Exploring Neural Mechanisms of Emotion Regulation in Early Childhood

• In Event: A Multimethod Symposium on Emotion Regulation from Infancy to Middle Childhood

Abstract

Emotion-regulation is believed to rely on a network of regions in the brain. Emotion-regulation is a process that modulates lability (e.g. Rothbart & Bates, 2006), or an individual’s rapidity in responding to emotional stimuli and ability to recover from negative emotions (Dunsmore, Booker, & Ollendick, 2011). Adult and adolescent studies point to a number of regions in the brain as possible correlates for regulation. However, our understanding of these relations during early childhood is just emerging. This is problematic as early childhood is a period of intense brain development. This gap is likely due to the difficulty of obtaining usable MRI scan data from young children. This study investigates biological underpinnings of emotional lability in early childhood.
Currently, 102 children, ages 3-9 years completed the Emotion Regulation Checklist and a structural MRI scan as part of two longitudinal studies. Participants were scanned using a Siemens 3.0 T scanner. A standard resolution (.9mm3) T1-weighted whole brain structural scan was acquired and processed in FreeSurfer. Cortical thickness and surface area metrics were derived from the Desikan-Killiany atlas, boundaries were inspected manually for accuracy.
Analyses examined relations between cortical thickness in four a priori brain regions based on the literature (insula, inferior frontal gyrus, anterior cingulate cortex, and medial orbitofrontal cortex). When controlling for confounding variables, such as age and gender, a positive correlation was found between emotion regulation and the thickness of the insula, r(97) = .221, p = .027. An additional negative relation was found between emotional lability and the thickness of the inferior frontal gyrus, r(97) = -.224, p = .026. Cortical surface area was not associated with emotion regulation or emotional lability in any of the ROI’s. An exploratory whole brain, vertex by vertex analysis also identified relations between emotion regulation and the inferior frontal gyrus. Following cluster corrections for multiple comparisons, positive relations were observed between emotion regulation in the superior temporal lobe and negative relations were observed between emotional reactivity and superior temporal, superior parietal, inferior temporal thickness.
These results suggest that individual differences in emotional lability may relate to individual differences in brain structure during early childhood. Furthermore, these results are consistent with the emerging theory that cortical thickness and surface area are phenotypically independent, as relations were seen with the former, but not the latter. Finally, while ROI analyses confirmed previously implicated regions of interest, the exploratory whole brain analyses pointed to temporal and parietal regions that may be further investigated in future studies. These results expand on the literature by providing insight on neural correlates of emotion regulation in early childhood through the use of MRI technology.

Authors

• Arcadia Ewell, Boston University
  Presenting Author

• Tamara Lynn Allard, University of Maryland - College Park
  Non-Presenting Author

• Morgan Botdorf, University of Maryland - College Park
  Non-Presenting Author

• Tracy Riggins, University of Maryland - College Park
  Non-Presenting Author