Nicholas Thomson
Virginia Commonwealth University, VA·Psychology
Firearm violence killed more than 48,000 people in the United States in 2022. People treated in a hospital for violent injuries are at high risk of being hurt again or of retaliating, which keeps the cycle of violence going.
- Fields
Psychology
Public Health & Epidemiology
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
firearm violence
gun violence
violence prevention
- Grants
- 3 known grants, through Jul 2029
What they work on
- Test whether Elevate VR, a brief hospital-based virtual reality program teaching de-escalation, emotion regulation and gun safety, reduces firearm violence, re-injury and death in a randomized controlled trial of 360 violently injured youth and their caregivers.
- Identify which risk and protective factors change most in violently injured youth who receive Elevate VR, treating them as mediators of its effect, and estimate the program's cost-effectiveness.
- Develop BVI-VR, a five-step virtual reality brief violence intervention for violently injured adults, and test in a randomized controlled trial of 220 patients whether it lowers firearm violence perpetration, re-injury and mortality.
- Determine which malleable risk and protective factors mediate the effects of BVI-VR in adults, and assess its economic efficiency as a hospital-based gun violence prevention strategy.
- Test whether adolescents with conduct disorder and callous-unemotional traits show a distinct fear response not explained by fearlessness, using pre-ejection period and respiratory sinus arrhythmia during VR fear induction.
- Measure positive and negative emotion with facial electromyography (recording of facial muscle activity) during VR fear scenes, and test whether links between fear physiology and callous-unemotional traits differ by sex.
- Determine whether biological fear profiles predict the stability of callous-unemotional traits over 12 months in adolescents aged 13 to 17 with conduct disorder.
More about the research
High-risk patients are often hard to engage, so this work tests virtual reality (VR) programs designed to meet them where their interests are. VR is used in two ways: as a hospital-based violence intervention for injured youth and adults, and as a research tool for studying how adolescents with serious conduct problems respond to fear.
Why it matters
Hospitals see violently injured patients at a moment of high risk for retaliation and re-injury. If the VR programs prove effective and affordable, hospitals could use them to reduce firearm violence, injury and death among injured youth and adults. African American young men are among the groups hit hardest by this violence. The conduct disorder study could improve screening for callous-unemotional traits and support treatments tailored to boys and girls.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
A Hospital-based Intervention for Youth Injured through Violence
NIH · Aug 2025 – Jul 2029
Distinguishing Youth with Conduct Disorder with Callous-Unemotional Traits using Cardiovascular Psychophysiology During Virtual Reality Fear Induction: Testing for Sex Differences
NIH · May 2021 – Apr 2027
RFA-CE-23-006, A Virtual Reality Brief Violence Intervention: Preventing gun violence among violently injured adults
NIH · Sep 2023 – Sep 2026
Closest labs
Bradley White
University of Alabama, AL·Psychology
Test whether Facial Affect Sensitivity Training (FAST), a computerized feedback-and-incentive program, improves recognition of fearful and sad faces in children with elevated callous-unemotional traits, in a randomized trial of 30 children versus no treatment.
Bindi Naik-Mathuria
University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, TX·Public Health & Epidemiology
Develop a youth-informed video series on conflict resolution, avoiding retaliation, and safe social media posting, co-created by youth ambassadors, violence interrupters and content experts in Houston and Memphis, and refined through community feedback.
Jamie M Ostrov
University at Buffalo, NY·Psychology
Test whether a teacher-implemented, coached version of the Early Childhood Friendship Project reduces aggression and peer victimization and increases prosocial behavior, in a randomized trial of 600 children in 30 preschool classrooms.
The school
Virginia Commonwealth University: 19 labs on PI Pages, $524M a year on research, 438 research doctorates a year.
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