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Abstract
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An impaired ability to regulate one's emotions, known as emotional dysregulation (ED), has been described in youth in a transdiagnostic manner in the context of several psychopathological conditions. While there is a large amount of evidence about the neurofunctional correlates of ED in these conditions considered individually, but only recently the need to investigate such correlates by exploring basic transdiagnostic dimensions of functioning, including ED, has been emphasized. Aim of the study was to evaluate the presence of functional alterations affecting brain circuits underlying emotion processing in a clinical sample of children and adolescents with ED compared to a group of clinical controls. A total number 30 participants aged 11 - 18 years with cognitive functioning in the normal range have been enrolled at the Developmental Psychiatry and Psychopharmacology Unit of the IRCCS Stella Maris Foundation Hospital, including 20 clinical patients and 10 healthy controls. Each participant underwent a full clinical evaluation encompassing a battery of standardized questionnaires and clinical interview in order to confirm the psychiatric diagnosis and characterize the psychopathological, neuropsychological and personological profile as well as the clinical features of ED. They also underwent an fMRI scan session during a naturalistic stimulation paradigm based on the passive view of a short, animated movie, specifically selected in order to elicit a variety of emotional experiences in the participants. Additionally, an independent cohort of 30 healthy adolescents from the general population have been enrolled through recruitment at local schools with the aim to obtain ratings of the affective contents experienced while watching the same animated film. MRI data have been preprocessed with AFNI software. Group and dimensional analyses will be conducted in the next few months.
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