Differential Roles of the Salience Network During Prediction Error Encoding and Facial Emotion Processing Among...

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Psychology
• Developmental Science

Background:

• Early-life assaultive violence is a significant risk factor for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other mood and anxiety disorders.
• The salience network, including the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, anterior insula, and amygdala, is implicated in emotion processing and reinforcement learning (RL).
• Dysregulation in these networks may underlie trauma-related psychopathology.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the differential engagement of the salience network during emotion processing and RL in adolescent girls with a history of assault.
• To determine the relationship between early-life assault exposure, salience network function, and PTSD symptoms.

Main Methods:

• Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used in adolescent girls (11-17 years) with and without a history of assault (n=30 each).
• Participants completed facial emotion processing and social/nonsocial reinforcement learning (RL) tasks.
• Independent component analysis identified salience network engagement during these tasks.

Main Results:

• Assault-exposed girls exhibited greater salience network reactivity during emotion processing.
• Conversely, assaulted girls showed reduced encoding of negative prediction errors in the salience network, especially during the social RL task.
• These salience network dysfunctions were not directly associated with current PTSD symptom severity.

Conclusions:

• Salience network hyperactivity during emotion processing and hypoactivity during RL in trauma-exposed youth suggests context-dependent neural alterations.
• These findings highlight the complex interplay between early trauma, cognitive-affective processing, and neural network function.