Social anxiety disorder (SAD) runs in families. Parents with SAD may contribute to SAD development in their children in two ways: First, temperamental dispositions for anxiety can be inherited from SAD parents. Second, parents can transmit anxiety environmentally, by (non-verbally) modelling anxious behaviour, or by (verbally) communicating threat/anxiety in social situations. Not all children, however, are equally sensitive to this environmental transmission. Child temperamental dispositions not only increase the risk for SAD, but also enhance sensitivity to environmental transmission. Theoretical accounts highlight the joint influence of parents’ anxious behaviour and child temperamental dispositions on the emergence of SAD. However, the effect of verbal anxiety expressions by SAD parents, and the moderating role of child temperament in the acquisition of social anxiety is currently unknown. This 12-month project, for the first time, examines the causal effects of parents’ verbal anxiety expressions, and its interplay with child temperament on the acquisition of social anxiety. The project is the first one to incorporate child physiology, cognition and behavior to investigate child reactions to strangers in a single multi-method experimental design, in the period preceding the onset of SAD in children (5-6 years). The project has direct implications for prevention of intergenerational SAD transmission.

More than 100,000 infants develop hydrocephalus in sub-Saharan Africa every year. Many of these children are inadequately diagnosed and poorly treated due to lack of diagnostic tools, resulting in severe brain damage and ultimately death. Magnetic Resonance Imaging is the preferred technique to diagnose hydrocephalus. In countries such as Uganda, MRI is unaffordable at even major referral hospitals and medical schools. For such developing countries, conventional MRI devices are too expensive, too difficult to install, and too difficult to maintain and operate. In order to provide a sustainable diagnostic tool we will develop an inexpensive and easy to use MRI system that is of sufficient quality to diagnose hydrocephalus and manage its surgical treatment. We will investigate two approaches: the first is based on an inexpensive electromagnet and the second on a permanent magnet. We will use off-the-shelf electronic components and public domain software to construct a sustainable device that costs on the order of 50,000 EURO compared to several million euros for a conventional multipurpose whole-body MRI. We will develop advanced image reconstruction algorithms in order to compensate for the low signal-to-noise ratio and inhomogeneity in the magnetic field, which are intrinsic to low-power fields. The MRI device will be tested on-site in collaboration with local practitioners during clinical trials at the main hospital for patients with hydrocephalus in Uganda. The project brings together a multidisciplinary team composed of both practitioners and scientists. The team has the expertise needed to perform the whole development chain, from design to clinical trials in Uganda.