Journal Article

Behavioral and emotional dysregulation trajectories marked by prefrontal–amygdala function in symptomatic youth

Axelson, D., Versace, A., Arnold, L. E., Findling, R. L., Youngstrom, E. A., Horwitz, S. M., Almeida, J. R. C., Perlman, S. B., Bertocci, M. A., Schirda, C., Birmaher, B., White, R., Bebko, G., Phillips, M. L., Gill, M. K., Holland, S. K., Diwadkar, V. A., Olino, T., Travis, M., Fournier, J., Hinze, A. K., Kowatch, R. A., Fristad, M. A., Bonar, L., Demeter, C., Sunshine, J. L.

2014

Overview

Neuroimaging measures of behavioral and emotional dysregulation can yield biomarkers denoting developmental trajectories of psychiatric pathology in youth. We aimed to identify functional abnormalities in emotion regulation (ER) neural circuitry associated with different behavioral and emotional dysregulation trajectories using latent class growth analysis (LCGA) and neuroimaging. A total of 61 youth (9-17 years) from the Longitudinal Assessment of Manic Symptoms study, and 24 healthy control youth, completed an emotional face n-back ER task during scanning. LCGA was performed on 12 biannual reports completed over 5 years of the Parent General Behavior Inventory 10-Item Mania Scale (PGBI-10M), a parental report of the child's difficulty regulating positive mood and energy. There were two latent classes of PGBI-10M trajectories: high and decreasing (HighD; n=22) and low and decreasing (LowD; n=39) course of behavioral and emotional dysregulation over the 12 time points. Task performance was >89% in all youth, but more accurate in healthy controls and LowD versus HighD (p<0.001). During ER, LowD had greater activity than HighD and healthy controls in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, a key ER region, and greater functional connectivity than HighD between the amygdala and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (p's<0.001, corrected). Patterns of function in lateral prefrontal cortical-amygdala circuitry in youth denote the severity of the developmental trajectory of behavioral and emotional dysregulation over time, and may be biological targets to guide differential treatment and novel treatment development for different levels of behavioral and emotional dysregulation in youth.

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Subject: Adolescent / Adolescent Development - physiology / Affective Symptoms - physiopathology / Amygdala - physiopathology / Behavior / Behavior disorders / Behavioral Symptoms - physiopathology / Biological and medical sciences / Biological markers / Biomarkers / Brain / Child / Child development / Children / Cortex / Disorders / Emotional disorders / Emotional regulation / Emotions / Female / Functional connectivity / Humans / Longitudinal Studies / Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Male / Mania / Medical imaging / Medical sciences / Neuroimaging / Original Articles / Parent-child relations / Parents / Pathology / Positive emotions / Prefrontal Cortex - physiopathology / Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry / Psychopathology. Psychiatry / Task performance / Young people / Youth