Underneath the hoodie: Neuroimaging studies of disruptive behaviour disorders Seminar

This talk is part of the Psychology Postgraduate Conference .

Adolescents with disruptive behaviour disorders commit a disproportionate amount of all criminal offences, with this group committing around 50% of all recorded offences.  This group also places a significant burden on society, as it costs society 10 times as much to raise them to adulthood as children without conduct problems.  Most research on disruptive behaviour disorders has focused on family processes such as ineffective parenting or maltreatment, but there is an increasing recognition that genetic and neurobiological factors may play a role in the aetiology of these conditions.  In this presentation, I will describe recent work from our laboratory investigating neuropsychological function and changes in brain structure and function in adolescents with disruptive behaviour disorders.  These individuals show difficulties in recognising negatively-valenced facial expressions and learning from punishment, and are less sensitive to the prospect of receiving negative outcomes when making decisions or taking risks.  They also show reductions in amygdala, anterior insula, and prefrontal cortex grey matter volume, and altered patterns of activity in these structures when processing facial expressions or making decisions.  I will discuss the implications of this research for theories that seek to explain the development of antisocial behaviour, and clinical practice with adolescents with disruptive behaviour disorders.  Finally, I will consider the strengths and limitations of using brain imaging techniques to try to understand complex psychiatric disorders.