Common and disorder-specific cortical thickness alterations in internalizing, externalizing and thought disorders during early adolescence: an Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development study

Neural Basis of Pain Empathy Dysregulations in Mental Disorders - A Pre-registered Neuroimaging Meta-Analysis

BACKGROUND

Pain empathy represents a fundamental building block of several social functions, which have been demonstrated to be impaired across various mental disorders by accumulating evidence from case-control functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies. However, it remains unclear whether the dysregulations are underpinned by robust neural alterations across mental disorders.

METHODS

This study utilized coordinate-based meta-analyses to quantitatively determine robust markers of altered pain empathy across mental disorders. To support the interpretation of the findings exploratory network-level and behavioral meta-analyses were conducted.

RESULTS

Quantitative analysis of eleven case-control fMRI studies with data from 296 patients and 229 controls revealed patients with mental disorders exhibited increased pain empathic reactivity in the left anterior cingulate gyrus, adjacent medial prefrontal cortex, and right middle temporal gyrus, yet decreased activity in the left cerebellum IV/V and left middle occipital gyrus compared to controls. The hyperactive regions showed network-level interactions with the core default mode network (DMN) and were associated with affective and social cognitive domains.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings suggest that pain-empathic alterations across mental disorders are underpinned by excessive empathic reactivity in brain systems involved in empathic distress and social processes, highlighting a shared therapeutic target to normalize basal social dysfunctions in mental disorders.

Longitudinal variation in resilient psychosocial functioning is associated with ongoing cortical myelination and functional reorganization during adolescence

Adolescence is a period of dynamic brain remodeling and susceptibility to psychiatric risk factors, mediated by the protracted consolidation of association cortices. Here, we investigated whether longitudinal variation in adolescents' resilience to psychosocial stressors during this vulnerable period is associated with ongoing myeloarchitectural maturation and consolidation of functional networks. We used repeated myelin-sensitive Magnetic Transfer (MT) and resting-state functional neuroimaging (n = 141), and captured adversity exposure by adverse life events, dysfunctional family settings, and socio-economic status at two timepoints, one to two years apart. Development toward more resilient psychosocial functioning was associated with increasing myelination in the anterolateral prefrontal cortex, which showed stabilized functional connectivity. Studying depth-specific intracortical MT profiles and the cortex-wide synchronization of myeloarchitectural maturation, we further observed wide-spread myeloarchitectural reconfiguration of association cortices paralleled by attenuated functional reorganization with increasingly resilient outcomes. Together, resilient/susceptible psychosocial functioning showed considerable intra-individual change associated with multi-modal cortical refinement processes at the local and system-level.

Association between twin status with cognitive, behavioral development and brain structure in early adolescence: a retrospective cohort analysis based on the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study

Twin births are related with maternal and fetal adverse outcomes. Little was known about the comparability of the cognitive, behavioral development and brain structure between twins and singletons in early adolescence. This retrospective cohort study was based on data from the United States population-based, prospective, longitudinal observational Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study. Children with complete twin status information were enrolled, and the exposure variable was twin status. Primary outcomes were cognitive, behavioral development and brain structure in early adolescence. Cognitive and behavioral outcomes were assessed by using the NIH Toolbox and Child Behavioral Checklist, respectively. Brain structure was evaluated by the cortical thickness, area, and volume extracted from the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data. Subgroup analyses were conducted by prematurity, birth weight, with sibling, genetic profiles, and twin types (zygosity). From 1st September 2016 to 15th November 2018, 11545 children (9477 singletons and 2068 twins) aged 9-10 years were enrolled. Twins showed mildly lower cognitive performance (|t|> 5.104, P-values < 0.001, False Discovery Rate [FDR] < 0.001), better behavioral outcome (|t|> 2.441, P-values < 0.015, FDR < 0.042), such as lower scores for multiple psychiatric disorders and behavioral issues, and smaller cortical volume (t = - 3.854, P-values < 0.001, FDR < 0.001) and cortical area (t = - 3.872, P-values < 0.001, FDR < 0.001). The observed differences still held when stratified for prematurity, birth weight, presence of siblings, genetic profiles, and twin types (zygosity). Furthermore, analyses on the two-year follow-up data showed consistent results with baseline data. Twin status is associated with lower cognitive and better behavioral development in early adolescence accompanied by altered brain structure. Clinicians should be aware of the possible difference when generalizing results from adolescent twin samples to singletons.

Associations Between Family History of Alcohol and/or Substance Use Problems and Frontal Cortical Development From 9 to 13 Years of Age: A Longitudinal Analysis of the ABCD Study

Background

Previous investigations that have examined associations between family history (FH) of alcohol/substance use and adolescent brain development have been primarily cross-sectional. Here, leveraging a large population-based sample of youths, we characterized frontal cortical trajectories among 9- to 13-year-olds with (FH+) versus without (FH-) an FH and examined sex as a potential moderator.

Methods

We used data from 9710 participants in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study (release 4.0). FH+ was defined as having ≥1 biological parents and/or ≥2 biological grandparents with a history of alcohol/substance use problems (n = 2433). Our primary outcome was frontal cortical structural measures obtained at baseline (ages 9-11) and year 2 follow-up (ages 11-13). We used linear mixed-effects models to examine the extent to which FH status qualified frontal cortical development over the age span studied. Finally, we ran additional interactions with sex to test whether observed associations between FH and cortical development differed significantly between sexes.

Results

For FH+ (vs. FH-) youths, we observed increased cortical thinning from 9 to 13 years across the frontal cortex as a whole. When we probed for sex differences, we observed significant declines in frontal cortical thickness among boys but not girls from ages 9 to 13 years. No associations were observed between FH and frontal cortical surface area or volume.

Conclusions

Having a FH+ is associated with more rapid thinning of the frontal cortex across ages 9 to 13, with this effect driven primarily by male participants. Future studies will need to test whether the observed pattern of accelerated thinning predicts future substance use outcomes.