Premotor functional connectivity predicts impulsivity in juvenile offenders

Abstract

Teenagers are often impulsive. In some cases this is a phase of normal development; in other cases impulsivity contributes to criminal behavior. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we examined resting-state functional connectivity among brain systems and behavioral measures of impulsivity in 107 juveniles incarcerated in a high-security facility. In less-impulsive juveniles and normal controls, motor planning regions were correlated with brain networks associated with spatial attention and executive control. In more-impulsive juveniles, these same regions correlated with the default-mode network, a constellation of brain areas associated with spontaneous, unconstrained, self-referential cognition. The strength of these brain-behavior relationships was sufficient to predict impulsivity scores at the individual level. Our data suggest that increased functional connectivity of motor-planning regions with networks subserving unconstrained, self-referential cognition, rather than those subserving executive control, heightens the predisposition to impulsive behavior in juvenile offenders. To further explore the relationship between impulsivity and neural development, we studied functional connectivity in the same motorplanning regions in 95 typically developing individuals across a wide age span. The change in functional connectivity with age mirrored that of impulsivity: younger subjects tended to exhibit functional connectivity similar to the more-impulsive incarcerated juveniles, whereas older subjects exhibited a less-impulsive pattern. This observation suggests that impulsivity in the offender population is a consequence of a delay in typical development, rather than a distinct abnormality.self-control | psychopathy | functional MRI S elf-control is an important cognitive ability that develops with age. Individual variability in self-control has been linked to a wide variety of life outcomes, ranging from educational and economic achievement to likelihood of incarceration (1, 2).Clinical disorders of self-control can take several forms, including attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), antisocial personality disorder, psychopathy, and conduct disorder. Each has received attention from neuroscientists, often focused on structural MRI or functional activation experiments (3, 4), although several studies also examine resting functional connectivity (5). Of particular relevance to the present results are theories that emphasize the role of attentional processes in these disorders. For example, Newman identified differences in attentional abilities in juveniles and adults with psychopathic traits, suggesting that an inability to properly focus on relevant stimuli contributed to their disorder (6, 7).The etiology of these disorders remains cloudy. We know that young children lack self-control but gradually acquire it over the course of development (8). At what point does pathological impulsivity deviate from typical developmental trajectories? Clues may be found by comparing functional brain activity ...

Lag in maturation of the brain’s intrinsic functional architecture in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder

“…Relative immaturity of DMN-FPN connections in ADHD might thus manifest as reduced flexibility in control over DMN across diverse task contexts, especially in tasks where introspective attention is involved. More broadly, our finding of lagged maturation of regulatory control networks in ADHD fits well with a previous study in juvenile offenders that found that relative immaturity of connectivity of motor planning regions with other brain regions, including DMN regions, predicted greater impulsivity (58). These results suggest maturational lag of regulatory control networks contributes to inattention and/or impulsivity across different clinical populations, and they invite new research aimed at direct comparative investigation (59).…”

Nature of functional links in valuation networks differentiates impulsive behaviors between abstinent heroin-dependent subjects and nondrug-using subjects

“…Obesity also shows significant functional abnormalities in discrete brain regions, especially in the ventral and dorsal striatal networks (Volkow et al, 2012; Tomasi and Volkow, 2013). Similar to the above findings, Shannon et al demonstrated that the functional connectivity of the default mode and attention/control networks may predict juvenile offenders’ impulsivity (Shannon et al, 2011). These converging results strongly suggest that many aberrant behaviors that are associated with impaired self-control may be supported by competing interactions between the reward networks and the executive control networks (Bechara, 2005; Bickel et al, 2007; Monterosso and Piray, 2012; Peters and Büchel, 2011).…”

Resting-state regional cerebral blood flow during adolescence: Associations with initiation of substance use and prediction of future use disorders

“…This parietal area is a hub of the default mode network, which also includes the frontal regions positively related to future drinking patterns, and has been found to associate with substance abuse/dependence (Dalwani et al, 2014). This parietal region, along with dorso-lateral frontal regions, is also a part of the dorsal attention or “control” network implicated in alertness, externally driven cognition, and working memory (Corbetta these networks has been observed in adolescent males with conduct and substance use disorders (Dalwani et al, 2014), drug addiction (Ma et al, 2011), first-episode psychosis (Alonso-Solís et al, 2012; Shannon et al, 2011) and attention deficit disorder (Dickstein et al, 2010), suggesting that its integrity subsumes a developmentally important but subtle behavioral trait that may also relate to predisposition for substance use initiation .…”

“…Maturation of connectivity patterns occurs throughout adolescence (Dosenbach et al, 2008) and into young adulthood, changing again in late adulthood (Lorenz et al, 2014), highlighting the sensitivity of blood flow and functional connectivity to age-related changes in brain structure and function. Importantly, functional connectivity patterns in adolescence can predict impulsivity scores (Shannon et al, 2011), working memory performance (Lorenz et al, 2014), and intelligence (Sherman et al, 2014) suggesting that maturation, supported by alterations in blood flow, can mark personality, mood, and other individualistic pieces of an adolescent’s adult brain.…”