Previous studies have reported abnormalities of white-matter diffusivity in pediatric bipolar disorder. However, it has not been established whether these abnormalities are able to distinguish individual subjects with pediatric bipolar disorder from healthy controls with a high specificity and sensitivity. Diffusion-weighted imaging scans were acquired from 16 youths diagnosed with DSM-IV bipolar disorder and 16 demographically matched healthy controls. Regional white matter tissue microstructural measurements such as fractional anisotropy, axial diffusivity and radial diffusivity were computed using an atlas-based approach. These measurements were used to `train' a support vector machine (SVM) algorithm to predict new or `unseen' subjects' diagnostic labels. The SVM algorithm predicted individual subjects with specificity = 87.5%, sensitivity = 68.75%, accuracy = 78.12%, positive predictive value = 84.62%, negative predictive value = 73.68%, area under receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) = 0.7812 and chi-square p-value = 0.0012. A pattern of reduced regional white matter fractional anisotropy was observed in pediatric bipolar disorder patients. These results suggest that atlas-based diffusion weighted imaging measurements can distinguish individual pediatric bipolar disorder patients from healthy controls. Notably, from a clinical perspective these findings will contribute to the pathophysiological understanding of pediatric bipolar disorder.
This research examined whether heightened neural activation to social cues confers adjustment advantages in supportive social contexts but adjustment disadvantages in stressful social contexts. Forty-five adolescent girls were exposed to social exclusion during an fMRI scan and reported on parent-child relationship quality and depressive symptoms. Stressful parent-child relationships predicted subsequent depressive symptoms in girls with high and moderate but not low dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, subgenual anterior cingulate cortex, and anterior insula activation during exclusion. In the context of supportive parent-child relationships, however, neural activation to exclusion predicted particularly low levels of depressive symptoms. This support for a biological sensitivity to context model suggests the possibility of redirecting adolescent girls' neural sensitivity to social cues toward more positive adaptation.
Developmental science perspectives consider how exposure to early adversity undermines the normative development of self-regulatory processes in ways that compromise both short-and long-term health (Boyce & Ellis, 2005; O'Connor, 2003; Rudolph, Lansford, et al., 2016). Exposure to peer victimization (acts of physical, verbal, and psychological aggression) represents a particularly pernicious form of adversity. Not only is peer victimization common (Kochenderfer-Ladd & Wardrop, 2001), it forecasts a wide range of mental and physical health difficulties across the lifespan (McDougall & Vaillancourt, 2015). Given these pervasive and enduring effects, it is critical to understand processes through which victimization compromises development. Moreover, in line with differential susceptibility models of development (Boyce & Ellis, 2005; Ellis et al., 2011), it is important to determine which
The adaptive calibration model suggests exposure to highly stressful or highly supportive early environments sensitizes the brain to later environmental input. We examined whether family and peer experiences predict neural sensitivity to social cues in 85 adolescent girls who completed a social feedback task during a functional brain scan and an interview assessing adversity. Whole-brain functional connectivity (FC) analyses revealed curvilinear associations between social experiences and FC between the ventral striatum and regions involved in emotion valuation, social cognition, and salience detection (e.g., insula, MPFC, dACC, dlPFC) during social reward processing, such that stronger FC was found at both very high and very low levels of adversity. Moreover, exposure to adversity predicted stronger FC between the amygdala and regions involved in salience detection, social cognition, and emotional memory (e.g., sgACC, precuneus, lingual gyrus, parahippocampal gyrus) during social threat processing. Analyses also revealed some evidence for blunted FC (VS-PCC for reward; amygdala-parahippocampal gyrus for threat) at very high and low levels of adversity. Overall, results suggest social experiences may play a critical role in shaping neural sensitivity to social feedback during adolescence. Future work will need to elucidate the implications of these patterns of neural function for the development of psychopathology.
Recent theories posit that emotion mindsets (i.e., the extent to which individuals believe emotions are malleable or fixed) play a crucial role in experiences of emotion and influence emotion regulation (ER) processes. Drawing from mindset theory, this study examined the hypothesis that fixed emotion mindsets (FEMs) would predict depressive symptoms via compromised ER competence in adolescence, a period when many first episodes of depression occur. Results supported these hypotheses across two studies assessing participants in midadolescence (ages 14 -18; M age ϭ 16.17) and late adolescence (ages 18 -21; M age ϭ 18.52). Using a comprehensive approach to assessing ER, results demonstrated that FEMs were associated with less voluntary engagement and more disengagement and emotion dysregulation. In turn, higher voluntary engagement was associated with lower depressive symptoms, whereas higher disengagement and emotion dysregulation were associated with higher depressive symptoms. These findings highlight that one understudied pathway from FEMs to depressive symptoms may be the manner in which individuals respond to their emotions, implicating emotion mindsets as one target for efforts to improve clinical outcomes during adolescence.
This study examines the interactive contribution of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and approach-avoidance motivation systems to longitudinal changes in depressive symptoms across the adolescent transition. In the summer prior to, or fall of, 4th grade, 132 youth (68 girls; 64 boys; M age = 9.46 years) participated in a social challenge task and reported on their depressive symptoms. In the winter of 6th grade, youth completed a semi-structured interview of depression and a self-report measure of approach-avoidance motivations. Analyses revealed two profiles of risk for adolescent depressive symptoms, with some gender differences: (1) excessive disengagement, reflected in HPA underactivation along with low approach motivation or high avoidance motivation; and (2) excessive engagement, reflected in HPA overactivation along with high approach motivation. This research highlights the importance of a multi-system perspective on development, suggesting that the implications of HPA dysregulation for depressive symptoms are contingent on adolescents' tendencies toward approach versus avoidance.
Gender differences in emotion processing emerge in infancy and develop across childhood. Boys and girls vary in their emotional experiences and how they view the role of emotion. These gender differences are likely the result of an interplay between individual and social factors. This entry reviews gender differences in several aspects of emotion processing, including emotion recognition, expression, and understanding, as well as differences in emotion regulation strategies used by boys and girls. Several sources of these gender differences are discussed, including biological and temperamental factors and the influence of parent socialization. Although recent research suggests that variability in brain structure and function, sex hormones, and stress reactivity may contribute to gender differences in emotional reactivity and emotion regulation, these differences tend to be largest in social contexts, highlighting the interactive nature of biology and environment in creating gender differences in emotion processing.
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