Preliminary findings: neural responses to feedback regarding betrayal and cooperation in adolescent anxiety disorders.

We compared neural and behavioral responses to feedback received during interpersonal interactions within the Prisoner's Dilemma game between adolescents with anxiety disorders (n = 12) and healthy peers (n = 17). Groups differed significantly in neural activation in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), precuneus, insula, and temporoparietal junction (TPJ). Anxious adolescents were also more likely than controls to cooperate after co-player betrayal.

Behavioral and neural representation of emotional facial expressions across the lifespan.

Humans' experience of emotion and comprehension of affective cues varies substantially across the lifespan. Work in cognitive and affective neuroscience has begun to characterize behavioral and neural responses to emotional cues that systematically change with age. This review examines work to date characterizing the maturation of facial expression comprehension, and dynamic changes in amygdala recruitment from early childhood through late adulthood while viewing facial expressions of emotion.

Probing the neural correlates of anticipated peer evaluation in adolescence.

Neural correlates of social-cognition were assessed in 9- to- 17-year-olds (N = 34) using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Participants appraised how unfamiliar peers they had previously identified as being of high or low interest would evaluate them for an anticipated online chat session. Differential age- and sex-related activation patterns emerged in several regions previously implicated in affective processing.

An examination of the factorial structure of the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire-Brief (SPQ-B) among undergraduate students.

Cognitive-perceptual, interpersonal, and disorganized subscales of the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire-Brief (SPQ-B), reflecting the three commonly used subscales of the full-version SPQ, have been used in a number of studies. However, the factorial validity of SPQ-B subscales remains to be clarified. Utilizing data from 825 undergraduate students, confirmatory factor analyses involving the 22 items of the SPQ-B were conducted.

Confirmation of a four-factor structure of the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire among undergraduate students.

Objective: Although several exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses have supported the initially proposed factor structure of the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire (SPQ) in which its nine subscales are grouped into cognitive-perceptual, interpersonal, and disorganized domains, others have revealed different latent structures. This study determined the best-fitting factor structure from among five models that have been proposed in the literature, as well as five additional hierarchically related models.

Methods: Undergraduate college students (n=825) completed the SPQ as well as the Perceptual Aberration Scale (PAS) and the Revised Social Anhedonia Scale (SAS).

Common and distinct amygdala-function perturbations in depressed vs anxious adolescents.

Context: Few studies directly compare amygdala function in depressive and anxiety disorders. Data from longitudinal research emphasize the need for such studies in adolescents.

Objective: To compare amygdala response to varying attention and emotion conditions among adolescents with major depressive disorder (MDD) or anxiety disorders, relative to adolescents with no psychopathology.

Schizotypy and nicotine, alcohol, and cannabis use in a non-psychiatric sample.

Schizotypy is a multidimensional personality construct that is characterized by perceptual abnormalities, social withdrawal, mild suspiciousness, and odd thinking patterns. This study examined the relationship between four dimensions of self-reported schizotypy and substance use involving nicotine, alcohol, and cannabis, in undergraduate students. Results showed that higher levels of disorganized schizotypy, or odd thinking and behavior, were associated with greater indices of use of all three substances.

Amygdala and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex function during anticipated peer evaluation in pediatric social anxiety.

Context: Amygdala and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC) dysfunction manifests in adolescents with anxiety disorders when they view negatively valenced stimuli in threatening contexts. Such fear-circuitry dysfunction may also manifest when anticipated social evaluation leads socially anxious adolescents to misperceive peers as threatening.

Objective: To determine whether photographs of negatively evaluated smiling peers viewed during anticipated social evaluation engage the amygdala and vlPFC differentially in adolescents with and without social anxiety.

Attention bias toward threat in pediatric anxiety disorders.

Objective: To examine attention bias toward threat faces in a large sample of anxiety-disordered youths using a well-established visual probe task.

Method: Study participants included 101 children and adolescents (ages 7-18 years) with generalized anxiety disorder, social phobia, and/or separation anxiety disorder enrolled in a multisite anxiety treatment study. Nonanxious youths (n = 51; ages 9-18 years) were recruited separately.

Amygdala and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex activation to masked angry faces in children and adolescents with generalized anxiety disorder.

Context: Vigilance for threat is a key feature of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). The amygdala and the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex constitute a neural circuit that is responsible for detection of threats. Disturbed interactions between these structures may underlie pediatric anxiety.

A developmental examination of amygdala response to facial expressions.

Several lines of evidence implicate the amygdala in face-emotion processing, particularly for fearful facial expressions. Related findings suggest that face-emotion processing engages the amygdala within an interconnected circuitry that can be studied using a functional-connectivity approach. Past work also underscores important functional changes in the amygdala during development.

Amygdala and nucleus accumbens activation to emotional facial expressions in children and adolescents at risk for major depression.

Objective: Offspring of parents with major depressive disorder face a threefold higher risk for major depression than offspring without such family histories. Although major depression is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality, neural correlates of risk for major depression remain poorly understood. This study compares amygdala and nucleus accumbens activation in children and adolescents at high and low risk for major depression under varying attentional and emotional conditions.