Maternal Antecedents to Adolescent Girls' Neural Regulation of Emotion.

The purpose of this study was to investigate contributions of maternal emotional resources to individual differences in adolescents' functional connectivity during emotion regulation. Participants included 35 adolescent girls who completed an implicit emotion regulation task during fMRI. Mothers reported on the quality of their adult attachment and emotional awareness when youth were in elementary school. Higher anxious attachment and lower emotional awareness were significantly correlated with more positive amygdala-right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex connectivity, a pattern linked in prior research with ineffective emotion regulation and emotional difficulties. Further, there was an indirect effect of anxious attachment on adolescent connectivity through emotional awareness. These results suggest that compromised maternal emotional resources in childhood may be linked to atypical neural processing of emotions.

Chronic peer victimization heightens neural sensitivity to risk taking.

Although behavioral and experimental studies have shown links between victimization and antisocial behavior, the neural correlates explaining this link are relatively unknown. In the current study, we recruited adolescent girls from a longitudinal study that tracked youths' reports of peer victimization experiences annually from the second through eighth grades. Based on these reports, 46 adolescents were recruited: 25 chronically victimized and 21 nonvictimized. During a functional magnetic resonance imaging scan, participants completed a risk-taking task. Chronic peer victimization was associated with greater risk-taking behavior during the task and higher levels of self-reported antisocial behavior in everyday life. At the neural level, chronically victimized girls showed greater activation in regions involved in affective sensitivity, social cognition, and cognitive control, which significantly mediated victimization group differences in self-reported antisocial behavior.

Families that fire together smile together: Resting state connectome similarity and daily emotional synchrony in parent-child dyads.

Despite emerging evidence suggesting a biological basis to our social tiles, our understanding of the neural processes which link two minds is unknown. We implemented a novel approach, which included connectome similarity analysis using resting state intrinsic networks of parent-child dyads as well as daily diaries measured across 14 days. Intrinsic resting-state networks for both parents and their adolescent child were identified using independent component analysis (ICA). Results indicate that parents and children who had more similar RSN connectome also had more similar day-to-day emotional synchrony. Furthermore, dyadic RSN connectome similarity was associated with children's emotional competence, suggesting that being neurally in-tune with their parents confers emotional benefits. We provide the first evidence that dyadic RSN similarity is associated with emotional synchrony in what is often our first and most essential social bond, the parent-child relationship.

Rumination about Social Stress Mediates the Association between Peer Victimization and Depressive Symptoms during Middle Childhood.

Although prior research has established a link between exposure to peer victimization and depressive symptoms, relatively little is known about the processes underlying this association. This study examined whether maladaptive responses to a novel social stressor - specifically, lower levels of problem solving or higher levels of rumination - mediate this association. Data were gathered from 130 children (64 boys, 66 girls; M age = 9.46, SD = .33) who participated in a laboratory social stressor task with an unfamiliar peer. Results indicated that prior exposure to peer victimization in the school context was associated with ruminative responses to the novel stressor, which mediated the association between victimization and depressive symptoms. These results indicate that ruminative responses to social stress outside of the victimization context may serve as one process explaining the association between victimization and heightened depressive symptoms.

Relationship Quality Buffers Association Between Co-rumination and Depressive Symptoms Among First Year College Students.

Co-rumination, the tendency to dwell on negative events and feelings with a relationship partner, is an aspect of relationships that has been associated with socioemotional adjustment tradeoffs and is found to be associated with depressive symptoms. However, depending on the context in which it occurs, co-rumination is not necessarily associated with detriments to mental well-being. Differences in relationship quality within certain relationships may explain why co-rumination is not always associated with depressive symptoms. In the current study, we utilized self-report measures in an ethnically diverse sample (53.5 % non-White) of 307 first term college students (65 % female) in order to elucidate how co-rumination between roommates may be associated with depressive symptoms. We found that the association between co-rumination and depressive symptoms was moderated by relationship quality such that co-rumination in a high quality relationship was not associated with depressive symptoms whereas the opposite was true in low quality relationships. Moreover, we found moderated mediation, such that the variance in the association between co-rumination and depressive symptoms was explained via self-esteem, but only for those co-ruminating within a low quality relationship. These results suggest that relationship quality may impact the extent to which co-rumination is associated with depressive symptoms among first year college students.

Moving against and away from the world: the adolescent legacy of peer victimization.

Nicki Crick initiated a generative line of theory and research aimed at exploring the implications of exposure to overt and relational aggression for youth development. The present study aimed to continue and expand this research by examining whether early (second grade) and increasing (second-sixth grade) levels of victimization during elementary school contributed to youths' tendencies to move against, away from, or toward the world of peers following the transition to middle school. Youth (M age in second grade = 7.96 years, SD = 0.35; 338 girls, 298 boys) reported on their exposure to victimization and their social goals (performance-approach, performance-avoidance, or mastery). Teachers reported on youths' exposure to victimization and their engagement in antisocial, socially helpless, and prosocial behavior. Latent growth curve analyses revealed that early and increasing levels of both overt and relational victimization uniquely contributed to multifinality in adverse developmental outcomes, predicting all three social orientations (high conflictual engagement, high disengagement, and low positive engagement). The pattern of effects was robust across sex and after adjusting for youths' early social motivation. These findings confirm that both forms of victimization leave an enduring legacy on youths' social health in adolescence. Given that profiles of moving against and away from the world can contribute to subsequent psychopathology, understanding and preventing this legacy is pivotal for developing effective intervention programs aimed at minimizing the effects of peer adversity.

The Contribution of Childhood Negative Emotionality and Cognitive Control to Anxiety-Linked Neural Dysregulation of Emotion in Adolescence.

Adolescence is a period of heightened emotional reactivity, which is reflected in greater activation in emotion-processing regions of the brain in adolescents relative to children and adults. While elevated emotional reactivity and poor emotion regulation are thought to contribute to the rise in rates of internalizing psychopathology, including anxiety, during adolescence, little research has examined factors predicting individual differences in the neural regulation of emotion that can explain why only some adolescents experience anxiety. To address this gap, the present study examined the contribution of childhood negative emotionality (NE) and cognitive control (CC) to neural processing of emotion in adolescence. A sample of 44 girls (M age = 15.5, SD = 0.35) was selected from a longitudinal study that included self, parent, and teacher report of NE and CC between 2nd and 7th grades. Following 9th grade, girls completed an emotion regulation task during a functional magnetic resonance imaging scan. Neural regulation of emotion was indexed by functional connectivity between the amygdala and right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (rVLPFC) during emotion regulation. Analyses revealed that NE predicted a less mature pattern of amygdala-rVLPFC connectivity while CC predicted a more mature pattern of amygdala-rVLPFC connectivity. Additionally, we found an interaction between NE and CC, such that NE predicted emotion dysregulation at low but not high levels of CC. Neural dysregulation of emotion was associated with anxiety symptoms across the following nine months. These findings identify important individual differences in the development of emotion dysregulation that contribute to risk for anxiety in adolescence.

Behavioral and neural concordance in parent-child dyadic sleep patterns.

Sleep habits developed in adolescence shape long-term trajectories of psychological, educational, and physiological well-being. Adolescents' sleep behaviors are shaped by their parents' sleep at both the behavioral and biological levels. In the current study, we sought to examine how neural concordance in resting-state functional connectivity between parent-child dyads is associated with dyadic concordance in sleep duration and adolescents' sleep quality. To this end, we scanned both parents and their child (N=28 parent-child dyads; parent Mage=42.8years; adolescent Mage=14.9years; 14.3% father; 46.4% female adolescent) as they each underwent a resting-state scan. Using daily diaries, we also assessed dyadic concordance in sleep duration across two weeks. Our results show that greater daily concordance in sleep behavior is associated with greater neural concordance in default-mode network connectivity between parents and children. Moreover, greater neural and behavioral concordances in sleep is associated with more optimal sleep quality in adolescents. The current findings expand our understanding of dyadic concordance by providing a neurobiological mechanism by which parents and children share daily sleep behaviors.

Disrupted amygdala-prefrontal connectivity during emotion regulation links stress-reactive rumination and adolescent depressive symptoms.

Rumination in response to stress (stress-reactive rumination) has been linked to higher levels of depressive symptoms in adolescents. However, no work to date has examined the neural mechanisms connecting stress-reactive rumination and adolescent depressive symptoms. The present work attempted to bridge this gap through an fMRI study of 41 adolescent girls (Mage=15.42, SD=0.33) - a population in whom elevated levels of depressive symptoms, rumination, and social stress sensitivity are displayed. During the scan, participants completed two tasks: an emotion regulation task and a social stress task. Using psychophysiological interaction (PPI) analyses, we found that positive functional connectivity between the amygdala and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) during the emotion regulation task mediated the association between stress-reactive rumination and depressive symptoms. These results suggest that stress-reactive rumination may interfere with the expression and development of neural connectivity patterns associated with effective emotion regulation, which may contribute, in turn, to heightened depressive symptoms.

Letting the good times roll: adolescence as a period of reduced inhibition to appetitive social cues.

Given the spike in risky behaviors that accompanies adolescence, the need to examine the processes and contextual factors that influence disinhibition for adolescents is of great import. Using an emotionally salient cognitive control task, we examined how socially appetitive and aversive cues differentially affect behavioral inhibition across development. In Study 1 (N = 94, ages 8-30 years), we found that socially appetitive cues were particularly detrimental to inhibition, a finding driven by our adolescent sample. In Study 2 (N = 35, ages 12-17 years), we sought to explore the neural processes implicated in suboptimal inhibition during adolescence. Replicating our behavioral findings from Study 1, socially appetitive cues again caused detriments to inhibition compared with socially aversive cues. At the neural level, increased activation in affective regions (amygdala and ventral striatum) while viewing socially appetitive relative to socially aversive cues was correlated with increases in disinhibition. Furthermore, both whole-brain and functional connectivity analyses suggest recruitment of affective and social-detection networks (fusiform, bilateral temporoparietal junction) may account for the increased focus on appetitive relative to aversive cues. Together, our findings suggest that adolescents show detriments in inhibition to socially appetitive contexts, which is related to increased recruitment of affective and social processing neural regions.

Adding insult to injury: neural sensitivity to social exclusion is associated with internalizing symptoms in chronically peer-victimized girls.

Despite evidence documenting activation of the social pain network in response to social rejection and its link to temporary distress, far less is known regarding its role in pervasive emotional difficulties. Moreover, research has not considered the intersection between neural activation to experimentally induced social exclusion and naturally occurring social adversity. This study examined an integrated social pain model of internalizing symptoms, which posits that (i) neural sensitivity in the social pain network is associated with internalizing symptoms, (ii) this linkage is more robust in youth with than without a history of social adversity, and (iii) heightened avoidance motivation serves as one pathway linking neural sensitivity and internalizing symptoms. During a functional magnetic resonance imaging scan, 47 adolescent girls (M age = 15.46 years, SD = .35) with well-characterized histories of peer victimization were exposed to social exclusion. Whole-brain analyses revealed that activation to exclusion in the social pain network was associated with internalizing symptoms. As anticipated, this linkage was stronger in chronically victimized than non-victimized girls and was partially accounted for by avoidance motivation. This research indicates the importance of integrating neural, social and psychological systems of development in efforts to elucidate risk for internalizing symptoms among adolescent girls.

The quality of adolescents' peer relationships modulates neural sensitivity to risk taking.

Adolescents' peer culture plays a key role in the development and maintenance of risk-taking behavior. Despite recent advances in developmental neuroscience suggesting that peers may increase neural sensitivity to rewards, we know relatively little about how the quality of peer relations impact adolescent risk taking. In the current 2-year three-wave longitudinal study, we examined how chronic levels of peer conflict relate to risk taking behaviorally and neurally, and whether this is modified by high-quality peer relationships. Forty-six adolescents completed daily diaries assessing peer conflict across 2 years as well as a measure of peer support. During a functional brain scan, adolescents completed a risk-taking task. Behaviorally, peer conflict was associated with greater risk-taking behavior, especially for adolescents reporting low peer support. High levels of peer support buffered this association. At the neural level, peer conflict was associated with greater activation in the striatum and insula, especially among adolescents reporting low peer support, whereas this association was buffered for adolescents reporting high peer support. Results are consistent with the stress-buffering model of social relationships and underscore the importance of the quality of adolescents' peer relationships for their risk taking.