Heidelberg

Der Fokus liegt auf den Einflüssen eines provozierenden Kontexts auf die soziale Bedrohungsverarbeitung bei AMD unter unterschiedlichen Testosteronspiegeln. Insbesondere zielt das Projekt darauf ab, die modulierende Funktion von Kontext unter Testosteronanwendung versus -suppression auf Bedrohungssensitivität bei gesunden Kontrollpersonen sowie Patientengruppen zu analysieren. Zusätzlich werden wir den Einfluss endogener Hormonvariationen (Testosteron, Oxytocin, Östrogen und Cortisol) auf NVS bei hoch- versus niedrig-aggressiven Patienten in einer großen Patientengruppe untersuchen, die in Q01 rekrutiert wird. Mit dieser Stichprobe werden wir versuchen, multidimensionale Biosignaturen basierend auf Hormonspiegeln in Kombination mit fMRT-Messungen von Amygdala und Amygdala-präfrontaler Konnektivität, NVS-Messungen durch Fragebögen, Aggressionsmessungen und psychopathologischen Daten zu identifizieren.

Develop virtual scenarios to assess decision strategies in cartoon-like and naturalistic contexts. The core question is how healthy individuals and patients make (mal-)adaptive aggressive decisions in social conflicts given their threat sensitivity, cognitive functions, and learning experience. We plan to present mathematically well-defined aggressive decision scenarios to healthy participants as well as patients across diagnostic categories with high scores of aggressive behavior, threat sensitivity, and inference of hostile intent in others. Computational models that accurately explain behavioral choices and neural responses (tested using fMRI and pupillometry) will be developed to identify the aggressive decision strategies humans employ in approach-avoidance conflicts of increasing complexity and ecological realism. The purpose will be to determine if patients use overly aggressive strategies that are not warranted by the necessary defense of self-threats and underlying neural circuits.

Identify specific neuronal mechanisms related to the NVS and CS in female and male clinical samples with a history of early-life maltreatment (ELM) who exhibit externalizing, aggressive psychopathologies as opposed to internalizing, non-aggressive psychopathologies. We will therefore explore the interaction of the NVS and CS as well as the modulating effects of theory-of-mind (ToM) on the NVS and CS using a series of fMRI and behavioral tasks. Furthermore, we will investigate the role of hormonal stress responses and will use EMA to assess anger and aggression in everyday life. Thus, we will be able to combine behavioral phenotyping in natural conditions of everyday life and neurobiological correlates of psychopathology in order to detect clinically relevant biosignatures for AMD.

The central recruitment platform for collecting and curating a longitudinal dataset for studying individual aggression dynamics related to the neural, cognitive-emotional, neurobiological, psychopathological and environmental factors in patient groups.