Document Type

Article

Language

eng

Publication Date

5-23-2018

Publisher

Frontiers Media, S.A.

Source Publication

Frontiers in Psychiatry

Source ISSN

1664-0640

Abstract

Tic suppression is the primary target of tic disorder treatment, but factors that influence voluntary tic inhibition are not well understood. Several studies using the Tic Suppression Task have demonstrated significant inter-individual variability in tic suppressibility but have individually been underpowered to address correlates of tic suppression. The present study explored patterns and clinical correlates of reward-enhanced tic suppression in youth with tic disorders using a large, pooled dataset. Individual-level data from nine studies using the Tic Suppression Task were pooled, yielding a sample of 99 youth with tic disorders. Analyses examined patterns of tic suppressibility and the relationship between tic suppressibility and demographic and clinical characteristics. A large majority of youth demonstrated a high degree of tic suppression, but heterogeneous patterns of tic suppressibility were also observed. Better tic suppressibility was related to older age and more frequent tics but unrelated to other clinical variables, including presence of psychiatric comorbidity, psychotropic medication status, tic and premonitory urge severity, and self-rated tic suppressibility. The mechanisms underlying the observed heterogeneity in reward-enhanced tic suppressibility warrant further investigation. The Tic Suppression Task is a promising method for testing mechanistic hypotheses related to tic suppression.

Comments

Published version. Frontiers in Psychiatry, Vol. 9, Article 188 (May 2018): 1-10. DOI. © 2018 Conelea, Wellen, Woods, Greene, Black, Specht, Himle, Lee and Capriotti. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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Psychology Commons

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