Abnormal emotional processing in maltreated children diagnosed of Complex Posttraumatic Stress Disorder |
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| Institution: | 1. Department of Psychiatry and Clinical Psychology, University and Polytechnic Hospital La Fe, Valencia, Spain;2. University of Southampton, UK;3. Institute of Psychiatry, London, UK;4. Department of Medicine, University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain;5. Neonatal Research Unit, Health Research Institute La Fe, Valencia, Spain;6. Department of Personality, Evaluation and Psychological Treatment, University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain;1. Washington University in St. Louis;2. Program in Neuroscience, Washington University in St. Louis;1. Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine, 401 Quarry Road, Palo Alto, 94305 CA, USA;2. Stanford Neurosciences Institute, Stanford University, 318 Campus Drive, Suite S170, Stanford 94305 CA, USA;3. Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Healthcare System, The Sierra Pacific Mental Illness, Research, Education, and Clinical Center (MIRECC), 3801 Miranda Avenue, Palo Alto, 94304 CA, USA;4. Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Medical University of Vienna, Währinger Gürtel 18-20, 1090 Vienna, Austria;1. Edinburgh Napier University, School of Health & Social Care, Edinburgh, UK;2. NHS Lothian, Rivers Centre for Traumatic Stress, Edinburgh, UK;3. Ulster University, School of Psychology, Derry, UK;4. National College of Ireland, School of Business, Dublin, Ireland;5. Psychology and Counselling Directorate, Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, Cardiff, UK;6. Cardiff University, School of Medicine, Cardiff, UK;7. University College London, Clinical, Education & Health Psychology, London, UK;8. New York University, School of Medicine, USA;9. National Center for PTSD, Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System, Palo Alto, CA, USA |
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| Abstract: | Maltreated children usually show a specific pattern of emotional and behavioral symptoms that exceed those relating to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). These symptoms have been defined as Complex PTSD (CPTSD). The underlying attentional mechanisms of abnormal emotional processing and their relation to the clinical presentation of CPTSD are not well understood. A visual dot-probe paradigm involving pre-attentive (i.e., 500 ms) and attentive (i.e., 1500 ms) presentation rates of neutral versus emotional (i.e., angry, happy or sad) facial expressions was applied. Twenty-one maltreated CPTSD children were compared with twenty-six controls. The results are as follows: an attention bias away from threatening faces and an attentional bias towards sad faces were observed in maltreated CPTSD children during pre-attentive and attentive processing. Whereas the attentional bias away from angry faces was associated with social problems, the attentional bias towards sad faces was associated with depressive and withdrawn symptoms. Therefore, CPTSD children develop maladaptive negative cognitive styles, which may underlie not only social problems (by a cognitive avoidance of threatening stimuli) but also depressive symptoms (by a cognitive approach to sad stimuli). Attention processing abnormalities should be considered as therapeutic targets for new treatment approaches in this population. |
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| Keywords: | Maltreatment Emotion regulation Attention bias Complex posttraumatic stress disorder Depression |
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