We used functional magnetic resonance to investigate the effects of exposure to violence on early adolescent brain function in an inhibitory control task. We investigated the association among scores on self-reported exposure to violence, performance and brain activation. Thirty-seven early adolescents (ages 10–14) from a Latin-American urban region participated in the study. Results showed that recent and chronic exposure to violence was associated with less activation of a network of frontal regions, including the anterior cingulate gyrus and the superior frontal cortex; recent exposure to violence was also associated with less activation of the superior parietal lobe. Results also showed that less activation correlated with more prominent deterioration in the performance in the inhibitory control task (increased latency with time). The findings suggest that early adolescence exposure to violence is associated with differences in activation of a neural network commonly associated with executive function and control. The results underscore the urgency of addressing exposure to violence in adolescence, a period of high susceptibility to the environment, and are discussed in the light of the evidence of the effects of violence on adolescent brain function. Executive function training may be a candidate for targeted cognitive interventions aimed at mitigating these effects.
Introdução: O fechamento das escolas devido às restrições da pandemia da COVID-19 acarretou impactos individuais e sociais cada vez mais relatados. Alunos, pais e professores tiveram consequências associadas ao distanciamento escolar predominantemente negativas, com alguns desfechos positivos, mas ainda não sistematicamente mapeados. Objetivo: Promover uma caracterização dos impactos do fechamento das escolas na aprendizagem, nos desenvolvimentos cognitivo e socioemocional e na saúde mental de crianças, pais e professores, por meio de uma revisão sistemática. Métodos: Buscaram-se abstracts nas bases de dados PubMed, Scopus e PsycINFO com a sintaxe dos construtos “estudantes, pais ou professores”, “desenvolvimento cognitivo, socioecioemocional, saúde mental ou desempenho escolar”, e “COVID-19 e fechamento das escolas” entre 2021 e 2022. Resultados: De 622 estudos iniciais, 86 artigos foram incluídos pós-concordância de 100% entre três juízes. Como principais desfechos relacionados ao fechamento das escolas, crianças e adolescentes demonstraram maiores níveis de ansiedade, hiperatividade e desatenção, prejuízos na cognição geral, desenvolvimento motor e quedas significativas de prontidão e de desempenho escolar. Pais apresentaram um aumento em níveis de depressão, ideação suicida, ansiedade e estresse, enquanto professores relataram maiores índices de estresse e burnout. Conclusão: Estes achados apontam a necessidade da elaboração de ações privadas e de políticas públicas em prol da redução dos prejuízos decorrentes do fechamento prolongado das escolas. A principal diretriz norteadora de futuras decisões emergenciais é que as escolas sejam as últimas a fecharem e as primeiras a reabrirem, como uma ação neuro e psicoprotetora.
Dyslexia is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by persistently slow and effortful reading. It is associated with core cognitive deficits in decoding words, but it also presents significant challenges associated with, for example, anxiety and stress related to academic performance. We asked, thus, whether, reading out loud would be associated with elevated stress for readers with dyslexia, relative to good readers, and we investigated stress‐related hormone response in these two groups. We carried out an acute psychosocial stress test (Trier Social Stress Test‐Children adapted for children, TSST‐C), which included a reading out loud task. We carried out a quasi‐experimental study with an experimental group of participants with Developmental Dyslexia (n = 17), and a control group, with good readers (n = 18). During the stress test, we collected six saliva samples for evaluation of two stress‐related hormones, cortisol, and adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) levels. We found a main effect for group for ACTH and for cortisol levels. We also found significantly higher levels of ACTH in the dyslexic group at the end of the task, and during the post‐task recovery period. Results are discussed in the light of the less‐understood emotional impact of dyslexia, and of a recently proposed role for stress as a trigger for increased risk of development of dyslexia. Lastly, we underscore the contribution for the evidence of the emotional impact of learning disorders, especially, as is the case, from a population generally underrepresented in cognitive neuroscience research (i.e., Latin‐American children).
We carried out an exploratory study of the association between exposure to violence, intelligence, and executive functions in Brazilian preadolescents. The study included 56 participants (31 males) aged 8 to 14 years old (mean = 11.3, SD = 1.0). We administered neuropsychological tests to evaluate executive functions and the Juvenile Victimization Questionnaire (JVQ) to evaluate exposure to violence. We used the following neuropsychological instruments: Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence (WASI), Stroop Color-Word Interference task, digits subtest of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, and an N-back task. We generated a composite score from neuropsychological test scores and investigated the association of that score, and individual test scores, with exposure to violence and socioeconomic status (SES). Results suggest, first, that exposure to violence is associated with a 0.5-point lower intelligence quotient score for every reported victimization event in the Juvenile Victimization Questionnaire. Results also show that the digits backward subtest scores showed a significant negative correlation with exposure to violence (JVQ; rho = −0.29, p < 0.05); both analyses were adjusted for the level of schooling of parents or guardians, which was also found to be significantly associated with lower intelligence quotient scores. We discuss results in the light of the existing literature on the effects of exposure to violence on adolescent development, and the amounting evidence that suggests an association of exposure to violence, and of victimization, with tests that evaluate constructs of executive functions. The study struggled with low compliance from participants, and we underscore the challenges of carrying out empirical studies aimed at better understanding the development of underrepresented youths, such as those from Central and Latin America.
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