caregivers.
Findings suggest that the callousness-uncaring dimension of CU traits in early childhood is associated with reduced responses to fearful vocal stimuli.
Reduced neural responses to vocal fear could be a biomarker for callous-uncaring traits in early childhood. These findings are relevant for clinicians and researchers attempting to identify risk factors for early callous-uncaring traits.
冷酷无情（CU）特质的特点是缺乏内疚感和同理心，对他人的痛苦和恐惧反应迟钝。具有 CU 特质的儿童有早期和持续出现行为问题的风险。研究表明，表现出 CU 特质的个体对他人的痛苦（如恐惧）的神经反应减少。然而，具有 CU 特质的儿童对痛苦反应的神经成分在幼儿期尚未得到研究。在当前的研究中，我们使用事件相关电位技术在一组学龄前儿童中检查了处理情感色彩声音刺激的神经反应。
参与者年龄在 2 至 5 岁之间，参与了一项听觉Oddball 任务，该任务包含用恐惧、快乐或中性语调用英语发音的伪词，同时记录脑电图数据。通过主要照顾者报告的 CU 特质的两个维度（即冷酷无情和无情感维度），研究了与自动检测一系列刺激中的偏差刺激有关的错配负波（MMN）成分。
研究结果表明，幼儿期 CU 特质的冷酷无情维度与对恐惧声音刺激的反应减少有关。
对声音恐惧的神经反应减少可能是幼儿期冷酷无情特质的生物标志物。这些发现与试图识别早期冷酷无情特质的风险因素的临床医生和研究人员有关。
