Background: Early life assaultive violence exposure is a potent risk factor for PTSD and other mood and anxiety disorders. Neurocircuitry models posit that increased risk is mediated by heightened emotion processing in a salience network including dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, anterior insula, and amygdala. However, the processes of reinforcement learning (RL) also engage the salience network and are implicated in responses to early life trauma and PTSD. To define their relative roles in response to early life trauma and PTSD symptoms, the current study compared engagement of the salience network during emotion processing and reinforcement learning as a function of early life assault exposure.Methods: Adolescent girls (n=30 physically or sexually assaulted; n = 30 healthy comparison) aged 11-17 completed two tasks during fMRI: a facial emotion processing task and RL tasks using either social or non-social stimuli. Independent component analysis was used to identify a salience network and characterize its engagement in response to emotion processing and prediction error (PE) encoding during the RL tasks.Results: Assault was related to greater reactivity of the salience network during emotion processing. By contrast, we found that assaulted girls demonstrated lesser encoding of negative PEs in the salience network, particularly during the social RL tasks. The dysfunction of salience network activity during emotion processing and PE encoding was not associated with PTSD symptoms. Conclusions:These results suggest that hyper-vs hypo-activity of the salience network among trauma-exposed youth depends on the cognitive-affective domain.

Objective: Sensory over-responsivity is characterized by challenges in integrating and responding to everyday sensory experiences (SOR). Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is characterized by intrusive thoughts, ritualistic behaviors, and sensory phenomena. There is some evidence that individuals with co-occurring symptoms of SOR and OCD experience more severe anxiety than those with symptoms of OCD alone, but most studies employ small numbers of participants (typically with an OCD diagnosis) assessed at a single time point. Our twofold objective was to replicate previous research showing an association between OCD symptoms and sensory over-responsivity symptoms concurrently, and to extend these analyses longitudinally in a large, birth-register based sample. Method: Twins (N=1,613) and their primary caregivers participated in a multi-modal, multimethod, longitudinal study. Primary caregivers completed the Sensory Over-responsivity Inventory for their offspring at age 8 years and twins completed the Adult Sensory Profile at age 13 years. Parents completed the OCD module of the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children-IV when twins were age 8 years; twins completed the same module at age 13 years. Linear regression models tested for the concurrent and longitudinal associations between SOR and OCD controlling for socioeconomic status. Results: Concurrently, participants' likelihood of exhibiting OCD symptoms increased with each symptom of tactile or auditory over-responsivity both ages 8 years and 13 years (OR=1.1-2.7). However, sensory over-responsivity measured at age 8 years was unrelated to adolescent OCD symptoms at age 13 years and vice versa. Conclusion: SOR symptoms, while significantly related to concurrent OCD symptoms, do not appear to precede OCD symptoms, suggesting that SOR symptoms may reflect another type of OCD sensory phenomenon rather than a comorbid condition.

Trauma research has traditionally focused on altered emotion regulation and its role in psychopathology, whereas mechanisms of social behavior remain comparatively unexplored, particularly among adolescents. It has been previously reported that adolescents with histories of interpersonal violence (IV) demonstrate disrupted social learning, and the degree to which they are impaired during social interactions requiring trustful behaviors may be associated with their levels of anxiety. In the present study, 52 adolescent females ( n = 26 control; n = 26 IV-exposed) between ages of 11 and 17 completed a multi-round adaptation of the Trust Game in which they interacted with a confederate peer run by a computer program, alternating between the roles of investor and investee. The task was designed to operationalize the social behaviors of trust and trust reciprocity, where the magnitude of the participants’ monetary investment in the confederate during the investor role represented trust while the proportion of investment returned to the confederate in the investee role represented trust reciprocity. IV-exposed and control participants did not differ in trust (i.e., as investors); however, IV-exposed participants without anxiety diagnoses demonstrated lower trust than those with anxiety diagnoses. For trust reciprocity (i.e., as investees), there were again no differences between IV-exposed participants and controls; however, IV-exposed participants with anxiety diagnoses had increased trust reciprocity compared with both other groups. Similarly, caregiver-reported anxiety symptoms were associated with trust reciprocity behaviors among the IV-exposed adolescents. Findings suggest that IV exposure and associated anxiety impacts adolescents’ trust behaviors, demonstrating potential mechanisms for maladaptive social behavior among trauma-exposed youth.

Summary Motivational interviewing is an evidence-based practice designed to collaboratively strengthen a person’s commitment to change. Used in a wide variety of practice settings, motivational interviewing is recommended for use with individuals who are at risk of sex trafficking when discussing sex trading or relationships with potential traffickers. However, little is known about the uses of motivational interviewing with this population in practice. The current study examined whether and how social workers who encounter individuals at risk of sex trafficking use motivational interviewing. We explored perceptions of motivational interviewing use, applicability, and engagement practices by conducting in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 24 hour service providers in a Midwest region. Findings Practitioners discussed a wide variety of perceptions of motivational interviewing, ranging from completely unfamiliar, to inapplicable to their service population, to favoring its use. Those who did implement motivational interviewing described challenges to engagement with this population and provided examples in which they did not validate the clients’ perceived benefits of situations that enhanced their risk, a principal tenant of motivational interviewing. Such actions may have contributed to practitioner-client discord and ultimately reduced clients’ engagement. Applications Providers who encounter sex trafficking in practice should be trained in the use of motivational interviewing and applicability, specifically regarding how to validate the client’s internal arguments for and against sex trading and related behaviors. Future research should continue to understand whether and how motivational interviewing can be adapted for transient populations, and continue testing the efficacy of motivational interviewing with these populations.