Research

We are interested in risk and resilience across a range of common childhood disorders.

Research into developmental risk and resilience has scope to inform professionals and policy makers in ways that will improve lives of children and families. Our work adopts an interdisciplinary research strategy that combines cognitive experimental, twin-model-fitting, fMRI, MRI and genotyping methods and can be thought of within two main themes.

Complex trauma and mental health

It is now well established that childhood adversity is a key risk factor for poor outcomes later in life – from an increased risk of mental health problems, to lower economic productivity. Yet many of these effects are not immediately evident nor do they characterise all children who experience early adversity. This suggests that for some children early adverse experiences ‘get under the skin’ in ways that can embed long-term vulnerability. How and why does this happen? In 2015, we introduced the concept of “Latent Vulnerability”. According to this theory, children show patterns of psychological and biological adaptations to early chaotic, unpredictable or violent home or community settings in ways that help them survive and cope. However, these adaptations may not be helpful when they go out into the world to make friends, learn and develop as adults. More recently we have been exploring the way in which these adaptations impact social functioning. Our current work focusses on how neurocognitive alterations within multiple brain systems following trauma can singly and collectively influence how an individual interacts with, and shapes, their social world (McCrory et al., 2022). These alterations can contribute to the construction of a social architecture characterised by increased stressful interactions (‘Stress generation’) and attenuated social support (‘Social Thinning'; McCrory, 2020), which in turn contribute to increased latent vulnerability for psychiatric disorder. This socially mediated risk is distal, dynamic, and autocatalytic, accrues over time, and can be understood to operate alongside the proximal neurocognitive risk mechanisms within the child.

Below is a short animation on Childhood Trauma and the Brain that we have created for the UK Trauma Council that summarises what we know about this topic.

Our empirical work has demonstrated how exposure to maltreatment leads to functional and structural changes in the brain. For example, we have shown that physical abuse and domestic violence leads to heightened reactivity in 'threat' related circuitry, including the amygdala and anterior insula (McCrory et al, 2011; McCrory et al, 2018). This may represent a form of ‘adaptation’ to early risk environments. However, heightened responsiveness of such brain structures to threat could also constitute a latent neural risk factor that predisposes to later mental health problems. At the individual level, for example, it may make it more difficult for individuals to cope with future stressors. At the interpersonal level, it may increase the risk of conflictual interactions, including with peers. These direct and indirect (socially mediated pathways) may contribute to mental health risk over time (McCrory et al, 2022).

We have also carried out research investigating how reward, autobiographical and trust processing are impacted by exposure to complex trauma – and how alterations in these systems may contribute to mental health vulnerability.

Our work points to the importance of helping to foster trusted stable relationships following complex trauma, and explicitly addressing the intra- and inter- personal processes that can derail such relationships (McCrory et al, 2022). Our longer-term is to innovate new approaches to prevention, improving our ability to intervene early to prevent disorders before they emerge.

Development of disruptive and antisocial behaviour

Disruptive and antisocial behaviour in children and adolescents has considerable individual and societal costs and constitutes the most common reason for referral to child mental health and educational services. These behaviours are associated with poor mental and physical health, as well as educational and employment outcomes later in life, and in the worst case incarceration.

Our programme of research has focused on studying the origins of disruptive and antisocial behaviour. Specifically, we have been interested in the role of callous-unemotional traits in defining distinct subgroups of children and young people with these behaviours. Our work using twin study, experimental, and neuroimaging methodologies has provided converging evidence that high levels of callous-unemotional traits characterise a group of children and young people who appear distinct from peers who also display disruptive and antisocial behaviour, but who have lower levels of callous-unemotional traits.

Our research with 7-year-old twins was the first to demonstrate that antisocial behaviour with high levels of callous-unemotional traits is strongly heritable, whereas antisocial behaviour with lower levels of callous-unemotional traits is not (Viding et al, 2005). This does not mean that children with high levels of callous-unemotional traits are destined to become antisocial, but it does indicate that they have a genetic vulnerability to develop disruptive behaviour. Knowing how vulnerable children develop over time, and what protective factors can influence the direction of the development, will be important if we want to help these children and their families. Such help is likely to involve behavioural interventions for the children and the families. An important research direction of our group has been to use genetically informed designs to examine the nature of parenting risk for development of callous-unemotional traits and antisocial behaviour (e.g. Viding et al, 2009; Pezzoli et al, 2024).

We have also conducted systematic experimental research into how children and young people with antisocial and disruptive behaviour see the world around them. We have demonstrated that those with disruptive behaviour and high CU traits have difficulty in resontating with other people’s emotions (e.g. Jones et al, 2010). Although they can understand what other people think, they tend to feel less empathy for other people’s distress. By contrast children with disruptive behaviour and low levels of callous-unemotional traits appear, if anything, over reactive to emotional stimuli and often have trouble regulating their emotions. We can also see this at the neural level (Viding et al, 2012). Disruptive behaviour with high callous-unemotional traits is associated with lower brain activity in emotion processing areas (e.g. amygdala) compared with typically developing children. Those who have disruptive behaviour and low levels of callous-unemotional traits have the opposite pattern of brain activity; they look ‘overactive’ compared to typically developing children.

Recently we have become equally interested in how children with disruptive and antisocial behaviour process positive affect and what underlies their reduced inclination to behave prosocially (Viding & McCrory, 2019). Through this research we hope to better understand why some of these children do not show the typical need to form close bonds and please other people. Our findings suggests that children with disruptive and antisocial behaviour differ from typically developing peers in their likelihood to make prosocial choices, and that those with high levels of callous-unemotional traits are also less willing to make effort for others (Gaule et al, 2024).

Our genetically informed and experimental lines of research are both important for informing our understanding of the complex interplay between the individual and their social world, something that we have termed the study of the 'embedded brain'. Our work has highlighted that children with disruptive and antisocial behaviour are not all the same. This means that clinicians, educators and parents may have to consider some different tactics for children with high vs. low levels of callous-unemotional traits. As we proceed systematically with our work, we hope to gain an ever more nuanced picture of what puts children at risk and what protects them from developing antisocial behaviour.

Building resilience

Adolescence is a period of heightened vulnerability to developing mental health problems. Rates of mental health disorder in this age group have increased in the last decade. It is striking how few resources have been invested in advancing our understanding of how to effectively prevent mental health problems developing before they become entrenched, particularly in adolescents who are at high risk. Increasingly, researchers and clinicians are recognising that a new approach is needed, focusing on transdiagnostic mechanisms implicated in vulnerability to developing mental health problems.

We are currently conducting a study into a school based intervention, ReSet, funded by the UKRI, that targets two fundamental types of mechanisms implicated in risk for adolescent mental health problems: the ability to process and regulate emotions on the one hand, and the quality of social relationships on the other (Viding et al, 2024). These intra- and inter-individual mechanisms have often been studied in isolation by scientists from different disciplines (e.g., cognitive psychology versus social science) and the close interplay between them has not been mechanistically investigated or systematically exploited in the context of prevention science. Essentially, we can think of this approach as building a general mental health and wellbeing toolkit, not targeting specific disorders, but instead focusing on building skills that promote resilience. The intervention has been co-produced with young people (Lloyd et al, 2024) and we will be reporting findings from this study once it concludes.

Funding sources

Our research is funded by the UKRI, ESRC, MRC, Royal Society, NSPCC and Anna Freud.

Current research projects

To read more about our current research projects, click on one of the logos below:

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