Mid-adolescent neurocognitive development of ignoring and attending emotional stimuli

Abstract

Appropriate reactions toward emotional stimuli depend on the distribution of prefrontal attentional resources. In mid-adolescence, prefrontal top-down control systems are less engaged, while subcortical bottom-up emotional systems are more engaged. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to follow the neural development of attentional distribution, i.e. attending versus ignoring emotional stimuli, in adolescence. 144 healthy adolescents were studied longitudinally at age 14 and 16 while performing a perceptual discrimination task. Participants viewed two pairs of stimuli--one emotional, one abstract--and reported on one pair whether the items were the same or different, while ignoring the other pair. Hence, two experimental conditions were created: "attending emotion/ignoring abstract" and "ignoring emotion/attending abstract". Emotional valence varied between negative, positive, and neutral. Across conditions, reaction times and error rates decreased and activation in the anterior cingulate and inferior frontal gyrus increased from age 14 to 16. In contrast, subcortical regions showed no developmental effect. Activation of the anterior insula increased across ages for attending positive and ignoring negative emotions. Results suggest an ongoing development of prefrontal top-down resources elicited by emotional attention from age 14 to 16 while activity of subcortical regions representing bottom-up processing remains stable.

Anterior insula hyperactivation in ADHD when faced with distracting negative stimuli

“…Therefore, a 2 × 2 × 2 ANOVA with the between‐subject factor group (ADHD, TD), and the within‐subject factors attention (attending emotional stimuli, ignoring emotional stimuli) and emotional valence (negative, positive) was analyzed. Overall, regions overlap with those found in Vetter et al () and Pilhatsch et al () using the same paradigm in TD adolescents. Results showed higher activity in the left IFG ( x , y , z = −51, 27, 12; k = 87, t = 4.86, cluster‐level p = .01) and left middle temporal gyrus ( x , y , z = −60, −57, 21; k = 103, t = 4.26, cluster‐level p = .006) for attending versus ignoring emotional stimuli.…”

“…As a plausibility check, RT and valid trials for the TD group were in the range as recently reported in a similar sample (Vetter et al, ).…”

“…For both conditions, a longitudinal fMRI study on 144 TD adolescents showed a progressive increase of ACC and bilateral inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) activation between the ages of 14 and 16 years. Also, left anterior insula activation increased for attending positive and ignoring negative stimuli from age 14 to 16 (Vetter et al, ). The amygdala has been shown to be differentially activated for negative stimuli in 164 14‐year‐olds with a family history of depression (Pilhatsch et al, ).…”

Reliability in adolescent fMRI within two years – a comparison of three tasks

“…This fair to good reliability fits to the behavioral developmental effects in all paradigms: Adolescents became faster from age 14 to 16 in both the emotional attention 16 and cognitive control paradigm. The log-transformed discount parameter increased which can probably be interpreted with decreased impulsivity from age 14 to 16 22 .…”

“…The emotional task has been shown to yield valid results both on the behavioral and neural level 15, 16 . It activates the fusiform gyrus, the inferior and middle frontal gyrus, and the inferior parietal lobe.…”