Poster #9 - Impact of Threat on Young Children’s Neural Processes Using a Novel Emotion Regulation fMRI Paradigm.

• In Event: Poster Session 17

Abstract

Introduction: Emotion regulation (ER) is important for healthy development (Davidson et al., 2000). Cognitive reappraisal (reframing the meaning of an emotion-eliciting situation) is an effective ER strategy for children and adults. However, given their cognitive limitations, young children rely on caregivers to scaffold reappraisal (Myruski et al., 2019). Experiences of threat alter neural activation in negative-image fMRI tasks in children (Jenness et al., 2020) and adolescents (McLaughlin et al., 2015). To date, studies have neither focused on ER in young children, nor investigated differences in those who previously experienced threat.

Methods: The current study uses a novel fMRI paradigm (adapted from Myruski et al., 2019) to assess ER in children. Threat was assessed via parent-report. Children first heard a “scaffold instruction” voiced by either their caregiver or a stranger. Second, they heard neutral, negative, and reappraisal stories voiced by a stranger, and viewed corresponding pictures. Finally, children rated feeling positive or negative after each trial. Functional MRI scans during this task were acquired from 56 children ages 4-8 (M=6.29;27 female). We examined associations between threat exposure and behavioral ratings (positive or negative affect post-trial) as well as associations between threat and activation during the task using whole-brain analyses with cluster-level corrections to compare BOLD responses as children observed each stimulus.

Results: Results of the main effect of the task on neural activation in the overall sample resembled previous studies (Oschner et al., 2012). We observed increased activation in the prefrontal, anterior cingulate, and temporal cortex during cognitive reappraisal compared to passive viewing of negative images. Behavioral results showed that participants felt significantly worse during look-negative compared to look-neutral conditions (p<0.05;MD=-0.48) and worse during look-negative compared to reappraisal conditions (p<0.05;MD=0.34). Children with more threat exposure showed heightened recruitment of the lateral-occipital and inferior-temporal cortex, and showed decreased recruitment of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex when viewing negative compared to neutral images. When prompted with reappraisal stories, children with more threat exposure showed decreased activation in their caudate, accumbens, and occipital cortex compared to children with less threat exposure. Children’s feelings after each trial did not differ based on history of threat exposure.

Conclusion: Similar to past findings, results showed decreased activation in cognitive control regions including the medial-prefrontal cortex (Jenness et al., 2020) and increased activation of the salience network including the ventral visual stream (Weissman et al., 2019) in children with more threat exposure. The salience network responds to emotional salience in the environment, and growing up in a threatening environment may make responses to negative cues more salient (McLaughlin et al., 2015). Decreased recruitment of the accumbens in children who experienced threat when prompted for reappraisal could be related to the same decreased activation seen in studies of passive avoidance (Levita et al., 2012). Overall, these findings are consistent with associations with threat proposed in the dimensional model of adversity and psychopathology (DMAP) and replicate prior results in adolescents, indicating that the specific impact of threat on neural correlates of emotion reactivity and regulation are already observable in early childhood.

Authors

• Kathryn Garrisi, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  Presenting Author

• Lucy Lurie, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

• Amy E Carolus, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

• Meredith Gruhn, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

• Amanda Mitchell, Columbia University

• Helen Milojevich, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

• Tracy A. Dennis, City University of New York Hunter College

• Sarah Myruski, Pennsylvania State University, University Park

• Katie McLaughlin, Harvard University

• Margaret A. Sheridan, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill