fMRI, Neural Patterns & the Etiology of Irritability - the YAY Lab at Yale School Of Medicine
March 11, 2025Information
- ID
- 12859
- To Cite
- DCA Citation Guide
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.