Neural Manifestations following Childhood Sexual Abuse: Clinical Implications for Anhedonic Survivors

• Applicant: Pia Pechtel, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Personality Psychology, Clinical and Medical Psychology, Methodology
• Term: from 2008 to 2013
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 113950315

Overall the proposed research intends to explore brain mechanisms, behavioural expression, and clinical implications of impaired incentive responsiveness to highlight the specific role of anhedonia. A direct link between chronic stress and anhedonia will be established to improve our understanding of the neural bases of dysfunctions of brain reward systems as well as its accompanying impact on responsiveness to reward and error feedback. Finally, my proposed programme of research will explore whether maladaptive coping represents a specific behavioural manifestation of the described brain-behaviour interrelationships with an inability to modulate maladaptive behaviour as a function of the experienced reinforcement history. By varying the type of reward task it might be possible to highlight potential impediments to treatment benefits, as adults may even be resistant to personal feedback (moral incentive) under activation of past stressors (abuse-related stimuli). Such a failure to facilitate and maintain behavioural change is a barrier to current best-practice CBT models of psychotherapy for adults with a history of maltreatment. Results of this research will be published in international journals and findings will be presented at relevant German institutions during the course of the project.

• DFG Programme: Research Fellowships
• International Connection: USA
• Host: Professor Diego Pizzagalli, Ph.D.