Social anxiety moderates the association between adolescent irritability and bully perpetration

BACKGROUND

Preliminary work suggests anxiety moderates the relationship between irritability and bullying. As anxiety increases, the link between irritability and perpetration decreases. We hypothesize that any moderation effect of anxiety is driven by social anxiety symptoms. We sought to explicate the moderating effect of anxiety, while clarifying relations to other aggressive behaviors.

METHODS

A sample of adolescents (n = 169, mean = 12.42 years of age) were assessed using clinician rated assessments of anxiety, parent reports of irritability and bullying behaviors (perpetration, generalized aggression, and victimization). Correlations assessed zero-order relations between variables, and regression-based moderation analyses were used to test interactions. Johnson-Neyman methods were used to represent significant interactions.

RESULTS

Irritability was significantly related to bullying (r = .403, p < .001). Social, but not generalized, anxiety symptoms significantly moderated the effect of irritability on bully perpetration (t(160) = -2.94, b = -.01, p = .0038, ΔR2 = .0229, F(1, 160) = 8.635). As social anxiety symptoms increase, the link between irritability and perpetration decreases.

CONCLUSIONS

Understanding how psychopathology interacts with social behaviors is of great importance. Higher social anxiety is linked to reduced relations between irritability and bullying; however, the link between irritability and other aggression remains positive. Comprehensively assessing how treatment of psychopathology impacts social behaviors may improve future intervention.

Day-to-day bidirectional associations between sleep and emotion states in early childhood: Importance of end-of-day mood for sleep quality

OBJECTIVES

Poor quality sleep can impact emotions and emotion regulation, resulting in a "sleep-mood" cycle where poor sleep affects mood and vice-versa. This relationship is poorly understood during early childhood, when sleep patterns and emotion displays are rapidly changing. This study aimed to understand the day-to-day effects of poor sleep on emotions in preschoolers by using objective (actigraphy) and subjective (ecological momentary assessment) measures to assess both between- and within-child effects. We hypothesized that disrupted sleep would lead to affect disruptions and vice versa.

METHODS

This study included 133 preschoolers and their caregivers recruited from the community. Children's sleep was measured via actigraphy (ActiGraph GT3X+) across 1week. Affect was collected concurrently via caregiver report during an ecological momentary assessment protocol. Caregivers reported on their child's affect four times per day: morning, afternoon, early evening, and before bed.

RESULTS

Multilevel modeling analyses revealed that children with sleep disturbances displayed less positive affect overall, more negative affect in the evenings, and alterations in positive affect lability, and that daytime affect was associated with subsequent nighttime sleep. Within-child associations also showed fluctuations in positive affect correlated with shorter sleep durations and later bedtimes.

CONCLUSIONS

This study identified both between- and within-child associations between sleep and affect in early childhood, revealing a dynamic and reciprocal relationship between the two. These findings highlight the importance of considering both sleep and affect in early childhood interventions, as promoting positive affect may enhance sleep quality and vice versa.

Childhood emotion dysregulation mediates the relationship between preschool emotion labeling and adolescent depressive symptoms

Deficits in emotion processing (e.g., emotion labeling and regulation) are widely implicated in depression risk. While prior literature documents these deficits in concurrence with depression, more research is needed to investigate emotion processing pathways of depression risk across development. The purpose of this study was to investigate if emotion processes (i.e., emotion labeling and emotion regulation/dysregulation) in early and middle childhood predict adolescent depressive symptom severity in a prospective sample. Data were analyzed from a longitudinal study of diverse preschoolers oversampled for depressive symptoms using measures of preschool emotion labeling of faces (i.e., Facial Affect Comprehension Evaluation), middle childhood emotion regulation and dysregulation (i.e., emotion regulation checklist), and adolescent depressive symptoms (i.e., PAPA, CAPA, and KSADS-PL diagnostic interviews). Multilevel models indicated that preschoolers with depression had similar development of emotion labeling in early childhood as peers. Mediation analyses revealed that deficits in preschool-aged anger and surprise labeling ability indirectly predicted higher adolescent depressive symptom severity through increased middle childhood emotion lability/negativity, not decreased emotion regulation. Adolescent depression may be predicted by an emotion processing pathway that spans from early childhood to adolescence, and findings may generalize to high risk for depression youth samples. Specifically, poor emotion labeling in early childhood may lead to increased childhood emotion lability/negativity, which increases the risk for adolescent depressive symptom severity. Findings may help identify specific emotion processing relations in childhood that increase the risk for depression and inform intervention aimed at improving preschoolers' anger and surprise labeling. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Brain Imaging in Routine Psychiatric Practice

Technologies in the 21st century provide increasingly detailed and accurate maps of brain structure and function. So why don't psychiatrists order brain imaging on all our patients? Here we briefly review major neuroimaging methods and some of their findings in psychiatry. As clinicians and neuroimaging researchers, we are eager to bring brain imaging into daily clinical practice. However, to be clinically useful, any test in medicine must demonstrate adequate test statistics, and show proven benefits that outweigh its risks and costs. In 2024, beyond certain limited circumstances, we have no imaging tests that can meet those standards to provide diagnosis or guide treatment. This cold fact explains why for most psychiatric patients, neuroimaging is not currently recommended by professional organizations or the National Institute of Mental Health.

Developmental pathways from preschool temper tantrums to later psychopathology

Temper tantrums are sudden, overt negative emotional displays that are disproportionate to the eliciting event. Research supports that severe temper tantrums during the preschool period are associated with preschool psychopathology, but few studies have identified which characteristics of preschool tantrums are predictive of distal psychopathological outcomes in later childhood and adolescence. To examine this question, we used a prospective, longitudinal dataset enriched for early psychopathology. Participants (N = 299) included 3-to 6-year-old children (47.8% female) assessed for tantrums and early childhood psychopathology using diagnostic interviews and then continually assessed using diagnostic interviews over 10 subsequent time points throughout childhood and adolescence. We identified two unique groupings of tantrum behaviors: aggression towards others/objects (e.g., hitting others) and aggression towards self (e.g., hitting self). While both types of tantrum behaviors were associated with early childhood psychopathology severity, tantrum behaviors characterized by aggression towards self were more predictive of later psychopathology. Children displaying high levels of both types of tantrum behaviors had more severe externalizing problems during early childhood and more severe depression and oppositional defiant disorder across childhood and adolescence. Findings suggest that tantrum behaviors characterized by aggression towards self are particularly predictive of later psychopathology.

Developmental trajectories of anger and sadness dysregulation in childhood differentially predict later borderline symptoms

Difficulties with emotion regulation are integral to borderline personality disorder (BPD) and its hypothesized developmental pathway. Here, we prospectively assess trajectories of emotion processing across childhood, how BPD symptoms impact these trajectories, and whether developmental changes are transdiagnostic or specific to BPD, as major depressive (MDD) and conduct disorders (CD) are also characterized by emotion regulation difficulties. This study included 187 children enriched for those with early symptoms of depression and disruptive behaviors from a longitudinal study. We created multilevel models of multiple components of emotional processing from mean ages 9.05 to 18.55 years, and assessed the effect of late adolescent BPD, MDD, and CD symptoms on these trajectories. Linear trajectories of coping with sadness and anger, and quadratic trajectories of dysregulated expressions of sadness and anger were transdiagnostic, but also exhibited independent relationships with BPD symptoms. Only inhibition of sadness was related to BPD symptoms. The quadratic trajectories of poor emotional awareness and emotional reluctance were also independently related to BPD. Findings support examining separable components of emotion processing across development as potential precursors to BPD, underscoring the importance of understanding these trajectories as not only a marker of potential risk but also potential targets for prevention and intervention.

Review: Defining Positive Emotion Dysregulation: Integrating Temperamental and Clinical Perspectives

OBJECTIVE

Although emotion dysregulation has been defined as a maladaptive process of emotional experiences, there is no specific reference to the emotional valence of the dysregulation. To date, child psychiatry has focused primarily on dysregulation of negative affect. Here, we suggest that positive emotion dysregulation requires additional clinical and research attention.

METHOD

First, we present a developmental approach to the study of positive emotion regulation within a temperament framework. Second, we describe emerging research findings regarding dysregulation of positive emotion in early childhood. Third, we integrate neuroscientific approaches to positive emotion regulation and introduce a framework for future investigations and clinical applications.

RESULTS

Dysregulation in positive affect can be examined from temperamental, developmental, clinical, and neuroscientific perspectives. Both temperamental surgency, which includes positive affect, and the proposed clinical extension, excitability, are associated with increased risk of externalizing symptoms and clinical impairment in youth.

CONCLUSION

Studying the role of both temperamental surgency and clinically impairing positive affect, or excitability, in developmental psychopathology will help to elucidate the full spectrum of emotion dysregulation and to clarify the neural basis of dysregulation. A more comprehensive conceptualization of positively valanced emotion dysregulation will provide a more nuanced understanding of developmental risk and potential targets for intervention.

DIVERSITY & INCLUSION STATEMENT

One or more of the authors of this paper self-identifies as a member of one or more historically underrepresented sexual and/or gender groups in science.

Family income buffers the relationship between childhood adverse experiences and putamen volume

Adverse experiences and family income in childhood have been associated with altered brain development. While there is a large body of research examining these associations, it has primarily used cross-sectional data sources and studied adverse experiences and family income in isolation. However, it is possible that low family income and adverse experiences represent dissociable and potentially interacting profiles of risk. To address this gap in the literature, we examined brain structure as a function of adverse experiences in childhood and family income in 158 youths with up to five waves of MRI data. Specifically, we assessed the interactive effect of these two risk factors on six regions of interest: hippocampus, putamen, amygdala, nucleus accumbens, caudate, and thalamus. Adverse experiences and family income interacted to predict putamen volume (B = 0.086, p = 0.011) but only in participants with family income one standard deviation below the mean (slope estimate = -0.11, p = 0.03). These results suggest that adverse experiences in childhood result in distinct patterns of brain development across the socioeconomic gradient. Given previous findings implicating the role of the putamen in psychopathology-related behaviors, these results emphasize the importance of considering life events and socioeconomic context when evaluating markers of risk. Future research should include interactive effects of environmental exposures and family income to better characterize risk for psychopathology in diverse samples.

Correlating Psychotropic Use to Major Depressive Disorder and ADHD Research Diagnoses: Trends in a Prospective Pediatric Cohort From Ages 3 to 21

Objective: To examine the associations of psychotropic usage to clinical characteristics in a pediatric research cohort with research diagnoses and severity scores. Methods: The cohort (N = 348) was enriched for children with mood and externalizing symptoms. Prospective longitudinal data were collected from ages 3 to 21 (September 2003-December 2019). At up to 10 time points, data on psychotropic medication use were collected by caregiver- and self-report from the MacArthur Health and Behavior Questionnaire, Parent Version and as part of the diagnostic interview, and research diagnoses (DSM-IV and DSM-5) and disease severity scores were acquired using an age-appropriate standardized research interview (Preschool Age Psychiatric Assessment, Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Assessment, Kiddie-Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia). Results: The percentage of children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) taking ADHD medications was preschool, 20.7%; school-age, 65.4%; and adolescence/early adulthood, 84.0%. The percentage with major depressive disorder (MDD) who were taking antidepressants was preschool, 0%; school-age, 21.6%; and adolescence/early adulthood, 42.6%. Antipsychotic use in children with research diagnoses of ADHD or MDD peaked in school-age: ADHD, 30.8%, and MDD, 21.6%. Children who were taking an antipsychotic concurrently with an ADHD medication or antidepressant had more comorbid conditions and higher disease severity than those taking ADHD medications or antidepressants without concurrent antipsychotics. Black children with MDD used antidepressants significantly less than White children with MDD (Black = 12.1%, White = 31.9%, FDR P = .0495). Conclusions: Concordance between research diagnosis and psychotropic use increased with age. Antipsychotic use was quite high, though more frequent in children with higher disease severity. Both findings suggest that psychotropic use is less tied to discrete diagnoses at earlier ages and that antipsychotic medication use may be motivated by severity/impairment rather than diagnosis.

Identifying moderating factors during the preschool period in the development of borderline personality disorder: a prospective longitudinal analysis

BACKGROUND

Despite a growing literature detailing early childhood risk factors for borderline personality disorder (BPD), few studies have examined moderating factors that might mitigate or exacerbate the effects of those risk factors. The current study examined whether three preschool-age characteristics-impulsivity, emotional lability, and initiative-taking-moderated the relationship between known preschool-age risk factors and adolescent BPD symptoms.

METHODS

We performed multilevel modeling analyses in a sample (n = 151) from the Preschool Depression Study, a prospective longitudinal study with assessments from preschool through adolescence. Preschool risk factors included adverse childhood experiences, internalizing symptoms, and externalizing symptoms measured with parent clinical interviews. Preschool moderating factors were assessed via parent report and observational coding of temperament and behavior. The Borderline Personality Features Scale for Children measured BPD symptoms in adolescence.

RESULTS

We found that observed initiative-taking moderated the relationship between preschool internalizing symptoms and adolescent BPD symptoms (b = 0.57, p = .011) and moderated the relationship between preschool externalizing symptoms and adolescent BPD symptoms (b = 1.42, p = .013). Greater initiative-taking was associated with lower BPD risk for children with high internalizing or externalizing symptoms. Conversely, for children with low internalizing or externalizing symptoms, greater initiative-taking was associated with increased BPD risk.

CONCLUSIONS

We identify a potential moderating factor in BPD development, offer novel targets for screening and intervention, and provide a framework for using early childhood observational assessments in BPD research. Our findings suggest the need for future research on early moderating factors in BPD development, which could inform early childhood interventions targeting those factors to mitigate the effects of potentially less malleable risk factors.

Early Childhood Socioeconomic Status and Cognitive and Adaptive Outcomes at the Transition to Adulthood: The Mediating Role of Gray Matter Development Across Five Scan Waves

BACKGROUND

Early low socioeconomic status (SES) is associated with poor outcomes in childhood, many of which endure into adulthood. It is critical to determine how early low SES relates to trajectories of brain development and whether these mediate relationships to poor outcomes. We use data from a unique 17-year longitudinal study with five waves of structural brain imaging to prospectively examine relationships between preschool SES and cognitive, social, academic, and psychiatric outcomes in early adulthood.

METHODS

Children (n = 216, 50% female, 47.2% non-White) were recruited from a study of early onset depression and followed approximately annually. Family income-to-needs ratios (SES) were assessed when children were ages 3 to 5 years. Volumes of cortical gray and white matter and subcortical gray matter collected across five scan waves were processed using the FreeSurfer Longitudinal pipeline. When youth were ages 16+ years, cognitive function was assessed using the NIH Toolbox, and psychiatric diagnoses, high-risk behaviors, educational function, and social function were assessed using clinician administered and parent/youth report measures.

RESULTS

Lower preschool SES related to worse cognitive, high-risk, educational, and social outcomes (|standardized B| = 0.20-0.31, p values < .003). Lower SES was associated with overall lower cortical (standardized B = 0.12, p < .0001) and subcortical gray matter (standardized B = 0.17, p < .0001) volumes, as well as a shallower slope of subcortical gray matter growth over time (standardized B = 0.04, p = .012). Subcortical gray matter mediated the relationship of preschool SES to cognition and high-risk behaviors.

CONCLUSIONS

These novel longitudinal data underscore the key role of brain development in understanding the long-lasting relations of early low SES to outcomes in children.

Trajectory of emotion dysregulation in positive and negative affect across childhood predicts adolescent emotion dysregulation and overall functioning

Emotion dysregulation is cross-diagnostic and impairing. Most research has focused on dysregulated expressions of negative affect, often measured as irritability, which is associated with multiple forms of psychopathology and predicts negative outcomes. However, the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) include both negative and positive valence systems. Emerging evidence suggests that dysregulated expressions of positive affect, or excitability, in early childhood predict later psychopathology and impairment above and beyond irritability. Typically, irritability declines from early through middle childhood; however, the developmental trajectory of excitability is unknown. The impact of excitability across childhood on later emotion dysregulation is also yet unknown. In a well-characterized, longitudinal sample of 129 children studied from ages 3 to 5.11 years through 14 to 19 years, enriched for early depression and disruptive symptoms, we assessed the trajectory of irritability and excitability using multilevel modeling and how components of these trajectories impact later emotion dysregulation. While irritability declines across childhood, excitability remains remarkably stable both within and across the group. Overall levels of excitability (excitability intercept) predict later emotion dysregulation as measured by parent and self-report and predict decreased functional magnetic resonance imaging activity in cognitive emotion regulation regions during an emotion regulation task. Irritability was not related to any dysregulation outcome above and beyond excitability.

Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship Program Website Content and Accessibility

OBJECTIVE

When child and adolescent psychiatry fellowship applicants are applying to programs, many will use fellowship websites to gather information. This study assesses the accessibility and content available on child and adolescent fellowship websites.

METHODS

Using the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS) list of child and adolescent fellowship programs for 2020, 139 child and adolescent fellowship training websites were compiled. Information on websites was evaluated within the following three categories: program overview, application information and recruitment, and educational opportunities. A total of 22 criteria were evaluated within these three categories. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the websites.

RESULTS

A list provided by ERAS and a Google search identified child and adolescent fellowship program websites. Analysis of content revealed most websites included an overview of the program (97.8%), but fewer included information such as the number of fellowship spots (51.5%), salary (45.5%), application deadline (41.0%), and call responsibility (19.4%).

CONCLUSION

Results suggest there is room for improvement in the comprehensiveness and accessibility of child and adolescent fellowship websites. Especially during a time when much of the programmatic information will be obtained virtually due to COVID-19, it is critical that fellowship websites are uniformly curated so applicants can more easily find information about programs.

Labeling Emotional Stimuli in Early Childhood Predicts Neural and Behavioral Indicators of Emotion Regulation in Late Adolescence

BACKGROUND

Effective emotion regulation (ER) may be supported by 1) accurate emotion identification, encoding, and maintenance of emotional states and related brain activity of regions involved in emotional response (i.e., amygdala, ventral/posterior insula) and 2) cognitive processes that implement reframing, supported by activation in cognitive control brain regions (e.g., frontal, insular, and parietal cortices). The purpose of this project was to examine how emotion labeling ability in early childhood is related to ER concurrently and prospectively.

METHODS

Data from a prospective longitudinal study of youths at risk for depression, including measures of emotion labeling (i.e., Facial Affect Comprehension Evaluation) and ER ability (i.e., Emotion Regulation Checklist) and strategy use (i.e., Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, Children's Response Style Questionnaire), and functional magnetic resonance imaging data during a sadness ER task (N = 139) were examined.

RESULTS

Findings from multilevel modeling and linear regression suggested that greater emotion labeling ability of more difficult emotions in early childhood was associated with enhanced parent-reported ER in adolescence, but not with a tendency to engage in adaptive or maladaptive ER strategies. Recognition of fear and surprise predicted greater activation in cortical regions involved in cognitive control during an ER of sadness task, including in the insula, anterior cingulate cortex, dorsal medial prefrontal cortex, and inferior frontal gyrus.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings suggest that early ability to identify and label difficult facial emotions in early childhood is associated with better ER in adolescence and enhanced activity of cognitive control regions of the brain.

Testosterone and hippocampal trajectories mediate relationship of poverty to emotion dysregulation and depression

There is robust evidence that early poverty is associated with poor developmental outcomes, including impaired emotion regulation and depression. However, the specific mechanisms that mediate this risk are less clear. Here we test the hypothesis that one pathway involves hormone mechanisms (testosterone and DHEA) that contribute to disruption of hippocampal brain development, which in turn contributes to perturbed emotion regulation and subsequent risk for depression. To do so, we used data from 167 children participating in the Preschool Depression Study, a longitudinal study that followed children from preschool (ages 3 to 5 y) to late adolescence, and which includes prospective assessments of poverty in preschool, measures of testosterone, DHEA, and hippocampal volume across school age and adolescence, and measures of emotion regulation and depression in adolescence. Using multilevel modeling and linear regression, we found that early poverty predicted shallower increases of testosterone, but not DHEA, across development, which in turn predicted shallower trajectories of hippocampal development. Further, we found that early poverty predicted both impaired emotion regulation and depression. The relationship between early poverty and self-reported depression in adolescence was explained by serial mediation through testosterone to hippocampus to emotion dysregulation. There were no significant interactions with sex. These results provide evidence about a hormonal pathway by which early poverty may contribute to disrupted brain development and risk for mental health problems later in life. Identification of such pathways provide evidence for potential points of intervention that might help mitigate the impact of early adversity on brain development.

Tablet-based electroencephalography diagnostics for patients with epilepsy in the West African Republic of Guinea

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

Epilepsy is most common in lower-income settings where access to electroencephalography (EEG) is generally poor. A low-cost tablet-based EEG device may be valuable, but the quality and reproducibility of the EEG output are not established.

METHODS

Tablet-based EEG was deployed in a heterogeneous epilepsy cohort in the Republic of Guinea (2018-2019), consisting of a tablet wirelessly connected to a 14-electrode cap. Participants underwent EEG twice (EEG1 and EEG2), separated by a variable time interval. Recordings were scored remotely by experts in clinical neurophysiology as to data quality and clinical utility.

RESULTS

There were 149 participants (41% female; median age 17.9 years; 66.6% ≤21 years of age; mean seizures per month 5.7 ± SD 15.5). The mean duration of EEG1 was 53 ± 12.3 min and that of EEG2 was 29.6 ± 12.8 min. The mean quality scores of EEG1 and EEG2 were 6.4 [range, 1 (low) to 10 (high); both medians 7.0]. A total of 44 (29.5%) participants had epileptiform discharges (EDs) at EEG1 and 25 (16.8%) had EDs at EEG2. EDs were focal/multifocal (rather than generalized) in 70.1% of EEG1 and 72.5% of EEG2 interpretations. A total of 39 (26.2%) were recommended for neuroimaging after EEG1 and 22 (14.8%) after EEG2. Of participants without EDs at EEG1 (n = 53, 55.8%), seven (13.2%) had EDs at EEG2. Of participants with detectable EDs on EEG1 (n = 23, 24.2%), 12 (52.1%) did not have EDs at EEG2.

CONCLUSIONS

Tablet-based EEG had a reproducible quality level on repeat testing and was useful for the detection of EDs. The incremental yield of a second EEG in this setting was ~13%. The need for neuroimaging access was evident.

Excitability and irritability in preschoolers predicts later psychopathology: The importance of positive and negative emotion dysregulation

Emotion dysregulation is a risk factor for the development of a variety of psychopathologic outcomes. In children, irritability, or dysregulated negative affect, has been the primary focus, as it predicts later negative outcomes even in very young children. However, dysregulation of positive emotion is increasingly recognized as a contributor to psychopathology. Here we used an exploratory factor analysis and defined four factors of emotion dysregulation: irritability, excitability, sadness, and anhedonia, in the preschool-age psychiatric assessment collected in a sample of 302 children ages 3-5 years enriched for early onset depression. The irritability and excitability factor scores defined in preschoolers predicted later diagnosis of mood and externalizing disorders when controlling for other factor scores, social adversity, maternal history of mood disorders, and externalizing diagnoses at baseline. The preschool excitability factor score predicted emotion lability in late childhood and early adolescence when controlling for other factor scores, social adversity, and maternal history. Both excitability and irritability factor scores in preschoolers predicted global functioning into the teen years and early adolescence, respectively. These findings underscore the importance of positive, as well as negative, affect dysregulation as early as the preschool years in predicting later psychopathology, which deserves both further study and clinical consideration.

Neurodevelopmental disorders in children with neurofibromatosis type 1

Over the past several decades, neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) has become increasingly recognized as a neurodevelopmental disorder conferring increased risk for several important neurodevelopmental problems. In this review, we summarize the specific neurodevelopmental problems encountered in the context of NF1. These include impairments in general cognitive function, deficits in specific cognitive domains such as executive function and visuospatial processing and risk for specific learning disorders, impairments in attention and social skills and the overlap with attention-deficit-hyperactivity disorder and autism spectrum disorder, and the risk of developing other psychiatric conditions including anxiety and depression. Early recognition of these developmental impairments is important for the effective treatment of children with NF1, and further characterization is essential to improve our understanding of how mutations in the NF1 gene create the diversity of clinical neuropsychiatric symptomatology observed in this at-risk population.

The VWFA: it's not just for words anymore

Reading is an important but phylogenetically new skill. While neuroimaging studies have identified brain regions used in reading, it is unclear to what extent these regions become specialized for use predominantly in reading vs. other tasks. Over the past several years, our group has published three studies addressing this question, particularly focusing on whether the putative visual word form area (VWFA) is used predominantly in reading, or whether it is used more generally in a number of tasks. Our three studies utilize a range of neuroimaging techniques, including task based fMRI experiments, a seed based resting state functional connectivity (RSFC) experiment, and a network based RSFC experiment. Overall, our studies indicate that the VWFA is not used specifically or even predominantly for reading. Rather the VWFA is a general use region that has processing properties making it particularly useful for reading, though it continues to be used in any task that requires its general processing properties. Our network based RSFC analysis extends this finding to other regions typically thought to be used predominantly for reading. Here, we review these findings and describe how the three studies complement each other. Then, we argue that conceptualizing the VWFA as a brain region with specific processing characteristics rather than a brain region devoted to a specific stimulus class, allows us to better explain the activity seen in this region during a variety of tasks. Having this type of conceptualization not only provides a better understanding of the VWFA but also provides a framework for understanding other brain regions, as it affords an explanation of function that is in keeping with the long history of studying the brain in terms of the type of information processing performed (Posner, 1978).

Statistical improvements in functional magnetic resonance imaging analyses produced by censoring high-motion data points

Subject motion degrades the quality of task functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data. Here, we test two classes of methods to counteract the effects of motion in task fMRI data: (1) a variety of motion regressions and (2) motion censoring ("motion scrubbing"). In motion regression, various regressors based on realignment estimates were included as nuisance regressors in general linear model (GLM) estimation. In motion censoring, volumes in which head motion exceeded a threshold were withheld from GLM estimation. The effects of each method were explored in several task fMRI data sets and compared using indicators of data quality and signal-to-noise ratio. Motion censoring decreased variance in parameter estimates within- and across-subjects, reduced residual error in GLM estimation, and increased the magnitude of statistical effects. Motion censoring performed better than all forms of motion regression and also performed well across a variety of parameter spaces, in GLMs with assumed or unassumed response shapes. We conclude that motion censoring improves the quality of task fMRI data and can be a valuable processing step in studies involving populations with even mild amounts of head movement.

Functional network architecture of reading-related regions across development

Reading requires coordinated neural processing across a large number of brain regions. Studying relationships between reading-related regions informs the specificity of information processing performed in each region. Here, regions of interest were defined from a meta-analysis of reading studies, including a developmental study. Relationships between regions were defined as temporal correlations in spontaneous fMRI signal; i.e., resting state functional connectivity MRI (RSFC). Graph theory based network analysis defined the community structure of the "reading-related" regions. Regions sorted into previously defined communities, such as the fronto-parietal and cingulo-opercular control networks, and the default mode network. This structure was similar in children, and no apparent "reading" community was defined in any age group. These results argue against regions, or sets of regions, being specific or preferential for reading, instead indicating that regions used in reading are also used in a number of other tasks.

Matching is not naming: a direct comparison of lexical manipulations in explicit and implicit reading tasks

The neurobiological basis of reading is of considerable interest, yet analyzing data from subjects reading words aloud during functional MRI data collection can be difficult. Therefore, many investigators use surrogate tasks such as visual matching or rhyme matching to eliminate the need for spoken output. Use of these tasks has been justified by the presumption of "automatic activation" of reading-related neural processing when a word is viewed. We have tested the efficacy of using a nonreading task for studying "reading effects" by directly comparing blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) activity in subjects performing a visual matching task and an item naming task on words, pseudowords (meaningless but legal letter combinations), and nonwords (meaningless and illegal letter combinations). When compared directly, there is significantly more activity during the naming task in "reading-related" regions such as the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and supramarginal gyrus. More importantly, there are differing effects of lexicality in the tasks. A whole-brain task (matching vs. naming) by string type (word vs. pseudoword vs. nonword) by BOLD timecourse analysis identifies regions showing this three-way interaction, including the left IFG and left angular gyrus (AG). In the majority of the identified regions (including the left IFG and left AG), there is a string type × timecourse interaction in the naming but not the matching task. These results argue that the processing performed in specific regions is contingent on task, even in reading-related regions and is thus nonautomatic. Such differences should be taken into consideration when designing studies intended to investigate reading.

The left occipitotemporal cortex does not show preferential activity for words

Regions in left occipitotemporal (OT) cortex, including the putative visual word form area, are among the most commonly activated in imaging studies of single-word reading. It remains unclear whether this part of the brain is more precisely characterized as specialized for words and/or letters or contains more general-use visual regions having properties useful for processing word stimuli, among others. In Analysis 1, we found no evidence of greater activity in left OT regions for words or letter strings relative to other high-spatial frequency high-contrast stimuli, including line drawings and Amharic strings (which constitute the Ethiopian writing system). In Analysis 2, we further investigated processing characteristics of OT cortex potentially useful in reading. Analysis 2 showed that a specific part of OT cortex 1) is responsive to visual feature complexity, measured by the number of strokes forming groups of letters or Amharic strings and 2) processes learned combinations of characters, such as those in words and pseudowords, as groups but does not do so in consonant and Amharic strings. Together, these results indicate that while regions of left OT cortex are not specialized for words, at least part of OT cortex has properties particularly useful for processing words and letters.

Interactions between enhancer of rudimentary and Notch and deltex reveal a regulatory function of enhancer of rudimentary in the Notch signaling pathway in Drosophila melanogaster

Enhancer of rudimentary, e(r), encodes a small nuclear protein, ER, that has been implicated in the regulation of pyrimidine metabolism, DNA replication, and cell proliferation. In Drosophila melanogaster, a new recessive Notch allele, N (nd-p) , was isolated as a lethal in combination with an e(r) allele, e(r) (p2) . Both mutants are viable as single mutants. N (nd-p) is caused by a P-element insertion in the 5' UTR, 378-bp upstream of the start of translation. Together the molecular and genetic data argue that N (nd-p) is a hypomorphic allele of N. The three viable notchoid alleles, N (nd-p) , N (nd-1) , and N (nd-3) , are lethal in combination with e(r) (-) alleles. Our present hypothesis is that e(r) is a positive regulator of the Notch signaling pathway and that the lethality of the N e(r) double mutants is caused by a reduction in the expression of the pathway. This is supported by the rescue of the lethality by a mutation in Hairless, a negative regulator of N, and by the synthetic lethality of dx e(r) double mutants. Further support for the hypothesis is a reduction in E(spl) expression in an e(r) (-) mutant. Immunostaining localizes ER to the nucleus, suggesting a nuclear function for ER. A role in the Notch signaling pathway, suggests that e(r) may be expressed in the nervous system. This turns out to be the case, as immunostaining of ER shows that ER is localized to the developing CNS.

Parcellation in left lateral parietal cortex is similar in adults and children

A key question in developmental neuroscience involves understanding how and when the cerebral cortex is partitioned into distinct functional areas. The present study used functional connectivity MRI mapping and graph theory to identify putative cortical areas and generate a parcellation scheme of left lateral parietal cortex (LLPC) in 7 to 10-year-old children and adults. Results indicated that a majority of putative LLPC areas could be matched across groups (mean distance between matched areas across age: 3.15 mm). Furthermore, the boundaries of children's putative LLPC areas respected the boundaries generated from the adults' parcellation scheme for a majority of children's areas (13/15). Consistent with prior research, matched LLPC areas showed age-related differences in functional connectivity strength with other brain regions. These results suggest that LLPC cortical parcellation and functional connectivity mature along different developmental trajectories, with adult-like boundaries between LLPC areas established in school-age children prior to adult-like functional connectivity.

The putative visual word form area is functionally connected to the dorsal attention network

The putative visual word form area (pVWFA) is the most consistently activated region in single word reading studies (i.e., Vigneau et al. 2006), yet its function remains a matter of debate. The pVWFA may be predominantly used in reading or it could be a more general visual processor used in reading but also in other visual tasks. Here, resting-state functional connectivity magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fcMRI) is used to characterize the functional relationships of the pVWFA to help adjudicate between these possibilities. rs-fcMRI defines relationships based on correlations in slow fluctuations of blood oxygen level-dependent activity occurring at rest. In this study, rs-fcMRI correlations show little relationship between the pVWFA and reading-related regions but a strong relationship between the pVWFA and dorsal attention regions thought to be related to spatial and feature attention. The rs-fcMRI correlations between the pVWFA and regions of the dorsal attention network increase with age and reading skill, while the correlations between the pVWFA and reading-related regions do not. These results argue the pVWFA is not used predominantly in reading but is a more general visual processor used in other visual tasks, as well as reading.

Development of the brain's functional network architecture

A full understanding of the development of the brain's functional network architecture requires not only an understanding of developmental changes in neural processing in individual brain regions but also an understanding of changes in inter-regional interactions. Resting state functional connectivity MRI (rs-fcMRI) is increasingly being used to study functional interactions between brain regions in both adults and children. We briefly review methods used to study functional interactions and networks with rs-fcMRI and how these methods have been used to define developmental changes in network functional connectivity. The developmental rs-fcMRI studies to date have found two general properties. First, regional interactions change from being predominately anatomically local in children to interactions spanning longer cortical distances in young adults. Second, this developmental change in functional connectivity occurs, in general, via mechanisms of segregation of local regions and integration of distant regions into disparate subnetworks.

Prediction of individual brain maturity using fMRI

Group functional connectivity magnetic resonance imaging (fcMRI) studies have documented reliable changes in human functional brain maturity over development. Here we show that support vector machine-based multivariate pattern analysis extracts sufficient information from fcMRI data to make accurate predictions about individuals' brain maturity across development. The use of only 5 minutes of resting-state fcMRI data from 238 scans of typically developing volunteers (ages 7 to 30 years) allowed prediction of individual brain maturity as a functional connectivity maturation index. The resultant functional maturation curve accounted for 55% of the sample variance and followed a nonlinear asymptotic growth curve shape. The greatest relative contribution to predicting individual brain maturity was made by the weakening of short-range functional connections between the adult brain's major functional networks.

Ventricle size and P300 in schizophrenia

Both ventricular enlargement and reduced P3 amplitudes are consistent findings in schizophrenic patients, suggesting that the two measures reflect a common underlying pathophysiological process in schizophrenia. Investigating 14 stabilized schizophrenic outpatients, a relationship between the size of the lateral ventricles as well as of the third ventricle on CT scans and the auditory event-related P3 amplitude was, however, not found. This negative result suggests that ventricular enlargement and reduced P3 amplitudes in schizophrenics reflect different pathophysiological processes. It is assumed that the P3 amplitude is related rather to abnormalities in the temporal lobe of schizophrenic patients.