Human Neural Development In The Absence Of Species-expected Stimuli: The Effect Of Maternal Or Social Deprivation On Maturation Of Emotion Circuitry During Critical Periods Of Development.
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$465,103.00
Summary
As children mature into adolescents, social influences on emotional responding transition from parents to peers. Understanding how social stimuli shape neural circuits that ultimately regulate emotional behaviour will yield critical information for treatment and prevention of emotional disorders across the lifespan. The current project addresses this important issue through the use of functional imaging of emotion circuits in the brain and classical conditioning approaches to emotion responding.
Socioeconomic Variation In Community Risk Profiles Associated With Health And Behaviour Problems In Adolescents
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$459,700.00
Summary
Until recently, emotional and behavioural problems of adolescence have tended to be dismissed as part of the normal turbulence of adolescent development; however, attitudes to adolescent health and health promotion have changed quickly. Downward age-trends in tobacco, alcohol and illicit drug use have made adolescents a major target for health promotion. The practical potential for adolescent mental health promotion has gained considerable ground and knowledge of the modifiable determinants of y ....Until recently, emotional and behavioural problems of adolescence have tended to be dismissed as part of the normal turbulence of adolescent development; however, attitudes to adolescent health and health promotion have changed quickly. Downward age-trends in tobacco, alcohol and illicit drug use have made adolescents a major target for health promotion. The practical potential for adolescent mental health promotion has gained considerable ground and knowledge of the modifiable determinants of youth mental health problems has been progressed by a growing number of studies examining distal and proximal predictors in community samples. The project plans to comprehensively assess locally elevated risk factors and depressed protective factors predictive of a range of adolescent health and behaviour problems including substance abuse, obesity and depression in 30 communities across three Australian States. These communities will be selected from the entire socioeconomic spectrum to determine how the social context of our neighbourhoods may influence the health and behaviour of adolescents . Surveys of students in grade 6 and year 8 will be conducted. Each participating student will be weighed and measured and asked to complete a questionnaire that assesses a comprehensive range of community risk and protective factors.Read moreRead less
Cognitive Factors In Youth That Increase Vulnerability To Social Phobia
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$313,976.00
Summary
I am a psychologist focused on identifying the patterns of thinking of young people that make them vulnerable to developing a chronic and debilitating anxiety disorder known as social phobia. To do this, I will measure a range of thinking patterns of a sample of youth over time, and see which patterns are characteristic of those individuals who do develop social phobia. By identifying these particular thinking patterns, we will be able to identify youth who need preventative interventions.
Mapping the psychology of accent-based discrimination. Accentism is commonplace, but our understanding of why people discriminate against certain accents is limited. This project will develop a Global Database for Accented English, an archive of piloted speech samples that dramatically reduces interpretational difficulties plaguing existing research. This resource enables the most robust test to date of what causes accent bias in schools and workplaces. Experiments will also examine the conditio ....Mapping the psychology of accent-based discrimination. Accentism is commonplace, but our understanding of why people discriminate against certain accents is limited. This project will develop a Global Database for Accented English, an archive of piloted speech samples that dramatically reduces interpretational difficulties plaguing existing research. This resource enables the most robust test to date of what causes accent bias in schools and workplaces. Experiments will also examine the conditions under which accent bias is most pronounced, and why its effects are particularly strong for women. Understanding mechanisms underpinning accent bias is a precondition for reducing a problem that threatens Australia’s status as a successful and economically vital multicultural society.Read moreRead less
Longitudinal Study Of Modifiable Influences For The Development Of Harmful Young Adult Alcohol Use And Related-problems.
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$1,484,496.00
Summary
Young adulthood is a time of high vulnerability for alcohol use problems that are the major preventable contributor to death and injury in this age period. This 5-year project will identify modifiable influences in adolescence and young adulthood that contribute to harmful alcohol use. A cohort of almost 3,000 young people initially recruited in Victoria in 2002 (aged 11 to 15) will be followed for two further waves of data collection in 2010-11 (age 19 to 23) and 2012-13 (age 21 to 25).
Biological Sensitivity To Context: Risk And Resilience For Adolescent Depression
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$408,388.00
Summary
Depression is among the leading causes of disability and disease burden throughout the world. Little is known about how biological and environmental factors interact to cause adolescent depression; even less is known about what factors might help to prevent it. This project aims to investigate how the brain and the environment interact to predict risk and resilience for depression in adolescence. This research will ultimately help in the detection and treatment of adolescent depression.
The Structure Of Negative Affective States In Youth: Identifying The Core Symptoms Of Depression, Anxiety And Tension/stress In Children And Adolescents
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$241,016.00
Summary
This project will lead to improved knowledge about the symptoms that define depression and anxiety in children and adolescents. The results will also inform us about the development of tension/stress as a unique emotional state associated with excessive worrying. The publication of a new state-of-the-art self-report measure assessing all three negative emotional states in one brief instrument will benefit researchers and practitioners in a variety of health care and educational settings.
Social buffering of fear inhibition in adolescent rats. Adolescence is an important time when individuals learn to manage stress-related emotions like fear. Peers can help, or hinder, individuals to regulate fear. This project aims to understand how, when, and for whom social buffering of fear regulation occurs during adolescence. It uses a behavioural, pharmacological, and neural approach to explore these issues. The project aims to close the gap in understanding of how social companions affect ....Social buffering of fear inhibition in adolescent rats. Adolescence is an important time when individuals learn to manage stress-related emotions like fear. Peers can help, or hinder, individuals to regulate fear. This project aims to understand how, when, and for whom social buffering of fear regulation occurs during adolescence. It uses a behavioural, pharmacological, and neural approach to explore these issues. The project aims to close the gap in understanding of how social companions affect basic learning and memory processes in an understudied population of adolescents. The expected outcomes of this project include a richer knowledge of how peers shape emotional regulation during development, which will ultimately inform social-based approaches for improving emotion regulation in youth.
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Behavioural And Neuropsychiatric Aspects Of Transition To Severe Conduct Disorder In Adolescence.
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$343,100.00
Summary
Conduct disorder represents an enormous cost to Australian society directly via the mental health and forensic systems, and indirect costs via its associations with other mental health problems, relationship problems, impaired social functioning, and substance use problems. Behavioural-family-based treatment have good success rates with young children with cooperative parents, however, there are a minority who progress to chronic problems despite this. Risk and resilience factors identifying chr ....Conduct disorder represents an enormous cost to Australian society directly via the mental health and forensic systems, and indirect costs via its associations with other mental health problems, relationship problems, impaired social functioning, and substance use problems. Behavioural-family-based treatment have good success rates with young children with cooperative parents, however, there are a minority who progress to chronic problems despite this. Risk and resilience factors identifying chronic patterns in early childhood are the key to early intervention. In previous research, this research team showed for the first time that callous-unemotional traits, a feature of chronic psychopathy, could be measured in children as young as 4 years, and was predictive of a range of negative outcomes. However, it was also found that the key neuropsychiatric markers characteristic of psychopathy, including reward dominance-punishment insensitivity and deficits in affective empathy, did not exist in conduct problem children prior to adolescence. Around the time of puberty, it appears that important changes occur in cognitive-affective processing styles that are associated with the adult form of psychopathy and antisocial behaviour. Thus, this research raises critical questions about the development of severe antisocial behaviour (or psychopathy) through the childhood to adolescent years. Our evidence indicates that early adolecence may be the period when intrapsychological characteristics representing chronic risk become concrete. The current research will be the first to map the development common neuropsychiatric markers (affective empathy, punishment insensitivity) of severe antisocial processes through the late childhood-adolescent period. The findings will have clear implications for models of antisocial behaviour and clinical approaches to working with conduct problem children and adolescents.Read moreRead less