Adolescents’ neural reactivity to maternal criticism is associated with diminished happiness during daily interpersonal situations

• In Event: Neural response to social feedback from parents and peers: Links to adolescent emotional health

Abstract

Adolescents are highly sensitive to social cues and feedback. Increases in social sensitivity during adolescence may be supported by changes and maturation in the brain’s affective salience network, which includes the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex (sgACC), anterior insula (AI), and amygdala. Moreover, heightened activation in these regions to social threat contributes to the development of internalizing psychopathology, though less is known about how activity in these regions relates to more proximal states or real-world functioning, including adolescents’ emotional responding during daily interpersonal situations. The goal of this study, therefore, was to examine the relationship between neural activation to maternal criticism, a salient form of social threat for adolescents, and real-world measures of socioemotional functioning. This work could help us understand why heightened neural reactivity to social threat consistently emerges as a risk factor for internalizing psychopathology in youth. We predicted that youth with higher reactivity to maternal criticism (versus neutral comments) in the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex (sgACC), amygdala, and anterior insula would experience (a) less happiness in daily positive interpersonal situations and (b) more sadness and anger in daily negative interpersonal situations.

Participants were 44 youth (aged 11-16) with a history of anxiety who previously participated in a 16-week randomized controlled trial. Participants completed a neuroimaging task in which they listened to audio clips of their parents’ criticism and neutral comments. Participants also completed a 10-day ecological momentary assessment protocol during which they identified when they felt best and worst in the last hour. They were then asked who they were with, and to rate their emotions (i.e., anger and sadness at the worst point; happiness at the best point). We focused exclusively on events in which the participant reported the presence of another person. Mixed-effects models tested associations between neural activation to critical (vs. neutral) feedback and emotions in interpersonal situations.

Supporting our hypothesis, adolescents who exhibited greater reactivity to maternal criticism (vs. neutral feedback) in the sgACC reported less happiness during day-to-day positive interpersonal situations (B=-.14, SE=.05, p=.013). Neither amygdala (B=-.08, SE=.05, p=.140) nor AI (B=-.02, SE=.06, p=.739) activation to critical (vs. neutral) feedback were significantly associated with happiness in positive interpersonal situations. No significant neural predictors of negative emotions (i.e., sadness, anger) in response to negative interpersonal situations emerged (uncorrected ps>.05).

These findings provide evidence of real-world correlates of neural reactivity to parental criticism, a salient social evaluative threat. Youths’ neural reactivity to parental criticism is linked to differences in day-to-day experiences of emotion during positive interpersonal situations. Disruptions in socioemotional functioning among youth with heightened sgACC reactivity to maternal criticism may be specific to deficits in positive emotional responding during positive interpersonal situations rather than to elevations in negative emotional responding during negative interpersonal situations. To the extent these youth expect or perceive higher levels of social threat, they may learn to temper their own emotional engagement during interpersonal situations to reduce the impact of any threat. This avoidance may be especially relevant in positive contexts when unexpected negative events cause jarring, negative emotional shifts.

Authors

• Kiera M James, University of Pittsburgh
  Presenting Author

• Stefanie Sequeira, University of Pittsburgh

• Ron E Dahl, University of California, Berkeley

• Erika E Forbes, University of Pittsburgh

• Neal Ryan, University of Pittsburgh

• Jill Hooley

• Cecile D Ladouceur, University of Pittsburgh

• Jennifer S. Silk, University of Pittsburgh