Biological Substrates of Emotional Reactivity and Regulation in Adolescence During an Emotional Go-Nogo Task

doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2008.03.015

Biological Psychiatry

Volume 63, Issue 10, 15 May 2008, Pages 927-934

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2008.03.015 Get rights and content

Background

Adolescence is a transition period from childhood to adulthood that is often characterized by emotional instability. This period is also a time of increased incidence of anxiety and depression, underscoring the importance of understanding biological substrates of behavioral and emotion regulation during adolescence. Developmental changes in the brain in concert with individual predispositions for anxiety might underlie the increased risk for poor outcomes reported during adolescence. We tested the hypothesis that difficulties in regulating behavior in emotional contexts in adolescents might be due to competition between heightened activity in subcortical emotional processing systems and immature top-down prefrontal systems. Individual differences in emotional reactivity might put some teens at greater risk during this sensitive transition in development.

Methods

We examined the association between emotion regulation and frontoamygdala circuitry in 60 children, adolescents, and adults with an emotional go-nogo paradigm. We went beyond examining the magnitude of neural activity and focused on neural adaptation within this circuitry across time with functional magnetic resonance imaging.

Results

Adolescents showed exaggerated amygdala activity relative to children and adults. This age-related difference decreased with repeated exposures to the stimuli, and individual differences in self-ratings of anxiety predicted the extent of adaptation or habituation in amygdala. Individuals with higher trait anxiety showed less habituation over repeated exposures. This failure to habituate was associated with less functional connectivity between ventral prefrontal cortex and amygdala.

Conclusions

These findings suggest that exaggerated emotional reactivity during adolescence might increase the need for top-down control and put individuals with less control at greater risk for poor outcomes.

Section snippets

Participants

Eighty subjects between the ages of 7 and 32 years were scanned with fMRI. Data from 6 subjects were excluded because of effects of time on task in performance (i.e., steep decline in nontarget accuracy after initial runs) or because the subject fell asleep, data from 12 subjects were excluded (4 children, 3 adolescents, and 5 adults) because of excessive head motion (> 2 mm translation or 2° of rotation) or insufficient number (< 4) of correct nontarget trials in a given condition, and data

Behavioral Results

The effect of emotional expression on reaction time was examined with a repeated measures general linear model (GLM), including age group (children, adolescents, adults) and gender (male, female) as between-subjects factors and emotion (fear, happy, calm) as the within-subjects factor. There were main effects of emotion [F(2,65) = 42.00, p < .001] and age [F(2,66) = 19.43, p < .001] on reaction time. There was also an interaction between emotion and age on reaction time [F(4,130) = 6.13, p <

Discussion

A neural basis for difficulties in regulating behavior in emotional contexts in adolescents was tested. The findings are consistent with a neurobiological model (26) of competition between enhanced activity in subcortical emotional processing systems and less-mature top-down prefrontal systems. The ability to engage in top-down regulation of emotional centers such as the amygdala is likely to be important during adolescence in guiding behavior in highly emotional contexts. Our findings suggest

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Archival ReportBiological Substrates of Emotional Reactivity and Regulation in Adolescence During an Emotional Go-Nogo Task

Background

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Section snippets

Participants

Behavioral Results

Discussion

Neuroimage

Neuroimage

Neuropsychologia

Trends Cogn Sci

Neurosci Biobehav Rev

Clin Neurophysiol

Biol Psychiatry

Neuron

Biol Psychiatry

Comput Biomed Res

Biol Psychiatry

Developmental Review

Curr Opin Neurobiol

Biol Psychiatry

Biol Psychiatry

Neuron

Neuron

Behav Res Ther

Adolescent storm and stress, reconsidered

Am Psychol

Youth risk behavior surveillance—United States, 2005

J Sch Health

Archival Report
Biological Substrates of Emotional Reactivity and Regulation in Adolescence During an Emotional Go-Nogo Task