Investigating the role of neuropsychological processes in stress induced negative affective states and assocaited behaviour

研究神经心理过程在压力引起的消极情感状态和相关行为中的作用

• 批准号: BB/L009137/1
• 负责人: Emma Robinson
• 金额: $ 31.03万
• 依托单位: University of Bristol
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2014 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=BB%2FL009137%2F1
• 关键词: Investigating; role; neuropsychological; processes; stress; Investigating; role; neuropsychological; processes; stress

Stress-related disorders are a major issue in western society contributing to both social and economic loss. Stress is strongly associated with development of psychiatric disorders with more than 20% of the population directly affected by either anxiety or depression. Stress is also associated with other conditions including psychosomatic disturbances (lower back pain, gastrointestinal diseases such as irritable bowl syndrome), addiction and obesity. Although drugs to treat stress-related conditions, such as depression, were discovered in the 1950s, scientists have found it difficult to explain how they act in the brain to treat the symptoms of the disease and why it takes several weeks before the patient starts to feel better. Studying the brain and how it controls our behaviour, including our emotional behaviour, is complicated and psychiatric disorders represent one of the biggest challenges. Whilst studies in patients use questionnaires, interviews, brain imaging techniques and psychology, experiments in animals are important to unlock the specific parts of the brain and brain chemistry involved. Animal tests are also very important for the development of new treatments and are essential to establishing whether a drug is likely to be effective in a patient and therefore suitable for clinical trials. In this project, we aim to bring together two aspects of stress-related biology and test a novel hypothesis. The two areas we are interested in are:1. Stress-related changes in brain structure2. Stress-related changes in behaviour e.g. reduced motivation, reduced experience of pleasure, apathy and social withdrawal.Until very recently, studies in animals have largely concentrated on stress-related changes in brain structure with the behavioural tests available revealing little about how these relate to the human conditions. Whilst research into the basic biology of stress-related conditions has focused on the more molecular and cellular aspects, clinical research has recently looked toward psychological processes to try to provide a better explanation for the symptoms observed in patients. We have now developed a new method to study emotional behaviour in animals which taps into similar psychological processes. We are now in the unique position to carryout studies to directly assess how stress impacts on both behavioural and structural changes in the brain. We predict that our studies will reveal that cognitive affective processes are the key mechanisms influencing behaviour rather than arising as a consequence of structural adaptation. We also predict that the symptoms of stress-related disorders, such as reduced motivation, reduced experience of pleasure, apathy and social withdrawal, in fact cause the structural changes in the brain.Our research has the potential to reveal an important causal relationship between neuropsychological processes implicated in stress-induced negative emotional behaviour and structural changes in the brain. If we are successful in achieving this, the results of this work will have a major impact on how we target stress-related conditions in man in the future. It will also provide new insights into the impact of different types of stress, their duration and their long term impact on vulnerability to future stress and emotional disorders. Because our work is in animals, it will also impact on how we consider stress in the context of animal welfare.

与压力有关的疾病是西方社会的主要问题，促成社会和经济损失。压力与超过20％的人群直接受焦虑或抑郁影响的人群的发展密切相关。压力还与其他疾病有关，包括心身障碍（下背部疼痛，胃肠道疾病，例如碗综合症），成瘾和肥胖。尽管在1950年代发现了治疗与压力有关的疾病的药物，例如抑郁症，但科学家发现很难解释他们在大脑中的作用以治疗疾病的症状，以及为什么需要几周才能开始感觉更好。研究大脑及其如何控制我们的行为，包括情绪行为，是复杂的，精神疾病是最大的挑战之一。尽管患者的研究使用问卷，访谈，脑成像技术和心理学，但在动物中进行的实验对于释放涉及大脑和大脑化学的特定部分很重要。动物测试对于开发新疗法也非常重要，对于确定药物是否可能对患者有效，因此适合临床试验至关重要。在这个项目中，我们旨在汇集与压力相关的生物学的两个方面，并检验一个新的假设。我们感兴趣的两个领域是：1。与压力相关的大脑结构的变化2。与压力相关的行为变化，例如动机的减少，愉悦的经验降低，冷漠和社交戒断。直到最近，对动物的研究主要集中在与压力相关的大脑结构变化上，而可用的行为测试几乎没有揭示这些与人类状况的关系。尽管对与压力相关疾病的基本生物学的研究集中在更分子和细胞方面，但临床研究最近一直在研究心理过程，以尝试为患者观察到的症状提供更好的解释。现在，我们已经开发了一种新方法来研究动物的情感行为，从而涉足相似的心理过程。现在，我们处于独特的位置，可以直接评估压力如何对大脑行为和结构变化的影响。我们预测我们的研究将表明，认知情感过程是影响行为的关键机制，而不是由于结构适应而产生的。我们还预测，与压力有关的疾病的症状，例如动机的减少，愉悦，冷漠和社交戒断的经验减少，实际上会导致大脑的结构变化。我们的研究有可能揭示与压力引起的负面情绪行为和大脑结构变化有关的神经心理学过程的重要因果关系。如果我们成功实现这一目标，那么这项工作的结果将对我们未来针对压力相关的状况的方式产生重大影响。它还将为不同类型的压力，持续时间以及对未来压力和情绪障碍的脆弱性的影响提供新的见解。因为我们的工作是在动物中，所以它也会影响我们在动物福利背景下考虑压力的方式。