Clinical trial NCT04324099: Investigating the Specificity of Neural Correlates for Emotion Processing Deficits in Conduct Disorder and Autism Spectrum Disorders
Official title: Investigating the Specificity of Neural Correlates for Emotion Processing Deficits in Conduct Disorder and Autism Spectrum Disorders
Study type: OBSERVATIONAL
Overall status: UNKNOWN
Conditions: Autism-Spectrum Disorder
Conduct Disorder
Keywords: Callous-Unemotional traits
emotion processing deficits
dysfunctional cognitive control processes
Lead sponsor: University Hospital, Basel, Switzerland
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: Swiss National Science Foundation
First posted: 2020-03-27
Enrollment: 120
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 10
Maximum age (years): 18
Standard ages: CHILD
ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Observational model: OTHER
Time perspective: CROSS_SECTIONAL
Sampling method: PROBABILITY_SAMPLE
Study population: German speaking children and adolescents (10-18 years of age) attended at the Kinder- und Jugendpsychiatrischen Klinik Basel (KJPK) and with a confirmed diagnosis of CD or ASD.

Typically developing children will be recruited using leaflets (will be distributed in the KJPK clinics and in socioeconomically diversesecondary schools within the Canton of Basel-Stadt).

Brief summary: This study is

1. to investigate the differential and shared neural underpinnings of facial emotion processing within Conduct disorder (CD) and Autism-Spectrum disorder (ASD) and
2. to investigate the interaction between deficits in emotion processing and dysfunctional cognitive control processes.

Differences in emotion processing and the underlying neural underpinnings of such differences will be assessed by means of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) without any contrast agent, combined with adapted emotion processing paradigms and eye tracking techniques.


Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* For all participants: age between 10 and 18 years and an intelligence quotient score of 70 or higher.
* For patient groups: confirmed clinical diagnoses according to Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM)-5 of CD or ASD (depending on the group), without comorbid depression or anxiety psychological disorders.

Exclusion Criteria:

* For all participants: low intelligence (IQ\<70, as they might otherwise not fully understand what they are expected to do inside the scanner), insufficient German language skills or any contraindications for MRI (e.g. pregnancy, any non-removable metal within the subjects' body, claustrophobia).
* For patient groups: severe developmental disorders, comorbid depressive and/or anxiety disorders will also be excluded from the study since it was shown that these patients might have problems in attention allocation under emotional stimulation.
* For typically developing participants: suspicion of an undiagnosed clinical disorder

Primary outcomes:
measure: difference between groups (children and adolescents with CD, ASD and typically developing adolescents) in neural activity
timeFrame: fMRI imaging Day 1
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Emotion processing task (fMRI)
timeFrame: fMRI imaging Day 1
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Basel
country: Switzerland
facility: Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, KJPK (UPK)
Study officials:
affiliation: Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, KJPK (UPK)
name: Christina Stadler, Prof. Dr. med
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References: