Hug Felicitas, Degen Tom, Meurs Patrick, Fischmann Tamara
Sigmund-Freud-Insitut, Frankfurt, Germany.
Clinical Psychology, Faculteit Psychologie en Pedagogische Wetenschappen, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2022 Apr 26;16:809616. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2022.809616. eCollection 2022.
Studies in adults with mental disorders suggest that the experience of early and chronic trauma is associated with changes in reward expectancy and processing. In addition, severe childhood trauma has been shown to contribute to the development of mental disorders in general. Data on effects of early childhood trauma on reward expectancy and processing in middle childhood currently appear insufficient. The present study aims to fill this research gap by examining the effects of developmental trauma disorder (DTD) on reward expectancy and processing in children aged 8-12 years, testing the hypothesis that children with multiple complex traumas exhibit altered reward processing as a result of prior disappointing reward experiences. One main feature of developmental trauma disorder is early experiences of multiple separation from important and close relationships alongside other experiences of emotional or physical harm. In the sequel children often show affect regulation disorders. To investigate this, we have developed an adapted version of the Monetary Incentive Delay (MID) Task, which examines children's expectation of reward or frustration. In this first study, behavioral data will be collected from = 40 children ( = 20 experimental group and = 20 healthy controls) using this adapted version of the MID Task. Children in the experimental group will be recruited from youth welfare centers in Frankfurt a.M., Germany. Healthy control subjects will be recruited from after-school-care facilities. A brief trauma screening will be conducted for both groups, experimental and control. If children show signs of trauma, the presence of a developmental trauma disorder will be further delineated by a German translation of the Developmental Trauma Disorder Structured Interview for Children (DTDSI-C) which was translated the first time in German by our research group. We hypothesize that children in the experimental group will be less accurate in performing the Monetary Incentive Delay Task because of their impaired emotion regulation skills due to emotional avoidance following developmental trauma. If the results of our initial behavioral study are promising, the MID task will be used in a future study to elucidate the relationship between trauma developmental disorder, reward expectancy and processing, and neurobiological processes in middle childhood.
针对患有精神障碍的成年人的研究表明，早期和慢性创伤经历与奖励预期和处理过程的变化有关。此外，严重的童年创伤总体上已被证明会导致精神障碍的发展。目前，关于童年早期创伤对童年中期奖励预期和处理的影响的数据似乎不足。本研究旨在通过考察发育性创伤障碍（DTD）对8至12岁儿童奖励预期和处理的影响来填补这一研究空白，检验以下假设：经历过多次复杂创伤的儿童由于先前令人失望的奖励经历而表现出奖励处理改变。发育性创伤障碍的一个主要特征是早期多次与重要和亲密关系分离的经历以及其他情感或身体伤害经历。在这之后，儿童通常会出现情感调节障碍。为了对此进行研究，我们开发了一个改编版的金钱激励延迟（MID）任务，该任务考察儿童对奖励或挫折的预期。在这项首次研究中，将使用这个改编版的MID任务从40名儿童（20名实验组儿童和20名健康对照组儿童）收集行为数据。实验组的儿童将从德国美因河畔法兰克福的青年福利中心招募。健康对照组将从课后托管机构招募。将对实验组和对照组两组儿童进行简短的创伤筛查。如果儿童表现出创伤迹象，将通过我们研究小组首次翻译成德语的儿童发育性创伤障碍结构化访谈（DTDSI-C）的德语译本进一步明确是否存在发育性创伤障碍。我们假设，由于发育性创伤后的情感回避导致情绪调节技能受损，实验组儿童在执行金钱激励延迟任务时的准确性会较低。如果我们初步行为研究的结果很有前景，MID任务将在未来的研究中用于阐明创伤发育障碍、奖励预期和处理以及童年中期神经生物学过程之间的关系。
