Grant: Doctoral Award - Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarships

Childhood Disruptive Behaviour Disorders (DBD) have onset early in development and are a robust predictor of chronic and severe mental illness in adolescence and adulthood. Although high prevalence, referral-rates, and negative outcomes signal great need, current treatment approaches are inadequate, with recent data estimating that approximately 25 - 40% of children continue to experience clinically significant symptoms and behavioral and emotional dysregulation following treatment completion. Emerging research suggests that heterogeneity (i.e., diversity) in the factors that contribute to a child's DBD, including their neurobiology and clinical dimensions such as emotion dysregulation, are important factors that may influence treatment effectiveness. Novel approaches that distill heterogeneity are necessary to improve treatment precision and outcomes. My proposed doctoral dissertation consists of three studies with the overall objective of identifying biomarkers of emotion dysregulation in children with DBD to inform novel targets for intervention. These studies include, 1) a systematic review to identify and classify neural correlates of emotion dysregulation in children with DBD. 2) Analysing existing data from an ongoing neuroimaging study to identify biomarkers (i.e., brain structure) of emotion dysregulation in children with DBD. 3) A randomized and controlled micro-trial (RCT) to test whether treatment non-responders benefit from a brief intervention that targets their emotion regulation and distress tolerance skills. These studies will pave the way for novel assessment practices and treatment innovation by bridging and integrating biological, psychological, and clinical perspectives.