Interactions between empathy and resting heart rate in early adolescence predict violent behavior in late adolescence and early adulthood.

BackgroundAlthough resting heart rate (RHR) and empathy are independently and negatively associated with violent behavior, relatively little is known about the interplay between these psychophysiological and temperament-related risk factors.MethodsUsing a sample of 160 low-income, racially diverse men followed prospectively from infancy through early adulthood, this study examined whether RHR and empathy during early adolescence independently and interactively predict violent behavior and related correlates in late adolescence and early adulthood.ResultsControlling for child ethnicity, family income, and child antisocial behavior at age 12, empathy inversely predicted moral disengagement and juvenile petitions for violent crimes, while RHR was unrelated to all measures of violent behavior. Interactive effects were also evident such that among men with lower but not higher levels of RHR, lower empathy predicted increased violent behavior, as indexed by juvenile arrests for violent offenses, peer-reported violent behavior at age 17, self-reported moral disengagement at age 17, and self-reported violent behavior at age 20.ConclusionsImplications for prevention and intervention are considered. Specifically, targeting empathic skills among individuals at risk for violent behavior because of specific psychophysiological profiles may lead to more impactful interventions

The interaction between monoamine oxidase A and punitive discipline in the development of antisocial behavior: Mediation by maladaptive social information processing.

Previous studies demonstrate that boys' monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) genotype interacts with adverse rearing environments in early childhood, including punitive discipline, to predict later antisocial behavior. Yet the mechanisms by which MAOA and punitive parenting interact during childhood to amplify risk for antisocial behavior are not well understood. In the present study, hostile attributional bias and aggressive response generation during middle childhood, salient aspects of maladaptive social information processing, were tested as possible mediators of this relation in a sample of 187 low-income men followed prospectively from infancy into early adulthood. Given racial-ethnic variation in MAOA allele frequencies, analyses were conducted separately by race. In both African American and Caucasian men, those with the low-activity MAOA allele who experienced more punitive discipline at age 1.5 generated more aggressive responses to perceived threat at age 10 relative to men with the high-activity variant. In the African American subsample only, formal mediation analyses indicated a marginally significant indirect effect of maternal punitiveness on adult arrest records via aggressive response generation in middle childhood. The findings suggest that maladaptive social information processing may be an important mechanism underlying the association between MAOA × Parenting interactions and antisocial behavior in early adulthood. The present study extends previous work in the field by demonstrating that MAOA and harsh parenting assessed in early childhood interact to not only predict antisocial behavior in early adulthood, but also predict social information processing, a well-established social-cognitive correlate of antisocial behavior

Children's Emotion Regulation: Frontal EEG Asymmetry and Behavior during a Disappointment

The approach-withdrawal model of emotion regulation posits that emotional behaviors are associated with a balance of activity in left and right frontal brain areas that can be explained in an asymmetry measurement. According to the model, approach emotions such as joy are associated with greater relative activity in left frontal brain areas and withdrawal emotions such as fear are associated with greater relative activity in right frontal brain areas (Davidson, 1992; Fox, 1991). The hypothesis tested in the present study is that children's approach and withdrawal behavior are related to resting and task-related brain electrical activity. Fifty-eight children from age 3-9 years were assessed during a laboratory task designed to elicit disappointment. In this task, children were led to believe that they would receive their favorite of a group of toys but instead were given their least favorite toy. Electroencephalogram (EEG) activity was measured during rest and during the task condition in which the child received the least-favorite toy, and asymmetry scores for midfrontal sites were computed. Approach behaviors (e.g., smiling) and withdrawal behaviors (e.g., facial expressions of disgust) during the task were coded from videotape. Children with right frontal asymmetry at rest exhibited more withdrawal behavior and were more likely to express sadness during the task. Approach behavior was not associated with frontal asymmetry. Sadness expressions decreased with age, smiling increased with age, and children whose parents had high depressive symptoms exhibited anger more frequently. These findings provide limited support for the approach-withdrawal model and suggest that the relation between resting asymmetry and withdrawal behavior might be stronger than that for resting asymmetry and approach behavior

Deflections from adolescent trajectories of antisocial behavior: contextual and neural moderators of antisocial behavior stability into emerging adulthood

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146467/1/jcpp12931_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146467/2/jcpp12931.pd

Neutral competition of stem cells is skewed by proliferative changes downstream of Hh and Hpo.

Neutral competition, an emerging feature of stem cell homeostasis, posits that individual stem cells can be lost and replaced by their neighbors stochastically, resulting in chance dominance of a clone at the niche. A single stem cell with an oncogenic mutation could bias this process and clonally spread the mutation throughout the stem cell pool. The Drosophila testis provides an ideal system for testing this model. The niche supports two stem cell populations that compete for niche occupancy. Here, we show that cyst stem cells (CySCs) conform to the paradigm of neutral competition and that clonal deregulation of either the Hedgehog (Hh) or Hippo (Hpo) pathway allows a single CySC to colonize the niche. We find that the driving force behind such behavior is accelerated proliferation. Our results demonstrate that a single stem cell colonizes its niche through oncogenic mutation by co-opting an underlying homeostatic process.This is the final version. It was first published by Wiley at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.15252/embj.201387500/abstract

Parents Still Matter! Parental Warmth Predicts Adolescent Brain Function and Anxiety and Depressive Symptoms Two Years Later

Anxiety is the most prevalent psychological disorder among youth, and even following treatment, confers risk for anxiety relapse and the development of depression. Anxiety disorders are associated with heightened response to negative affective stimuli in brain networks underlying emotion processing. One factor that can attenuate symptoms of anxiety and depression in high-risk youth is parental warmth. The current study investigates whether parental warmth helps to protect against future anxiety and depressive symptoms in adolescents with histories of anxiety, and whether neural functioning in brain regions implicated in emotion processing and regulation can account for this link. Following anxiety disorder treatment (Time 1), thirty adolescents (M age=11.58, SD=1.26) reported on maternal warmth and, two years later (Time 2), participated in functional neuroimaging task where they listened to pre-recorded criticism and neutral statements from a parent. Higher maternal warmth predicted lower neural activation during criticism, compared with neutral statements, in the left amygdala, bilateral insula, subgenual anterior cingulate, right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, and anterior cingulate cortex. Maternal warmth was associated with adolescents’ anxiety and depressive symptoms due to the indirect effects of sgACC activation, suggesting that parenting may attenuate risk for internalizing through its effects on brain function

Examining the Factor Structure of the Self-Report of Psychopathy Short-Form Across Four Young Adult Samples

Psychopathy refers to a range of complex behaviors and personality traits, including callousness and antisocial behavior, typically studied in criminal populations. Recent studies have used self-reports to examine psychopathic traits among noncriminal samples. The goal of the current study was to examine the underlying factor structure of the Self-Report of Psychopathy Scale–Short Form (SRP-SF) across complementary samples and examine the impact of gender on factor structure. We examined the structure of the SRP-SF among 2,554 young adults from three undergraduate samples and a high-risk young adult sample. Using confirmatory factor analysis, a four-correlated factor model and a four-bifactor model showed good fit to the data. Evidence of weak invariance was found for both models across gender. These findings highlight that the SRP-SF is a useful measure of low-level psychopathic traits in noncriminal samples, although the underlying factor structure may not fully translate across men and women

Pediatric functional magnetic resonance neuroimaging: tactics for encouraging task compliance

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Neuroimaging technology has afforded advances in our understanding of normal and pathological brain function and development in children and adolescents. However, noncompliance involving the inability to remain in the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner to complete tasks is one common and significant problem. Task noncompliance is an especially significant problem in pediatric functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) research because increases in noncompliance produces a greater risk that a study sample will not be representative of the study population.</p> <p>Method</p> <p>In this preliminary investigation, we describe the development and application of an approach for increasing the number of fMRI tasks children complete during neuroimaging. Twenty-eight healthy children ages 9-13 years participated. Generalization of the approach was examined in additional fMRI and event-related potential investigations with children at risk for depression, children with anxiety and children with depression (N = 120). Essential features of the approach include a preference assessment for identifying multiple individualized rewards, increasing reinforcement rates during imaging by pairing tasks with chosen rewards and presenting a visual 'road map' listing tasks, rewards and current progress.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Our results showing a higher percentage of fMRI task completion by healthy children provides proof of concept data for the recommended tactics. Additional support was provided by results showing our approach generalized to several additional fMRI and event-related potential investigations and clinical populations.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>We proposed that some forms of task noncompliance may emerge from less than optimal reward protocols. While our findings may not directly support the effectiveness of the multiple reward compliance protocol, increased attention to how rewards are selected and delivered may aid cooperation with completing fMRI tasks</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The proposed approach contributes to the pediatric neuroimaging literature by providing a useful way to conceptualize and measure task noncompliance and by providing simple cost effective tactics for improving the effectiveness of common reward-based protocols.</p