Project Summary

Marco Battaglia, M.D., (Independent Investigator 2006) of San Raffaele University, will seek to identify children at risk of developing Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD), the third most common psychiatric disorder in the U.S., and the most common anxiety disorder. Data shows that SAD is often preceded in childhood by behavioral inhibition and social shyness. Studies of adults with SAD and children with social shyness show similarities in that both show biased responses to emotional stimuli of social relevance, such as standardized pictures of facial expressions of emotions. Little is known about the degree of continuity between the brain phenomena involved in facial expressions’ processing and those influencing shyness, and nothing about the mediation of genetic and neurofunctional mechanisms which bridge childhood shyness to adulthood Social Phobia. Dr. Battaglia will use functional magnetic imaging (fMRI) to measure the neural activation of children in response to simple social stimuli such as facial expressions of emotions at two points in time (age 12 and age 14) and will assess the children’s status on multilevel (behavioral, genetic neurophysiological) indicators of risk. He expects to identify patterns of response of the amygdala and of selected cortical regions which mark specifically the children at heightened risk for SAD, which would allow for early diagnosis and prevention of SAD.

Program Area: ANXIETY DISORDERS\Social Phobia

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