Cortical Functional Connectivity Evident After Birth and Behavioral Inhibition at Age 2

Abstract

Neonatal functional connectivity of the ventral attention and default mode networks is associated with behavioral inhibition at age 2. These results inform the developmental neurobiology of behavioral inhibition and anxiety disorders and may aid in early risk assessment and intervention.

Brain connectivity and socioeconomic status at birth and externalizing symptoms at age 2 years

“…Participants were recruited as part of a large longitudinal study of the impact of preterm birth on development ( Rogers et al, 2017 ; Sylvester et al, 2018 ). Preterm infants (PT; N = 106; gestational age <30 weeks) were recruited from St. Louis Children’s Hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.…”

“…The impact of SES on mental health during childhood may be a consequence of altered brain development, as low SES during childhood has been associated with reduced gray matter volume, reduced cortical surface area, slower brain growth ( Blair and Raver, 2016 ), and altered functional network development ( Tooley et al, 2019 ; Gao et al, 2015 ). While these prior results underscore the impact of SES on brain development in early childhood and later life, accumulating evidence indicates that the brain changes associated with developing many psychiatric illnesses are already present near birth ( Graham et al, 2019 , 2018 ; Rogers et al, 2017 ; Sylvester et al, 2018 ). Yet, very little is known about the impact of SES on brain development at the time of birth and whether any neonatal SES-related brain changes are associated with subsequent risk for development of psychiatric symptoms.…”

“…Recent work indicates that many of the brain changes associated with risk for developing a psychiatric disorder in later life are already present at birth. Resting state functional connectivity ( Rogers et al, 2017 ; Sylvester et al, 2018 ) and diffusion tensor imaging ( Rogers et al, 2012 ) during the neonatal period have been linked to psychiatric symptoms in later childhood. These brain changes present at birth likely represent a combination of genetic risk for psychiatric illnesses as well as consequences of prenatal maternal environment and stress.…”

“…To address this issue, we longitudinally examined associations between socioeconomic status at birth, brain connectivity at birth, and psychiatric symptoms at age 2 years. We focused on the whole-brain functional connectivity of the left and right striatum and the medial prefrontal (mPFC), the dorsal anterior cingulate (dACC), and the ventrolateral prefrontal cortices (vLPFC), because of the extensive prior work cited above that links these specific regions and their associated brain networks to variation in SES and psychiatric symptoms ( Tooley et al, 2019 ; Gao et al, 2015 ; Sylvester et al, 2018 ; Gianaros et al, 2011 ; Marshall et al, 2018 ; Sripada et al, 2014 ; Cortese et al, 2012 ; Padmanabhan and Luna, 2014 ; Holz et al, 2017 ; Tomasi and Volkow, 2012 ; Castellanos et al, 2008 ; Fair et al, 2010 ; Sylvester et al, 2013 , 2012 ). We addressed two primary questions: (1) how does neonatal resting state functional connectivity relate to socioeconomic disadvantage and (2) do SES-related differences in neonatal connectivity mediate the relationship between lower SES and psychiatric symptoms at age two years?…”

Shyness and Trajectories of Functional Network Connectivity Over Early Adolescence

“…Additional consistently described brain differences in children with high versus low shyness include increased activity in the amygdala to emotionally evocative faces (Pérez‐Edgar et al., ; Schwartz, Wright, Shin, Kagan, & Rauch, ); alterations in activity in the nucleus accumbens, striatum, and other subcortical areas during reward processing (Guyer et al., , ); and structural and functional alterations in brain regions involved in directing attention and cognitive control, such as the FPN, SN, and VAN networks described earlier (Guyer et al., ; Jarcho, Fox, Pine, Etkin, et al., ; Jarcho, Fox, Pine, Leibenluft, et al., ; Sylvester et al., ). Cross‐sectional studies using rs‐fc have indicated that shyness or behavioral inhibition is associated with variation of connectivity of the amygdala as well as regions within the DMN, SN, FPN, VAN, and somatosensory networks (Clauss, Benningfield, Rao, & Blackford, ; Rogers et al., ; Roy et al., ; Sylvester et al., ; Taber‐Thomas, Morales, Hillary, & Pérez‐Edgar, ). Together, these cross‐sectional data suggest that shyness is marked by alterations in connectivity both in brain systems involved in self‐directed processing (e.g., the DMN) and externally focused processing (e.g., the FPN).…”