# Progressive social withdrawal in trauma-exposed older adolescents and young adults: neurocircuitry predictors

> **NIH NIH R01** · MCLEAN HOSPITAL · 2021 · $505,422

## Abstract

Social withdrawal is a transdiagnostic phenotype that is strongly associated with detrimental physical and
mental health outcomes across the lifespan. As quantified using structural features of individuals’ social
networks, social withdrawal is associated with 60-70% increased mortality and a threefold increase in suicide
risk. Recent findings document associations between trauma-related psychopathology and altered social
network structural features, including size, density, diversity, and embeddedness. Critically, because the
transition to adulthood (age 16-20) is a period of rapid expansion in social networks, forms of psychopathology
that produce social withdrawal may confer particular risk for poor outcomes during this developmental stage.
Thus, the transition to adulthood is a key developmental period for the evolution of social withdrawal in trauma-
exposed populations. Recent literature indicates that social reward processing may drive social network size
and complexity, but the role of disrupted social reward functioning in driving progressive social withdrawal
following trauma exposure is poorly understood. Using an innovative longitudinal design including digital
phenotyping of social behavior, the proposed study will investigate activity and connectivity within brain regions
that bidirectionally code for social approach and avoidance, including the basolateral amygdala (BLA),
ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC), and nucleus accumbens (NAcc). The hypothesis is that BLA-VMPFC-
NAcc functional connectivity will prospectively predict progressive social withdrawal during the transition to
adulthood following interpersonal trauma exposure. We will enroll 120 trauma-exposed participants (ages 16-
20) who endorse posttraumatic and/or depressive symptoms, and 60 healthy controls. Trauma-exposed
participants will be stratified for baseline self-reported social anhedonia. We obtain baseline social withdrawal
measures, including active self-reports of social interaction and passive smartphone based phenotyping of
activity via accelerometer, GPS, and call/text metadata. Participants will complete an fMRI scan to obtain
measures of BLA-VMPFC-NAcc connectivity, followed by one year of digital phenotyping using active and
passive data to measure social withdrawal. Based on our extensive preliminary data, we hypothesize that: 1)
baseline social withdrawal will be associated with baseline BLA-VMPFC-NAcc connectivity; (2) baseline BLA-
VMPFC-NAcc connectivity will prospectively predict progressive social withdrawal over the course of a 12-
month follow-up; (3) predictive models of social withdrawal that include BLA-VMPFC-NAcc connectivity will
outperform alternate models. The proposed integrated approach (fMRI, digital phenotyping)
will identify specific
circuitry associated with progressive social withdrawal during the transition to adulthood, and will develop
predictive algorithms that forecast social withdrawal trajectories based on baseline connec...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10360875
- **Project number:** 1R01MH125852-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** MCLEAN HOSPITAL
- **Principal Investigator:** ELIZABETH OLSON
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $505,422
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2021-09-20 → 2026-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10360875

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10360875, Progressive social withdrawal in trauma-exposed older adolescents and young adults: neurocircuitry predictors (1R01MH125852-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-06-11 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10360875. Licensed CC0.

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