Assessing neural markers of vulnerability to depression in adolescent girls
Year: 2021
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: In this study, we examined fMRI activity and functional connectivity in response to negative social evaluation in a sample of 50 adolescent girls, 25 of which were of high risk for developing depression (due to their mother having depression; i.e., genetic risk), and 25 of which were of low risk. In these analyses, we focused on regions previously implicated in self-referential processing (e.g., the anterior insula, anterior cingulate cortex [ACC]), emotion regulation (e.g., the ventromedial prefrontal cortex [VMPFC]), and negative emotion (e.g., the amygdala). We found that when receiving negative social evaluation, relative to low-risk girls, high-risk girls showed greater anterior insula-VMPFC functional connectivity, greater ACC-VMPFC functional connectivity, less VMPFC-amygdala functional connectivity, and greater amygdala activity. This pattern of results entails that girls in the high-risk group exhibited greater signaling between regions implicated in self-referential regions and executive control when receiving negative social evaluation, which is consistent with a greater perceived rejection of self and subsequent recognized need to exert executive control over emotions in the high-risk group.
Author: Shields, Grant
Institution: University of Arkansas at Fayetteville
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7054761454