Multimodal characterization of affective visual processing in the early aftermath of trauma

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Understanding the neurobiology mediating susceptibility to trauma and stress-related disorders is necessary for future translational efforts to improve treatment and prevention. This Mentored Career Development Award proposal is tailored to facilitate the candidate’s training in multimodal assessment of brain and behavior, in addition to clinical assessment and computational psychiatry approaches, to elucidate the neurobiology of susceptibility to posttraumatic dysfunction. The proposed research training plan will build the candidate’s skills in multidimensional assessment of perceptual (i.e., visual) processing in the early aftermath of trauma, advanced computational modeling of behavioral processes, and ‘big-data’ modeling approaches for fusion of multimodal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data. This training is complemented by mentored training in clinical assessment of trauma-related dysfunction and research program management necessary for transition to an independent career as a translational neuroscientist. The completion of the K01 will facilitate the candidate’s transition to an independent investigator capable of developing new neuroscience-based predictive models and preventative strategies to lessen the burden of trauma and stress-related disorders. PTSD is typically conceptualized as a dysfunction of arousal and negative valence systems with the NIH Research Domain Criteria framework. However, new research demonstrates that neural circuitry of affective visual perceptual processing, in particular affective visual processing, may be a significant risk factor for PTSD. Limited work to date has probed affective visual circuitry in the early aftermath of trauma. The proposed research will leverage state-of-the-art MRI data collection and analysis with computational cognitive neuroscience approaches to elucidate impacts of trauma on affective visual processing. The project will thus better characterize an understudied aspect of the RDoC perceptual framework in trauma to integrate visual circuitry variability in both threat-related processes and PTSD-related dysfunction. Previous research in recently traumatized individuals has also not leveraged multimodal data approaches to establish generalizable markers of PTSD susceptibility. This project will address these limitations by focusing on perceptual circuits and by integrating pre-existing large datasets of trauma and PTSD with multimodal data fusion analytics to assess the robustness of observed neurobiological signatures of trauma-related dysfunction vulnerability. Further, the proposal seeks to use standardized, open processing pipelines to enhance reproducibility and replicability of observed findings to promote generalizability. The research training plan will occur at McLean Hospital, the leading psychiatric research hospital of Harvard Medical School. The institution, and academic culture in greater Boston provides an outstanding environment and access to resources for successful competition of this proposed Mentored Career Development Award.