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Neurodevelopmental changes across adolescence in viewing and labeling dynamic peer emotions
Jessica E Flannery1, Nicole R Giuliani1, John C Flournoy1
1Department of Psychology, University of Oregon, United States.
Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience
|March 7, 2017
Summary
Adolescent girls show distinct brain activity changes when viewing peer emotions. The lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) had nonlinear age trends, while the medial orbital frontal cortex/ventral medial prefrontal cortex (MOFC/vMPFC) showed linear decreases.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Developmental Psychology
- Social Neuroscience
Background:
- Adolescence involves significant social-affective development, marked by neurobiological shifts.
- Current models propose an imbalance between reactivity and regulatory neural systems during this period.
- Previous research often used static adult faces and explicit emotion regulation tasks.
Purpose of the Study:
- To examine neural responses to dynamic peer emotional expressions in adolescent girls.
- To investigate cross-sectional age trends in brain activity related to emotion viewing and labeling.
- To compare observed age trends with predictions from existing developmental models.
Main Methods:
- Cross-sectional study design involving adolescent girls aged 10-23 years.
- Utilized dynamic stimuli of peer emotional expressions.
- Measured neural responses using functional neuroimaging during emotion viewing and labeling tasks.
Main Results:
- Dynamic peer faces robustly activated emotion reactivity (medial orbital frontal cortex/ventral medial prefrontal cortex [MOFC/vMPFC], amygdala) and regulation (lateral prefrontal cortex [LPFC]) regions.
- The LPFC exhibited a nonlinear age trend during emotion labeling.
- The MOFC/vMPFC showed a linear decrease with age during emotion viewing; no significant amygdala age trends were found.
Conclusions:
- Findings challenge existing models by revealing nonlinear age trends in LPFC regulation during social-emotional processing in adolescent girls.
- The linear decrease in MOFC/vMPFC activity suggests developmental changes in passive emotion viewing.
- This study highlights the importance of using dynamic, peer-based stimuli to understand adolescent social-affective neuroscience.
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