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fMRI, Neural Patterns & the Etiology of Irritability - the YAY Lab at Yale School Of Medicine

March 11, 2025
ID
12859

Transcript

  • 00:05We see chronic irritability
  • 00:07affect
  • 00:08many aspects of the kid's
  • 00:10life.
  • 00:11And we have also seen
  • 00:12that, irritability
  • 00:14seem to be among the
  • 00:15top reason
  • 00:16for why kids were referred
  • 00:18to the clinic and mental
  • 00:19health services.
  • 00:21And research has also shown
  • 00:23that
  • 00:24irritability
  • 00:25in early childhood
  • 00:26seemed to be a robust
  • 00:27predictor for later negative outcomes.
  • 00:30So this include anxiety, depression,
  • 00:33suicidality.
  • 00:38My research focuses on, irritability,
  • 00:41anger, and aggression in children
  • 00:43and adolescents.
  • 00:44So these are the kids
  • 00:45who
  • 00:46have low frustration tolerance.
  • 00:48Any little things can easily
  • 00:50set them off, and they
  • 00:51often have frequent,
  • 00:53severe
  • 00:54dysregulated
  • 00:55temporal bursts.
  • 01:00In our lab, fMRI is
  • 01:02one of the main component
  • 01:04in the sense that we
  • 01:05wanted to better understand,
  • 01:07what goes on in kids
  • 01:09with irritability
  • 01:11sprain.
  • 01:11So we have them
  • 01:13come into the lab, and
  • 01:15then we put them inside
  • 01:16the MRI scanner.
  • 01:18And we have them play
  • 01:19some games
  • 01:20that are designed to frustrate
  • 01:21them so that we can
  • 01:23see
  • 01:24how their brain respond and
  • 01:26what are the different
  • 01:28areas that are activated
  • 01:30and how do the different
  • 01:31brain region communicate, talk to
  • 01:33each others
  • 01:34while kids are experiencing
  • 01:36frustration
  • 01:37and trying to regulate frustration
  • 01:39inside the scanner in real
  • 01:41time.
  • 01:42In the new studies that
  • 01:43we are launching,
  • 01:45we invite the parent and
  • 01:47the child to our lab
  • 01:49and have them do some
  • 01:50sort of interaction task,
  • 01:52and we wanted to see
  • 01:54how the child's frustration
  • 01:56manifest
  • 01:57in their physiology.
  • 02:02Given the severity and the
  • 02:04impairment that these kids experience,
  • 02:07surprisingly, there's very little treatment
  • 02:09options for them, especially treatment
  • 02:12that's specifically designed to target
  • 02:14irritability.
  • 02:16So with the fMRI study,
  • 02:18what we're hoping to do
  • 02:19is to identify some
  • 02:21neuro signatures,
  • 02:22so neural markers.
  • 02:24So this could be, how
  • 02:26the different brain regions
  • 02:28activate
  • 02:28or how they communicate with
  • 02:30each other
  • 02:31and take these neural markers
  • 02:34and then treat them like
  • 02:35a target.
  • 02:36And so if we can
  • 02:38move those neural targets targets
  • 02:40using some sort of,
  • 02:42therapeutics,
  • 02:43this could be behavioral therapy,
  • 02:45psychotherapy,
  • 02:46or,
  • 02:48pharmacological
  • 02:49therapy, we might be able
  • 02:50to see the downstream changes
  • 02:52in terms of reduction in
  • 02:54irritability
  • 02:54symptoms.