Structural and functional neuroimaging studies in adolescents with disruptive behaviour disorders. (360G-Wellcome-083140_Z_07_Z)

In this project, we will use event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate whether adolescents with early-onset CD exhibit a differential pattern of neural activation during the fear conditioning process relative to adolescents with adolescence-onset CD and healthy controls. We will also measure brain activation while participants are viewing emotional pictures from the International Affective Pictures System (IAPS) to replicate and extend findings from the only prev ious functional imaging study in children with CD. The final functional task will be a probabilistic reversal task, which will enable us to examine differences in the neural substrates of reward processing and decision-making. In addition to functional studies, we will assess prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, and amygdala volumes and morphology in this sample using automated structural MRI methods (voxel-based morphometry). Functional connectivity between these regions will be meas ured using network modelling approaches. This will be achieved using a cross-sectional case-control design involving an existing sample (n=73) of 14-18 year old post-pubertal adolescents with CD, consisting of cases with early (n=43) and adolescence (n=30) onsets ascertained from a community population. These groups will be compared with age- and sex-matched controls (n=40) with no lifetime history of antisocial behaviour.