Neurodevelopmental maturation as a function of irritable temperament

Abstract

Few studies have investigated the neural systems involved in decreasing behavioral reactivity to emotional stimuli as children age. It has been suggested that this process may interact with temperament-linked variations in neurodevelopment to better explain individual differences in the maturation of emotion regulation. In this investigation, children ages 4–12 (n=30, mean age=7.62 years, SD=1.71 years) and adults (n=21, mean age=26.67 years) watched clips from popular children’s films containing positive, negative, or neutral emotional content during functional magnetic resonance imaging. Compared to adults, children demonstrated greater activation in subcortical and visual regions (hippocampus, thalamus, visual cortex, fusiform) during negative clips and greater activation of subcortical and prefrontal regions during positive clips (hippocampus, thalamus, caudate, ACC, OFC, superior frontal cortex). In children only, we found an age by temperament interaction in frontal and subcortical regions indicating that activation increased as a function of age in the most irritable children, but decreased as a function of age in the least irritable children. Findings were not present in the temperament domain of fear. Findings replicate and extend the existing irritability literature, indicating that healthy children highest in irritability may develop comparatively greater activation of the lateral prefrontal cortex in order to support adaptive regulation during emotional challenges. These results are discussed within the context of the emerging literature on the utility of complex, multidimensional, and naturalistic stimuli, which present a complementary alternative to understanding ecologically valid and sustained neural responses to emotionally evocative stimuli.

Brain Mechanisms of Attention Orienting Following Frustration: Associations With Irritability and Age in Youths

“…Specifically, higher irritability was related to increased activation in children and younger adolescents but not older adolescents; the association was particularly strong in young children. This finding is inconsistent with the only previous study that examined the interacting effect of age and irritability and found that, as age increased, higher irritability was associated with more frontal-striatalthalamic activation (17). This discrepancy could be explained by differences in sample size ( N =30 vs. 195 here); sample characteristics e.g., age (4–12 vs. 8–18 years here) and the nature of the sample (non-clinical vs. clinical sample here); and fMRI paradigm (viewing of emotionally- or neutrally-valenced video clips vs. frustrating cued-attention task here).…”

“…For example, the protracted development of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) has been linked to age-related improvements in attention shifting and cognitive control, which can modulate affective arousal (11–14). While agerelated brain mechanisms have been examined in some clinical populations (e.g., anxiety and depression) (15,16), little work is available in irritability (8,17,18).…”

Developmental Patterning of Irritability Enhances Prediction of Psychopathology in Pre-adolescence: Improving RDoC with Developmental Science

“…transition from the rapid developmental change of early childhood). However, it should be noted that the current sample size is similar to or larger than samples studied in much of the extant literature on irritability (Andre et al, 2019;Bolhuis et al, 2019;Briggs-Gowan et al, 2019;Karim & Perlman, 2017).…”

Mapping brain function during naturalistic viewing using high-density diffuse optical tomography

“…Using optical neuroimaging tools to study the brain during naturalistic viewing conditions has broad applicability for experimental questions demanding rich, engaging stimuli alongside wearable and ergonomic imaging tools 17,66 . Developmental cognitive neuroscience has benefitted from the broad applicability of optical neuroimaging tools for imaging the developing brain 16,56–58,67–69 . Paired with optical neuroimaging, the movie-based imaging paradigm described in this paper provides engaging and ecologically relevant study designs for understanding information processing across the lifespan, highlighting the richness of this paradigm for interrogating “real-life” brain function.…”