Characterising neural activation and functional connectivity differences between resilient and non-resilient young people

Despite exposure to extreme adversity or trauma, many individuals are able to maintain positive mental health and successfully adapt to cope in these situations. Researchers have highlighted the importance of understanding resilience to improve our understanding of mental illness and psychopathology. The brain's role in resilience requires particular attention as it is plays a critical role in moderating behavioural responses to external events. fMRI studies have examined the underlying mechanisms of resilience, establishing neural activation and functional connectivity differences between resilient and non-resilient groups. However, defining resilience accurately poses difficulties due to the arbitrary criteria and cut-offs previously applied to detect and measure this construct. The complexities of quantifying exposure to trauma such as timing, duration and severity, have largely been ignored.

This project aims to improve our understanding of resilience and identify differences in neural activation and functional connectivity in resilient young people compared to their non-resilient peers. Using existing datasets that contain detailed information about trauma and life events, the project aims to refine the construct of resilience using a large multi-level dataset, identify patterns of neural activation and functional connectivity related to resilience in the same dataset and replicate the resilience constructs and associated findings in independent datasets which contain similar information.