Pre-Registration: Moderation of Sensory Over-Responsivity by Neural Markers of Cognitive Control in Previously Institutionalized Youth

• In Event: Poster Session 08
  In Poster Session: PS 08 Topic - Biological Processes: Neuroscience and Genetics

Abstract

Youth who have experienced institutional caregiving (e.g. orphanage care) display heightened levels of sensory over-responsivity (SOR), a pattern of intensified or extended reactions to sensory stimuli that has been linked to various forms of psychopathology in youth (Wilbarger et al., 2010; Reynolds & Lane, 2008). Recent findings suggest SOR is associated with diminished emotion regulation capacity (McMahon et al., 2019; Green & Wood, 2019), and with decreased recruitment of prefrontal regulatory regions during a joint tactile stimulation and social attention task (Green et al., 2018). In order to explore the relationship between SOR and intentional self-regulation (and particularly to evaluate whether SOR is associated with non-affective as well as affective regulation), the planned study examines the relationship between neural markers of affective (“hot”; cognitive reappraisal) and non-affective (“cold”; attentional) cognitive control and SOR symptoms in previously institutionalized (PI) and comparison adolescents.

Measures:
SOR: SOR will be assessed using total scores from the Sensory Processing 3 Dimensions Scale (SP3D) Sensory Checklist, a parent-reported measure of visual, tactile, and auditory over-responsivity (Schoen et al., 2008).

Neural markers of cognitive control: We will use two commonly-employed fMRI cognitive control tasks to examine recruitment of the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG; associated with effective regulation in both tasks) during self-regulation. “Cold” cognitive control will be examined using an arrow-based Flanker task that involves responding to either incongruent or congruent stimuli. “Hot” cognitive control will be assessed using a task that probes cognitive reappraisal, the intentional re-interpretation of affective stimuli to alter their emotional impact. Specifically, we will examine recruitment of the IFG during incongruent>congruent trials on Flanker and regulation > no regulation trials on the reappraisal task.

Hypotheses and Analysis Plan:
H1: The relationship between PI status and SOR will be moderated by IFG recruitment during the “cold” control task such that PI youth will have greater SOR symptoms than comparison youth, and this relationship will be attenuated in youth with greater IFG recruitment.

H2: The relationship between PI status and SOR symptoms will be moderated by IFG recruitment during the “hot” cognitive control task such that the relationship between PI status and SOR symptoms will be attenuated in youth with greater IFG recruitment.

We will conduct separate moderation analyses for each hypothesis using PROCESS 3.4 with PI status as the predictor, IFG recruitment (during Flanker and reappraisal, respectively) as the moderator, and SP3D SOR symptoms as the outcome.

Feasibility: Barring the opportunity to collect additional data prior to SRCD, we will conduct this pilot analysis in previously collected data from 40 comparison and 23 PI youth. We will pre-register our planned full-sample approach (including this pilot analysis and a planned pattern expression analysis evaluating links between SOR and similarity between individual activation patterns during these tasks and publicly accessible maps of “hot” and “cold” cognitive control) on the Open Science Framework.

Implications: This study will provide preliminary insight into the possible role of cognitive regulatory capacity in heightened SOR in youth who have experienced early deprivation.

Authors

• Adriana S Méndez Leal, University of California - Los Angeles
  Presenting Author

• Joao Guassi Moreira, University of California, Los Angeles
  Non-Presenting Author

• Yael Haya Waizman, University of Southern California
  Non-Presenting Author

• Natalie Saragosa-Harris, University of California, Los Angeles
  Non-Presenting Author

• Emilia Ninova, University of California, Los Angeles
  Non-Presenting Author

• Laura A Alba, University of California - Riverside
  Non-Presenting Author

• Shulamite Green, University of California - Los Angeles
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jennifer Silvers, University of California - Los Angeles
  Non-Presenting Author