Contextual Influences on Youth Socioemotional and Corticolimbic Development

The formation of adaptive socioemotional skills is a key developmental competency in childhood and such behaviors are supported, in part, by neural function within the corticolimbic system. Multiple features of the social context (e.g., harsh parenting) and individual-level markers of maturation (e.g., pubertal development) are robust predictors of youth socioemotional outcomes, but several gaps in the literature remain. However, more research is needed to investigate the timing and specificity of contextual and maturation effects on youth socioemotional and corticolimbic development, using population-based studies that allow for generalization of the results to a broader population. This three study dissertation integrates research on socioeconomic disadvantage, neural correlates of emotion processing, and internalizing and externalizing behaviors in childhood in service of these goals. Study 1 tests a longitudinal Family Stress Model using prospectively-collected data from a population-based nationwide study of children followed from birth through age 9, with an oversample of disadvantaged families. Study 2 builds on the results of Study 1 by examining the influence of initial levels and changes in harsh parenting across childhood on corticolimbic function during adolescence. Finally, Study 3 evaluates the effects of age and puberty on amygdala-prefrontal connectivity during face processing, using a large cross-sectional population-based sample of twins from Southeast Michigan. The general discussion chapter of this dissertation highlights theoretical and empirical considerations for this research, as well as outlines several future directions.PHDPsychologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/153437/1/arigard_1.pd

Neural connectivity biotypes: associations with internalizing problems throughout adolescence.

BackgroundNeurophysiological patterns may distinguish which youth are at risk for the well-documented increase in internalizing symptoms during adolescence. Adolescents with internalizing problems exhibit altered resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) of brain regions involved in socio-affective processing. Whether connectivity-based biotypes differentiate adolescents' levels of internalizing problems remains unknown.MethodSixty-eight adolescents (37 females) reported on their internalizing problems at ages 14, 16, and 18 years. A resting-state functional neuroimaging scan was collected at age 16. Time-series data of 15 internalizing-relevant brain regions were entered into the Subgroup-Group Iterative Multi-Model Estimation program to identify subgroups based on RSFC maps. Associations between internalizing problems and connectivity-based biotypes were tested with regression analyses.ResultsTwo connectivity-based biotypes were found: a Diffusely-connected biotype (N = 46), with long-range fronto-parietal paths, and a Hyper-connected biotype (N = 22), with paths between subcortical and medial frontal areas (e.g. affective and default-mode network regions). Higher levels of past (age 14) internalizing problems predicted a greater likelihood of belonging to the Hyper-connected biotype at age 16. The Hyper-connected biotype showed higher levels of concurrent problems (age 16) and future (age 18) internalizing problems.ConclusionsDifferential patterns of RSFC among socio-affective brain regions were predicted by earlier internalizing problems and predicted future internalizing problems in adolescence. Measuring connectivity-based biotypes in adolescence may offer insight into which youth face an elevated risk for internalizing disorders during this critical developmental period

Childhood Trauma And Emotion Processing Neurocircuitry

Childhood trauma is one of the strongest risk factors for a range of common and debilitating neuropsychiatric disorders, including anxiety, depression, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). These emotion-related disorders have their roots in childhood and adolescence, underscoring a critical need to understand their biological bases in early life. In this dissertation, we evaluate how childhood trauma impacts emotion processing neurocircuitry in a sample of high-risk urban youth, ages 7-15. In four inter-related studies, we test neural function and functional connectivity of core emotion processing regions, including the amygdala, insula, and pregenual/subgenual anterior cingulate cortex (pgACC/sgACC). To examine the relevance of observed neurological changes, we evaluate behavioral performance on emotion processing neuropsychological tasks, as well as specific dimensions of subjective affective experience. Results indicate that, relative to matched comparison youth, trauma-exposed youth have (1) increased neural response to salient emotional cues in amygdala and insula, (2) reduced functional connectivity between amygdala and pgACC/sgACC, a pathway critical for emotion regulation, and (3) altered within- and between-network connectivity of the salience network, involved in detecting and orienting attention to salient emotional stimuli. These neurological changes are accompanied by behavioral alterations: trauma-exposed youth have a lower ability to ignore distracting emotional information, and to automatically regulate emotion. Additionally, observed neurobehavioral changes relate to a specific dimension of affective experience – reward sensitivity (RS), rather than negative affect. Moreover, trauma-exposed youth with the greatest neurobehavioral impairment report lower RS, suggesting reduced positive environmental engagement. These results suggest that RS may be a marker of stress susceptibility, a notion supported by emerging basic and clinical research. Based on our neurobehavioral findings, we discuss potential implications for intervention, and relay an emerging framework that dissociates neurological effects of different trauma types (i.e., threat/victimization vs. deprivation/neglect). In closing, we discuss future directions, including longitudinal research and evaluating the modulation of learned fear – a neurobehavioral mechanism that depends on emotion processing neurocircuitry, but has yet to be tested in trauma-exposed youth

Early Emotion Regulation in the Children of Superstorm Sandy

Rising prevalence of childhood psychopathology mandate investigation into the antecedents of symptom onset. Growing evidence shows prenatal maternal stress experienced in utero is a strong contributor to offspring neurodevelopmental deficits, including emotion dysregulation, a core feature of many types of psychopathology. This dissertation summarizes a body of work studying children prenatally exposed to maternal stress related to a natural disaster, Superstorm Sandy (i.e., storm stress). This work includes six experiments conducted in the framework of the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) hypothesis. The DOHaD hypothesis posits that developmental disruptions, like storm stress exposure, during a critical period of developmental, like gestation, can have long term influences on health. The first experiment explores infant behavioral temperament and shows correlations between objective stressors related to the storm and poor regulation and negative affect. Experiment 2 demonstrates that associations between temperament and a sympathetic nervous system measure, electrodermal activity (EDA), vary by child sex. Experiment 3 shows that prenatal storm stress is associated with increased EDA in girls, and decreased EDA in boys. Experiment 4 describes an interaction between prenatal storm stress and maternal depression predicting blunted offspring EDA in early childhood. Experiments 5 and 6 present preliminary findings that children prenatally exposed to storm stress exhibit differential prefrontal-limbic structure and amygdala function, respectively. Future work should expand the current sample, which was hampered by the Covid-19 pandemic, consider maternal mental health history in more depth, and continue to follow the trajectory of neurodevelopment of children affected by Superstorm Sandy. The vulnerability of pregnant people and their children, and how they can best be supported in the face of widespread disasters, needs to be more thoroughly studied as well. This knowledge may inform public health officials and mental health professionals in best practices to mitigate the impact of stressors, especially during pregnancy, and improve psychological wellbeing and optimal neurodevelopment in vulnerable people

Maternal depression during early childhood, persistent aggression into emerging adulthood: neurodevelopmental pathways of risk?

Despite an accumulation of evidence documenting prospective links between maternal depression and aggression in offspring, the mechanisms underlying this association remain somewhat mysterious. Mothers' depressive symptoms could undermine offspring's learning of stage-adaptive emotion regulation (ER) skills during early childhood (e.g., Seifer, Schiller, Sameroff, Resnick, & Riordan, 1996; Silk, Shaw, Skuban, Oland, & Kovacs, 2006). Some longitudinal studies link maternal depression to disruptions in young children's ER, which has been found to predict elevated aggressive behavior in later childhood and emerging adolescence (e.g., Gilliom et al., 2002; Trentacosta & Shaw, 2009). Neurodevelopmental mechanisms such as altered organization or refinement in cortico-limbic pathways could also play a role in prospective associations between mothers' depression during early childhood and dysregulated aggression in offspring (Callaghan & Tottenham, 2016; Sheikh et al., 2014). To further inform future inquiries into these mechanisms of risk, the present study tested whether maternal depression in early childhood was prospectively linked to persistent patterns of aggression at school entry and in emerging adulthood via disruptions in early ER processes and related patterns of neuroanatomical connectivity. Participants were drawn from a sample of 310 males at elevated risk for disruptive behavior problems based on their gender and low socioeconomic status. Direct paths from maternal depression and preschool-age ER in early childhood to offspring aggression at school-age were supported. Unexpectedly, aggressive behavior was not found to be stable from the early school-age period into young adulthood across informant and context. Children's aggressive behavior was inversely associated with uncinate fasciculus structural integrity in emerging adulthood, such that higher aggression at school-age predicted lower fractional anisotropy at age 20. Another index of uncinate structural integrity (i.e., mean diffusivity) was positively associated with general antisocial behavior and depressive symptoms in young adulthood. The present findings add new, longitudinal evidence to inform nascent theories for neurodevelopmental mechanisms underlying antisocial behavior and clarify directions for future research endeavors to illuminate other potential neurodevelopmental mechanisms of risk related to mothers' depression

A mechanistic investigation of neuro-cognitive and experiential factors associated with psychiatric vulnerability following childhood maltreatment

Childhood maltreatment is one of the most potent predictors of future psychopathology. While progress has been made in documenting a number of cognitive and neurobiological mechanisms that might underpin this association, investigations to date have focused on a limited number of domains. The primary aim of this thesis was, therefore, to advance and extend our understanding of the neurocognitive domains that may contribute to increased psychiatric vulnerability following childhood maltreatment. In the first empirical chapter (Chapter Two), using a model-based fMRI analytic approach and a probabilistic passive-avoidance task, we showed that childhood maltreatment is associated with recalibrations in the neurocomputational processes that underlie reinforcement-based decision-making. These are expected-value representation and prediction-error signalling to reward and punishment cues. In Chapter Three we showed that altered brain responses to threat (in the form of heighted amygdala reactivity) and an increased propensity to experience stressful life events predict future internalising symptoms among individuals with a history of maltreatment. In Chapter Four we found that experiencing maltreatment during childhood is associated with difficulties in imagining specific and detailed possible future scenarios (‘Overgeneral Episodic Future Thinking’). In Chapter Five, a history of maltreatment was linked to deficits in interpersonal problem solving skills – this, in turn, contributed to the association between maltreatment and poor mental health. The findings of this thesis increase our understanding of how childhood maltreatment impacts neurobiological, cognitive and social functioning in ways that may potentiate subsequent risk of psychopathology. In the longer term, it is hoped that these findings will contribute to the development of screening tools and novel preventative clinical approaches that could foster a resilient outcome for those maltreated individuals at greatest psychiatric vulnerability

How Early Adversity Becomes Biologically Embedded and Associated Risk for Psychopathology

The Dimensional Model of Adversity and Psychopathology is a model that links dimensions of early adversity to specific neurobiological mechanisms, which are then associated with risk for psychopathology across development. The model differentiates between the impact of deprivation and threat on neurobiological functioning. Deprivation is conceptualized as the absence of or lack of complexity in expected cognitive and social inputs. Threat is conceptualized as harm or threat of harm to oneself or a close other. Prior research has linked deprivation and threat in childhood with unique associations with behavior across the lifespan. However, more research is needed to understand how deprivation and threat may impact different neurobiological systems and how those associations influence risk for psychopathology in early childhood and adolescence. Across three papers, the current work examines how deprivation and threat are associated with differences in brain structure, physiological response during fear learning, and neural activation during a social evaluation task. Results suggest distinct associations of deprivation and threat on brain structure in early childhood. Additionally, threat was associated with altered fear learning in youth and less ventrolateral prefrontal cortex activation during peer social evaluation. These studies may contribute to understanding mechanistic targets for future intervention for youth with adversity exposure across childhood and adolescence.Doctor of Philosoph

Environmental Sensitivity: A Multi-Domain Investigation of its Development in Infancy

Highly sensitive individuals are thought to be disproportionately susceptible to both the risk engendering and development enhancing elements of their environment. If this is so, it seems necessary to hold that sensitivity is a unitary construct, in which markers of sensitivity to stimuli at neural, autonomic, and behavioural levels of analysis moderate the relationship between early social environments and outcomes, for better as well as for worse. The trait of environmental sensitivity (ES) is theorised, through conditional adaptation to enable resource exploitation or risk survival in the developmental context. This thesis tests four main hypotheses: that measures of ES at different levels of analysis would covary at 6-months and would be evoked by positive and negative stimuli; whether associations between measures at 6-months would endure by 12-months; that indices of sensitivity at 12-months would associate with measures indexing the quality of the developmental environment; that measures indexing ES would moderate the relationship between the environment and outcomes. Neural, autonomic, and behavioural indices of ES were measured in N82 infants at 6-months and 12-months, while concurrently collecting data on the wellbeing and socioeconomic status (SES) of their parents. Levels of infant self-regulation and sustained attention were assessed at 12-months. Associations between visual and auditory neural sensitivity were found at 6-months but not 12-months. Likewise, measures of positive and negative behavioural reactivity correlated at 6-months but not 12-months. Maternal SES moderated the relationship between negative reactivity at 6-months and positive reactivity at 12-months such that negatively reactive 6-months infants from high SES households were more positively reactive at 12-months. Baseline RSA at 6-months moderated the relationship between maternal anxiety and 12-months self-regulation but was marginally non-significant. The results are interpreted from the perspective of theories and concepts that have been integrated into a single overarching meta framework of Environmental Sensitivity