# Testing Developmental Mechanisms of Personality Impairment in Youth

> **NIH NIH R01** · PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV HERSHEY MED CTR · 2024 · $849,548

## Abstract

Project Summary
 Personality disorders are complex and debilitating disorders associated with profound risk for suicide and
substantial cost related to long-term intensive care, emergency room visits, and psychiatric hospitalizations.
Although traditionally diagnosed only in adults, emerging risk for personality pathology can be reliably assessed
in early adolescence. The level of personality functioning (LPF) is a dimensional measure of personality
pathology that predicts the development of personality disorders across the lifespan and contributes to long-term
dysfunction beyond the effects of other clinical concerns, such as anxiety, depression, attention-
deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and conduct problems. LPF refers to the degree of disturbance in self (i.e., identity)
and other (i.e., interpersonal) functioning, and as a dimensional measure, is sensitive to the individual differences
in emerging identity and interpersonal development in early adolescence. Yet very little research has examined
neurophysiological mechanisms of LPF in youth, missing critical early opportunities to target youth at risk for
some of the most stigmatized and costly conditions. Deficits in the NIMH RDoC constructs of Attachment and
Affiliation and Understanding of Self may underlie impaired LPF. At the self-report level, impaired LPF is
associated with difficulty modulating responses to social acceptance cues and accurately encoding self-relevant
information. However, examining these processes at the neural level, which is not confounded by lack of insight
or other demand characteristics, may more clearly elucidate processes underlying impaired LPF. Individual
differences in processing social acceptance cues and self-referential information can be reliably detected at the
neural level using event-related potentials (ERPs), but have not been applied to understanding personality
disorders in youth. For this work, a sample of 240 early adolescent youth (ages 10-13, 50% female) will be
recruited, the majority (n=180) from two clinically diverse outpatient psychiatry clinics, while the remaining (n=80)
youth will be comparison youth without a history of psychopathology. Neurophysiological assessments of social
acceptance processing and self-referential processing will be administered, and will be tested as predictors of
growth in LPF impairment measured over two years. LPF will be assessed using behavioral observations of
parent and peer interactions and through daily ecological momentary assessment (EMA) collected over two
years. Additionally, the effect of LPF on clinical indicators, including functional impairment, suicidality, and
treatment use, will be tested, considering other key clinical concerns, including maladaptive traits, co-occurring
mental health disorders, substance use, and sociodemographic and developmental factors. Results from this
work will provide evidence to elucidate treatment targets to mitigate the long-term personal and societal burden
associ...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10801548
- **Project number:** 1R01MH132620-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV HERSHEY MED CTR
- **Principal Investigator:** Dara E Babinski
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $849,548
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2024-02-09 → 2028-11-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10801548

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10801548, Testing Developmental Mechanisms of Personality Impairment in Youth (1R01MH132620-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10801548. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*