Attachment security and striatal functional connectivity in typically developing children.

Attachment security is formed through interactions with a main caregiver during the first three years of life and reflects inter-individual differences in mental representations for the relationship. The striatum is known to be a key structure to initiate attachment behaviours and maintain attachment relationships as well as to modulate reward-related processing as part of the approach module in current neurobiological models of human attachment. Although findings have suggested critical roles of the striatum in inter-individual differences in attachment, most studies were based on a wide variety of tasks and very few have investigated these associations in intrinsic brain connectivity in typically developing children.

A selective involvement of putamen functional connectivity in youth with internet gaming disorder.

Brain cortico-striatal circuits have consistently been implicated in the pathology of addiction related disorders. We applied a reliable seed-based analysis of the resting-state brain activity to comprehensively delineate the subdivisions of striatal functional connectivity implicated in internet gaming disorder. Among twelve right-handed male adolescents with internet gaming disorder and 11 right-handed and gender-matched healthy controls, we examined group differences in the functional connectivity of dorsal and ventral subdivisions of the caudate nucleus and putamen, as well as the association of these connectivity indices with behavioral measures of internet use.

Decreased thalamic volumes in adolescent inhalant users from Korea and Australia.

Objectives: Research investigating the impact of inhalant misuse on brain structure suggests abnormalities in subcortical regions. We investigated the association between inhalant misuse and subcortical brain volumes in adolescents.

Methods: Based on a collaborative dataset from South Korea (inhalant users: N = 15, mean age = 16.

Reduced orbitofrontal cortical thickness in male adolescents with internet addiction.

Background: The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) has consistently been implicated in the pathology of both drug and behavioral addictions. However, no study to date has examined OFC thickness in internet addiction. In the current study, we investigated the existence of differences in cortical thickness of the OFC in adolescents with internet addiction.

Decreased functional brain connectivity in adolescents with internet addiction.

Background: Internet addiction has become increasingly recognized as a mental disorder, though its neurobiological basis is unknown. This study used functional neuroimaging to investigate whole-brain functional connectivity in adolescents diagnosed with internet addiction. Based on neurobiological changes seen in other addiction related disorders, it was predicted that connectivity disruptions in adolescents with internet addiction would be most prominent in cortico-striatal circuitry.