The long-term objectives of this Mentored Patient-Oriented Research Career Development Award are to provide the applicant with the conceptual background and research skills necessary to develop into an independent investigator in the field of translational interventions research with child neuropsychiatric disorders. The applicant's primary goal is to gain proficiency in the research of pediatric Tourette Syndrome (TS), specifically in the integration of neurocognitive paradigms with empirically validated behavior treatments to elucidate the cognitive mechanisms underlying treatment response. To accomplish this goal, the candidate will be mentored by experts in the fields of child TS assessment and treatment, neuropsychology of psychiatric populations, cognitive and developmental neuroscience, research design, and biostatisics. She will participate in didactic training including formal coursework and other educational activities in these relevant training areas. The award's research project investigates neurocognitive functioning in child TS before and after behavior intervention for tics, with the overarching goal of exploring the hypothesis that cognitive tasks sensitive to frontal-striatal dysfunction are implicated in the etiology and presentation of pediatric TS. As an adjunct to UCLA's NIMH-funded Center for Intervention Development and Applied Research, the proposed study will examine response inhibition, affect regulation, and risky decision-making performance before and after an eight-session trial of an empirically validated behavioral treatment (Habit Reversal Training) in 20 children with TS compared to 20 TS waitlist control subjects. We hypothesize that at baseline, TS children will have greater impairments in neurocognitive functioning than a sample of age-matched healthy controls. Furthermore, neurocognitive indices will be used to predict and probe clinical treatment effects reflected by tic severity variables. The association between neurocognitive indices and psychosocial function will also be explored. To date, there have been few studies of child TS neurocognition from both response inhibition and affective/motivational perspectives in conjunction with a focus on treatment development. The understanding and modeling of mechanisms underlying cognitive deficits in disorders such as TS may lead to the development of targeted and more efficacious treatments to enhance cognition in children who share a similar profile of impairment. ? ? ?

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Type
Mentored Patient-Oriented Research Career Development Award (K23)
Project #
5K23MH080914-02
Application #
7483602
Study Section
Child Psychopathology and Developmental Disabilities Study Section (CPDD)
Program Officer
Churchill, James D
Project Start
2007-09-01
Project End
2012-07-31
Budget Start
2008-08-01
Budget End
2009-07-31
Support Year
2
Fiscal Year
2008
Total Cost
$133,317
Indirect Cost
Name
University of California Los Angeles
Department
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
092530369
City
Los Angeles
State
CA
Country
United States
Zip Code
90095
Chang, Susanna W; McGuire, Joseph F; Walkup, John T et al. (2018) Neurocognitive correlates of treatment response in children with Tourette's Disorder. Psychiatry Res 261:464-472
Woods, Douglas W; Piacentini, John C; Scahill, Lawrence et al. (2011) Behavior therapy for tics in children: acute and long-term effects on psychiatric and psychosocial functioning. J Child Neurol 26:858-65
Lewin, Adam B; Chang, Susanna; McCracken, James et al. (2010) Comparison of clinical features among youth with tic disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and both conditions. Psychiatry Res 178:317-22
Lewin, Adam B; Bergman, R Lindsey; Peris, Tara S et al. (2010) Correlates of insight among youth with obsessive-compulsive disorder. J Child Psychol Psychiatry 51:603-11
Kircanski, Katharina; Woods, Douglas W; Chang, Susanna W et al. (2010) Cluster analysis of the Yale Global Tic Severity Scale (YGTSS): symptom dimensions and clinical correlates in an outpatient youth sample. J Abnorm Child Psychol 38:777-88
Piacentini, John; Woods, Douglas W; Scahill, Lawrence et al. (2010) Behavior therapy for children with Tourette disorder: a randomized controlled trial. JAMA 303:1929-37
Saxena, S; Gorbis, E; O'Neill, J et al. (2009) Rapid effects of brief intensive cognitive-behavioral therapy on brain glucose metabolism in obsessive-compulsive disorder. Mol Psychiatry 14:197-205