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Fear conditioned responses and PTSD symptoms in children: Sex differences in fear‐related symptoms
Author(s) -
Gamwell Kaitlyn,
Nylocks Maria,
Cross Dorthie,
Bradley Bekh,
Norrholm Seth D.,
Jovanovic Tanja
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
developmental psychobiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.055
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1098-2302
pISSN - 0012-1630
DOI - 10.1002/dev.21313
Subject(s) - psychology , psychopathology , fear conditioning , conditioning , clinical psychology , population , anxiety disorder , posttraumatic stress , poison control , injury prevention , psychiatry , anxiety , medicine , medical emergency , statistics , mathematics , environmental health
Fear conditioning studies in adults have found that posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is associated with heightened fear responses and impaired discrimination. The objective of the current study was to examine the association between PTSD symptoms and fear conditioned responses in children from a highly traumatized urban population. Children between 8 and 13 years old participated in a fear conditioning study in addition to providing information about their trauma history and PTSD symptoms. Results showed that females showed less discrimination between danger and safety signals during conditioning compared to age‐matched males. In boys, intrusive symptoms were predictive of fear responses, even after controlling for trauma exposure. However, in girls, conditioned fear to the danger cue was predictive of self‐blame and fear of repeated trauma. This study suggests there are early sex differences in the patterns of fear conditioning and that these sex differences may translate to differential risk for trauma‐related psychopathology. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc . Dev Psychobiol 57: 799–808, 2015.