The neural mechanism of resilience-based intervention enhancing AIDS orphans’ psychosocial resources: preliminary findings

Resilience-based interventions can improve positive psychosocial resources for vulnerable children. However, it is unclear about the neural mechanism of how psychosocial resources are enhanced by resilience-based intervention in AIDS orphans. To fill this gap, we designed a six-week resilience-based intervention for twenty AIDS orphans raised in institutions (age:15.75 ± 1.97). The efficacy of the intervention was evaluated by employing a pre- and post-intervention study design, with multilevel estimations at the baseline and completion phase, and a follow-up behavioral estimation 8 months afterward. We found that AIDS orphans’ optimism about the future (p =.01) and perceived teachers’ support (p =.02) increased significantly after resilience-based intervention, these gains were still maintained after 8-months. Moreover, the changes in optimism about future could be predicted by both intervention-caused alterations and baselines of the amplitude of low frequency fluctuations in putamen; the changes in perceived teachers’ support could be predicted by both intervention-caused alterations and baselines of the amplitude of low frequency fluctuations in postcentral gyrus. These findings indicated the potential intervention-specific neural changes in AIDS orphans along with the improvement of psychosocial resource. Our study contributed to optimizing the person-centered treatment and advancing the precision mental health of vulnerable children.