Traumatic events are common: over 70% of the population worldwide report at least one, and over 40% report four or more such experiences.

Importance

Exposure to trauma is a major risk factor for multiple mental disorders including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), major depression, and generalized anxiety disorder, which are among the leading causes of disability worldwide and pose a tremendous burden on individuals and society. There is a pressing need to uncover the psychological and neural mechanisms of trauma-related psychopathology, in order to improve the limited efficiency of current interventions.

Objectives

The present project uses a multi-method (fMRI and EMA) approach to ER and empathy in recent trauma-exposed individuals, in order to uncover markers of prospective vulnerability to PTSD.

Objective 1. Investigate differences in neural activity during emotion regulation and empathy between individuals exposed to recent trauma and non-exposed controls.

Objective 2. Investigate trauma-related differences in emotion regulation and empathy processes in daily life.

Objective 3. Investigate the mechanistic involvement of trauma-related neural and behavioral differences in emotion regulation and empathy in the development of prospective symptoms of PTSD.

Progress

Project is currently in Stage 1 development. See more details about each stage below.

Stage 1. Recruitment and initial clinical assessment

Activities related to participant recruitment and the initial clinical assessment, laying the groundwork. Milestone: reaching the target sample of trauma-exposed (n = 200) and trauma non-exposed (n = 100) participants.

Stage 2. Experimental fMRI session

Assessing ER, empathy and ToM using experimental tasks in the fMRI. Milestones: scanning all participants; and having a complete set of results on neural differences.

Stage 3. EMA assessment

Activities focused on assessing ER and empathy in daily life social interactions using EMA. Milestones: successfully collecting EMA data with high (e.g., > 80%) response rate; analyzing the EMA data.

Stage 4. Follow-up assessment

Activities focused on assessing ER and empathy in daily life social interactions using EMA. Milestones: successfully collecting EMA data with high (e.g., > 80%) response rate; analyzing the EMA data.

Stage 4. Dissemination

Activities focused on dissemination of results: project website; periodic reports to funding agency; conference presentations, and manuscripts submitted for publication.

Research Team

Professor Philipp Kanske, Ph.D. (PI), Professor Andrei C. Miu, Ph.D. (PI)

Professor Aurora Szentágotai-Tătar, Ph.D.
Diana Nechita, Ph. D.
Lia-Ecaterina Oltean, Ph. D.
Radu Șoflău, Ph. D.
Ruben Nechifor, Ph. D.
Diana Căzănescu, Ph. D.
Maria Petrescu, Ph. D.
Simina Pițur, Ph. D. student
Andrei Patrichi, Ph. D. student
Raluca Rîmbu, Ph. D. student
Andra Vlaicu, Ph. D. student

Participate

If you are between 18–65 years old and have recently gone through a traumatic event, you may be eligible* to participate in this study. Fill out the registration form and a member of our research team will contact you as soon as possible.

Registration form

*Certain stages of the study will require physical presence at the laboratory. For this reason, the study is addressed only to people who live in, or can travel to, the city of Cluj-Napoca.