Publications by authors named "A Coutant"
The pituitary gland (PG) plays a central role in the production and secretion of pubertal hormones, with documented links to the increase in mental health symptoms during adolescence. Although literature has largely focused on examining whole PG volume, recent findings have demonstrated associations among pubertal hormone levels, including dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), PG subregions, and mental health symptoms during adolescence. Despite the anterior PG's role in DHEA production, studies have not yet examined potential links with transdiagnostic symptomology (i.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe legalization of recreational cannabis use has expanded the availability of this psychoactive substance in the United States. Research has shown that chronic cannabis use is associated with altered working memory function, however, the brain areas and neural dynamics underlying these affects remain poorly understood. In this study, we leveraged magnetoencephalography (MEG) to investigate neurophysiological activity in 45 participants (22 heavy cannabis users) during a numerical WM task, whereby participants were asked to either maintain or manipulate (i.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAdolescence is a period of profound biopsychosocial development, with pubertally-driven neural reorganization as social demands increase in peer contexts. The explosive increase in social media access has fundamentally changed peer interactions among youth, creating an urgent need to understand its impact on neurobiological development and mental health. Extant literature indicates that using social media promotes social comparison and feedback seeking (SCFS) behaviors in youth, which portend increased risk for mental health disorders, but little is known about its impact on neurobiological development.
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- Facial expressions play a crucial role in social interactions and can influence behavior by conveying emotions, but how this ability varies between genders and is affected by anxiety is not well understood.
- A study using fMRI involved 191 youth (ages 6 to 15) to assess how sex and anxiety impact brain responses to emotional faces, focusing on angry, happy, and neutral expressions.
- Results showed that anxiety levels interacted with sex, where anxious girls exhibited weaker brain activation in response to happy faces, whereas anxious boys showed stronger activation, highlighting the complexity of emotional processing influenced by gender and anxiety.
Article Synopsis
- - Pediatric obesity rates in the U.S. have greatly increased, and there are observable links between obesity and cognitive deficits, particularly in understanding how body mass impacts brain function in kids and teens.
- - A study involving 72 youth aged 9-16 examined brain activity while they performed an abstract reasoning task using magnetoencephalography, focusing on correlations between their body mass index (zBMI) and neural responses.
- - Results indicated that higher zBMI was associated with reduced theta brain wave activity in regions important for reasoning, which corresponded to slower reaction times, suggesting that obesity may negatively affect cognitive performance in youth.