Huvudhandledare:

Dr. Anette Johansson, docent

Institution klinisk neurovetenskap, Karolinska Institutet

Bihandledare:

Petri Laukka, professor

Institutionen för psykologi, Uppsala universitet

 

Lennart Högman, universitetslektor

Psykologiska institutionen, Stockholms universitet

 

Märta Wallinius, docent i rättspsykiatri

Avdelningen för Psykiatri, Institutionen för Kliniska Vetenskaper Lund, Lunds universitet

 

Kort beskrivning av forskningsprojektet:

The overarching objective of the doctoral project is to examine interrelationships between adverse childhood experiences, emotion recognition, psychopathic traits, autonomic arousal, social cognition, and aggression in PSD. To do this, we examine three groups: group i) individuals with PSD who have history of interpersonal aggression (n=78-84); group ii) individuals with PSD and no history of interpersonal aggression (n=72), and group iii) community- based comparison group without a self-reported history of interpersonal aggression (n=86).

Following four studies conducted as part of the Stockholm Forensic Psychiatry Project aim to provide the findings that may clarify underlaying mechanisms of the studied topic:

Study 1 examines misclassifications of emotion valence, of emotions in different modalities, as well as semantic confusion of meaning between fear, anger and sadness. We hypothesize that misclassifications are greatest in the PSD+aggression, intermediate in the PSD-aggression and lowest in HC. The specific methods include creating a matrix between all emotions based on raw results from ERAM, examining the relationships between misclassifications for each modality as well as examining misclassifications across valence of emotions, with regard to intensity of emotion. Misclassification based on semantic confusion is reexamined with respect to performance on the 14-item synonym test of emotion words. Statistical methods include Chi square test between PSD-groups and between all 3 studied groups. Parametric or non-parametric test as appropriate, will be used to examine to contributions of semantic confusion on the most common misattributions of emotions.

Study 2 examines relations between adverse childhood experiences (ACE), social cognition and emotion recognition accuracy. We hypothesize that ACE are more severe and greater in types in PSD+aggression, intermediate in PSD- aggression, and least common in HC. We also hypothesize that associations between the number of moderate-to- severe ACE and impaired social cognition and lower emotion recognition accuracy occur across all 3 studied groups. The specific methods include examining of ACE variables (7 variables assessed by CECA) separately, with respect to overall accuracy of emotion recognition (assessed by ERAM), and perceptive and cognitive social cognition (assessed by DMASC-MC), as well as creating the exposome score summing the number of moderate-to-severe scores or each of 7 variables in CECA, resulting in a total score between 0 and 7 for each participant. Statistical methods include regression analyses conducted in order to examine differences between the studied groups accounting for exposome score, scaled scores on WAIS subtests, psychomotor speed, and if relevant, antipsychotic dose/day.

Study 3 examines relations between autonomic arousal during the emotion recognition test, self-rated psychopathic traits and prior aggression in PSD. We hypothesize that there will be a lower degree of arousal to negative valence emotions, as measured by skin conductance and heart rate, associated with higher scores on Triarchic Psychopathy Measure (TriPM) in PSD+aggression than in PSD-aggression and HC. Specific methods include standardized processing of skin conductance and heart rate data as recorded by Biopac then summing and averaging periods of positive/negative valence emotions. These are then examined with respect for all 3 studied groups while accounting for antipsychotic dose/day and type of antipsychotic. Scores for callousness, disinhibition and boldness (TriPM), as well as overall TriPM score, are examined with respect to group and autonomic arousal, comparing emotional valence arousal with that of negative valence and overall arousal. Statistical methods include parametric/non-parametric multivariable data analyses, such as ANOVA or Kruskal-Wallis.

Using network analysis, Study 4 aims to elucidate relationships between relevant adverse childhood experiences, the exposome scores, TriPM scores, emotion recognition and social cognition accuracy, autonomic arousal and confounding variables in PSD+/-aggression, and thereby shed new light on what factors, if any, can predominantly account for a history of aggression in individuals with PSD and lead to new hypotheses to be tested in PSD groups. Methodology includes network analyses performed on the data processing and results obtained from Study 1-3.

 

Anmälan

Anmäl dig per e-post till Hanna Eriksson