Our Center focuses on factors affecting outcome in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) in anxious youth. CBT is effective for 50-60% of anxious youth. Because mechanisms of recovery are poorly understood it is difficult to predict whom CBT will be effective for or how to refine it. Initial research has identified abnormalities in biological substrates of emotional information processing likely targeted by CBT, specifically, a pattern of excessive vigilance for threatening information followed by blunted sustained emotional reactions. This pattern is likely subserved by the amygdala and prefrontal regions. Understanding whether these mechanisms are targeted in CBT will 1) allow prediction of whether emotional information processing styles predispose individuals to recovery in CBT and 2) refinement of CBT to more specifically target brain mechanisms. This project requests funds to assess 200 anxious and 40 control youths'emotional information processing using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), event-related potentials (ERP), and pupilometry/eyetracking. Anxious youths will receive 16 sessions of CBT or an active control intervention (child centered therapy). All participants will be assessed every 2-4 weeks over the 14 week intervention period with pupilometry/eyetracking. After session 16, participants will again be assessed on the same tasks using all our measures. Recovery in CBT is expected to be strongest for anxious youth with heightened early limbic responses, which are targeted by CBT. CBT is expected to decrease initial limbic responses to emotional stimuli, and increase sustained responses (e.g., decrease avoidance). Positive results could link brain function to recovery, allowing prediction of which anxious participants will recover in CBT, illustrate mechanisms by which CBT leads to recovery, and could validate proposed mechanisms of action for CBT. Negative results would suggest that recovery in CBT may depend on different mechanisms of action than those which have been proposed by the clinical and affective neuroscience community. The scale of the proposed research is unparalleled in examinations of neural correlates of emotional information processing in anxious individuals, particularly with developmental populations and examinations of recovery. This magnitude is necessary to understand factors underlying the considerable heterogeneity in treatment response in this population. Our group is uniquely suited to carrying out the proposed large-scale research.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Type
Specialized Center (P50)
Project #
5P50MH080215-02
Application #
7892276
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZMH1)
Project Start
Project End
Budget Start
2009-06-01
Budget End
2010-05-31
Support Year
2
Fiscal Year
2009
Total Cost
$427,405
Indirect Cost
Name
University of Pittsburgh
Department
Type
DUNS #
004514360
City
Pittsburgh
State
PA
Country
United States
Zip Code
15213
Ricketts, Emily J; Price, Rebecca B; Siegle, Greg J et al. (2018) Vigilant attention to threat, sleep patterns, and anxiety in peripubertal youth. J Child Psychol Psychiatry 59:1309-1322
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Stone, Lindsey B; Mennies, Rebekah J; Waller, Jennifer M et al. (2018) Help me Feel Better! Ecological Momentary Assessment of Anxious Youths' Emotion Regulation with Parents and Peers. J Abnorm Child Psychol :
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Morgan, Judith K; Lee, Grace E; Wright, Aidan G C et al. (2017) Altered Positive Affect in Clinically Anxious Youth: the Role of Social Context and Anxiety Subtype. J Abnorm Child Psychol 45:1461-1472
Price, Rebecca B; Allen, Kristy Benoit; Silk, Jennifer S et al. (2016) Vigilance in the laboratory predicts avoidance in the real world: A dimensional analysis of neural, behavioral, and ecological momentary data in anxious youth. Dev Cogn Neurosci 19:128-136
Oppenheimer, Caroline W; Ladouceur, Cecile D; Waller, Jennifer M et al. (2016) Emotion Socialization in Anxious Youth: Parenting Buffers Emotional Reactivity to Peer Negative Events. J Abnorm Child Psychol 44:1267-78
Price, Rebecca B; Rosen, Dana; Siegle, Greg J et al. (2016) From anxious youth to depressed adolescents: Prospective prediction of 2-year depression symptoms via attentional bias measures. J Abnorm Psychol 125:267-278

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