Neural correlates of the lexicality effect in children

Emotional abuse mediated by negative automatic thoughts impacts functional connectivity during adolescence

Background

Emotional abuse during childhood and adolescence is thought to be associated with the brain; however, the neural mechanism underlying the cognitive process remains unknown. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the mediating effect of negative automatic thoughts on the relationship between emotional abuse and resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) during adolescence.

Method

Our community sample included 54 adolescents aged 13-17 years in the statistical analysis. Resting-state functional and structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was performed, while emotional abuse and negative automatic thoughts were assessed using self-reported scales. A mediation analysis was used to assess the contributions of early traumatic events and negative automatic thoughts to resting functional connectivity.

Result

Higher negative automatic thoughts were associated with lower connectivity in the context of greater emotional abuse (i.e., suppression effect). Thus, the relationships between emotional abuse and connectivity in the precuneus (pCun)-medial prefrontal cortex, parahippocampal cortex-extrastriate cortex, and temporal cortex-temporal pole were decreased by negative automatic thoughts. In contrast, functional connections in the pCun-pCun, pCun-precuneus/posterior cingulate cortex, and nucleus accumbens-somatomotor areas were strongly mediated when emotionally abused adolescents reported a high tendency for negative automatic thoughts.

Conclusion

Negative automatic thoughts strengthened the relationship between emotional abuse and rsFC. These findings highlight the underlying cognitive processing of the traumatic event-neural system, supporting the use of cognitive therapy for post-traumatic symptoms.

Modeling developmental changes in print tuning in a transparent alphabetic orthography

The development of print tuning involves the increased specificity and redundancy for orthographic representations. However, it is by no means clear how decoding accuracy and efficiency are related over the years and how it affects reading disability. In the present study, we monitored the development of accuracy and efficiency of decoding in Dutch as a relatively transparent orthography as a function of orthographic complexity and lexical status throughout the primary grades. There was clear evidence that development of decoding accuracy preceded development of decoding efficiency and that a certain threshold of accuracy is needed for decoding efficiency to evolve. Furthermore, it was shown that pseudoword decoding efficiency predicted growth in word decoding efficiency, especially for the higher levels of orthographic complexity. There was also evidence that accuracy precedes efficiency across different profiles of readers and that decoding strength can be defined as a function of orthographic complexity and lexicality.

The Association Between Hippocampal Volume and Level of Attention in Children and Adolescents

The hippocampus, which engages in the process of consolidating long-term memories and learning, shows active development during childhood and adolescence. The hippocampus also functionally influences attention. Based on the influence of hippocampal function on attention, it was expected that the volume of the hippocampus would be associated with the difference in attention during childhood and adolescence, in which the brain develops actively. Thus, this study examined the association between hippocampal volume and attention metrics measured by the continuous performance test (CPT) in 115 children and adolescents (mean age = 12.43 ± 3.0, 63 male and 52 female). In association studies with both auditory and visual attention, we found that the bilateral hippocampal volumes showed negative relationships with auditory omission errors. A smaller volume of the left hippocampus also led to a longer auditory response time. However, visual attention did not show any significant relationship with the hippocampal volume. These findings were consistent even after adjusting for the effects of the related covariates (e.g., age, insomnia, and depression). Taken together, this study suggested that the increase in hippocampal volume during childhood and adolescence was associated significantly with better auditory attention.

Gray Matter Volume in the Developing Frontal Lobe and Its Relationship With Executive Function in Late Childhood and Adolescence: A Community-Based Study

Background: During late childhood and adolescence, the frontal lobe undergoes critical developmental changes, affecting a wide range of executive functions significantly. Conversely, abnormality in the maturation of the frontal lobe during this period may result in a limited ability to effectively use various executive functions. However, at present, it is still unclear how the structural development of the frontal lobe is associated with different aspects of executive functions during this developmental period. To fill the gap in evidence, we aimed to elucidate gray matter volume (GMV) in the frontal lobe and its relationship with multiple aspects of executive functions in late childhood and adolescence. Methods: We recruited our participants aged between 6 and 17 years to assess GMV in the frontal lobe and its relationship with different domains of executive functions in late childhood and adolescence. We used the voxel-based morphometry-DARTEL procedure to measure GMVs in multiple frontal sub-regions and Stroop test and Advanced Test of Attention (ATA) to measure executive functions. We then conducted partial correlation analyses and performed multiple comparisons with different age and sex groups. Results: Overall, 123 participants took part in our study. We found that many regional GMVs in the frontal lobe were negatively correlated with ATA scores in participants in late childhood and positively correlated with ATA scores in participants in adolescence. Only a few correlations of the GMVs with Stroop test scores were significant in both age groups. Although most of our results did not survive false discovery rate (FDR) correction (i.e., FDR <0.2), considering their novelty, we discussed our results based on uncorrected p-values. Our findings indicate that the frontal sub-regions that were involved in attentional networks may significantly improve during late childhood and become stabilized later in adolescence. Moreover, our findings with the Stroop test may also present the possibility of the later maturation of higher-order executive functioning skills. Conclusion: Although our findings were based on uncorrected p-values, the novelty of our findings may provide better insights into elucidating the maturation of the frontal lobe and its relationship with the development of attention networks in late childhood and adolescence.

Structural Alterations in Large-scale Brain Networks and Their Relationship with Sleep Disturbances in the Adolescent Population

Although sleep disturbances are highly prevalent in adolescents, neuroimaging evidence on the effects of sleep disturbances on their developing brains remains limited. Therefore, we explored gray matter volumes (GMVs) at the whole-brain level and investigated their relationship to sleep disturbances in a sample of Korean adolescents in the general population. We recruited participants from one middle school and high school. All participants and their legal guardians gave informed consent before participating in our study. We used component 5 of the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index to measure sleep disturbances and conducted a voxel-based morphometry-DARTEL procedure to measure GMVs. We performed partial correlation analyses to examine whether the GMVs were associated with sleep disturbances. A total of 56 adolescents participated in this study. Our results revealed that GMVs in multiple global regions were negatively correlated with sleep disturbances. Moreover, most of these identified regions belong to large-scale brain networks categorized by functional neuroimaging studies. We found an association between regional GMVs in multiple global regions involved in large-scale networks and the severity of sleep disturbances in the adolescent population. Based on this evidence and previous neuroimaging evidence, we suggest that structural alterations in the networks may be linked to sleep disturbances.

Literacy acquisition: Reading development

Reading is a complex, multifactorial, and dynamic skill. Most of what we currently know about neural correlates underlying reading comes from studies carried out with adults. However, considering that adults are skilled readers, findings from these studies cannot be generalized to children who are still learning to read. The advancement of neuroimaging techniques allowed researchers to investigate the developmental fingerprints and neurocircuitry involved in reading in children. To highlight the contribution of neuroimaging in understanding reading development, we look at both reading components, namely, word identification and reading comprehension. This chapter covers the three literacy periods-emergent, early, and conventional literacy-to better understand how reading acquisition affects neural networks. Further, we discuss our findings in light of different cognitive reading models. Although it is important to consider both spatial and temporal measurements to provide a holistic account of reading-related brain activity, the current chapter focuses on the functional activation and connectivity of reading-related areas in typically developing children.

A longitudinal neuroimaging dataset on multisensory lexical processing in school-aged children

Here we describe the open access dataset entitled “Longitudinal Brain Correlates of Multisensory Lexical Processing in Children” hosted on OpenNeuro.org. This dataset examines reading development through a longitudinal multimodal neuroimaging and behavioral approach, including diffusion-weighted and T1-weighted structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), task based functional MRI, and a battery of psycho-educational assessments and parental questionnaires. Neuroimaging, psycho-educational testing, and functional task behavioral data were collected from 188 typically developing children when they were approximately 10.5 years old (session T1). Seventy children returned approximately 2.5 years later (session T2), of which all completed longitudinal follow-ups of psycho-educational testing, and 49 completed neuroimaging and functional tasks. At session T1 participants completed auditory, visual, and audio-visual word and pseudo-word rhyming judgment tasks in the scanner. At session T2 participants completed visual word and pseudo-word rhyming judgement tasks in the scanner.

Measurement(s)	reading and spelling ability • intelligence • brain • brain physiology trait
Technology Type(s)	psychoeducational test administration • magnetic resonance imaging • functional magnetic resonance imaging • Diffusion Weighted Imaging
Factor Type(s)	age • reading disability • type of task • parental educational level
Sample Characteristic - Organism	Homo sapiens

Machine-accessible metadata file describing the reported data: 10.6084/m9.figshare.11298188

Dissociating the functions of superior and inferior parts of the left ventral occipito-temporal cortex during visual word and object processing

During word and object recognition, extensive activation has consistently been observed in the left ventral occipito-temporal cortex (vOT), focused around the occipito-temporal sulcus (OTs). Previous studies have shown that there is a hierarchy of responses from posterior to anterior vOT regions (along the y-axis) that corresponds with increasing levels of recognition - from perceptual to semantic processing, respectively. In contrast, the functional differences between superior and inferior vOT responses (i.e. along the z-axis) have not yet been elucidated. To investigate, we conducted an extensive review of the literature and found that peak activation for reading varies by more than 1 cm in the z-axis. In addition, we investigated functional differences between superior and inferior parts of left vOT by analysing functional MRI data from 58 neurologically normal skilled readers performing 8 different visual processing tasks. We found that group activation in superior vOT was significantly more sensitive than inferior vOT to the type of task, with more superior vOT activation when participants were matching visual stimuli for their semantic or perceptual content than producing speech to the same stimuli. This functional difference along the z-axis was compared to existing boundaries between cytoarchitectonic areas around the OTs. In addition, using dynamic causal modelling, we show that connectivity from superior vOT to anterior vOT increased with semantic content during matching tasks but not during speaking tasks whereas connectivity from inferior vOT to anterior vOT was sensitive to semantic content for matching and speaking tasks. The finding of a functional dissociation between superior and inferior parts of vOT has implications for predicting deficits and response to rehabilitation for patients with partial damage to vOT following stroke or neurosurgery.