Neural Responses to Intranasal Oxytocin in Youths With Severe Irritability.

Objective: The authors investigated the neural impact of intranasal oxytocin on emotion processing areas in youths with severe irritability in the context of disruptive mood and behavior disorders.

Methods: Fifty-two participants with severe irritability, as measured by a score ≥4 on the Affective Reactivity Index (ARI), with diagnoses of disruptive behavior disorders (DBDs) and/or disruptive mood dysregulation disorder (DMDD) were randomly assigned to treatment with intranasal oxytocin or placebo daily for 3 weeks. Assessments were conducted at baseline and at the end of the trial; the primary outcomes were measures of irritability on the ARI and ratings on the Clinical Global Impressions severity scale (CGI-S) focusing on DBD and DMDD symptoms, and secondary outcomes included the CGI improvement scale (CGI-I) and ratings of proactive and reactive aggressive behavior on the Reactive-Proactive Aggression Questionnaire.

Neural Responses to Fluoxetine in Youths with Disruptive Behavior and Trauma Exposure: A Pilot Study.

A preliminary investigation of the impact of a serotonergic agent (fluoxetine) on symptom profile and neural response in youths with disruptive behavior disorders (DBDs) and a history of trauma exposure. There were three participant groups: (i) Youths with DBDs and trauma exposure who received fluoxetine treatment for 8 weeks ( = 11); (ii) A matched group of youths with DBDs and trauma exposure who received routine regular follow-up in an outpatient clinic ( = 10); and (iii) Typically developing youths ( = 18). All participants conducted an expression processing functional magnetic resonance imaging task twice, 8 weeks apart: (pretreatment and post-treatment for youths with DBDs).

Interaction of irritability and anxiety on emotional responding and emotion regulation: a functional MRI study.

Background: Irritability and anxiety frequently co-occur in pediatric populations. Studies separately looking at the neural correlates of these symptoms have identified engagement of similar neural systems - particularly those implicated in emotional processing. Both irritability and anxiety can be considered negative valence emotional states that might relate to emotion .

Alcohol use disorder and cannabis use disorder symptomatology in adolescents is associated with dysfunction in neural processing of future events.

Two of the most commonly used substances by adolescents in the United States are cannabis and alcohol. Cannabis use disorder (CUD) and alcohol use disorder (AUD) are associated with impairments in decision-making processes. One mechanism for impaired decision-making in these individuals is thought to be an inability to adequately represent future events during decision-making.

Alcohol use disorder and cannabis use disorder symptomatology in adolescents are differentially related to dysfunction in brain regions supporting face processing.

Despite extensive behavioral evidence of impairments in face processing and expression recognition in adults with alcohol or cannabis use disorders (AUD/CUD), neuroimaging findings have been inconsistent. Moreover, relatively little work has examined the relationship of AUD or CUD symptoms with face or expression processing within adolescents. Given the high prevalence of alcohol and cannabis use during adolescence, understanding how these usage behaviors interact with neural mechanisms supporting face and expression processing could have important implications for youth social and emotional functioning.

Association of Different Types of Childhood Maltreatment With Emotional Responding and Response Control Among Youths.

Importance: Childhood maltreatment is associated with serious developmental consequences that may be different depending on the form of maltreatment. However, relatively little research has investigated this issue despite implications for understanding the development of psychiatric disorders after maltreatment.

Objective: To determine the association of childhood maltreatment and potential differential associations of childhood abuse or neglect with neural responsiveness within regions of the brain implicated in emotional responding and response control.

Differential dysfunctions related to alcohol and cannabis use disorder symptoms in reward and error-processing neuro-circuitries in adolescents.

Alcohol and cannabis are two of the most commonly used substances by adolescents and are associated with adverse medical and psychiatric outcomes. These adverse psychiatric outcomes may reflect the negative impact of alcohol and/or cannabis abuse on neural systems mediating reward and/or error detection. However, work indicative of this has mostly been conducted in adults with Alcohol and/or Cannabis Use Disorder (i.

Segregating sustained attention from response inhibition in ADHD: An fMRI study.

Background: The functional significance of the impairment shown by patients with ADHD on response inhibition tasks is unclear. Dysfunctional behavioral and BOLD responses to rare no-go cues might reflect disruption of response inhibition (mediating withholding the response) or selective attention (identifying the rare cue). However, a factorial go/no-go design (involving high and low frequency go and no-go stimuli) can disentangle these possibilities.

Dysfunctional Social Reinforcement Processing in Disruptive Behavior Disorders: An Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study.

Objective: Prior functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) work has revealed that children/adolescents with disruptive behavior disorders (DBDs) show dysfunctional reward/non-reward processing of non-social reinforcements in the context of instrumental learning tasks. Neural responsiveness to reinforcements during instrumental learning, despite the importance of this for socialization, has not yet been previously investigated.

Methods: Twenty-nine healthy children/adolescents and 19 children/adolescents with DBDs performed the fMRI social/non-social reinforcement learning task.

Adolescents show differential dysfunctions related to Alcohol and Cannabis Use Disorder severity in emotion and executive attention neuro-circuitries.

Alcohol and cannabis are two substances that are commonly abused by adolescents in the United States and which, when abused, are associated with negative medical and psychiatric outcomes across the lifespan. These negative psychiatric outcomes may reflect the detrimental impact of substance abuse on neural systems mediating emotion processing and executive attention. However, work indicative of this has mostly been conducted either in animal models or adults with Alcohol and/or Cannabis Use Disorder (AUD/CUD).

The role of ventral striatum in reward-based attentional bias.

Introduction: Models of attention suggest that endogenous and exogenous factors can bias attention. However, recent data suggest that reward can also enhance attention towards relevant stimulus features as a function of involuntary biases. In this study, we utilized the additional singleton task to determine the neural circuitry that biases perceptual processing as a function of reward history.

Moderation of prior exposure to trauma on the inverse relationship between callous-unemotional traits and amygdala responses to fearful expressions: an exploratory study.

Background: Previous work has shown that amygdala responsiveness to fearful expressions is inversely related to level of callous-unemotional (CU) traits (i.e. reduced guilt and empathy) in youth with conduct problems.

Neurodevelopmental Changes in Social Reinforcement Processing: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study.

Objective: In the current study we investigated neurodevelopmental changes in response to social and non-social reinforcement.

Methods: Fifty-three healthy participants including 16 early adolescents (age, 10-15 years), 16 late adolescents (age, 15-18 years), and 21 young adults (age, 21-25 years) completed a social/non-social reward learning task while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging. Participants responded to fractal image stimuli and received social or non-social reward/non-rewards according to their accuracy.

The processing of animacy information is disrupted as a function of callous-unemotional traits in youth with disruptive behavior disorders.

Atypical amygdala responses to emotional stimuli have been consistently reported in youth with Disruptive Behavior Disorders (DBDs; Conduct Disorder/Oppositional Defiant Disorder). However, responding to animacy stimuli has not been systematically investigated. Yet, the amygdala is known to be responsive to animacy stimuli and impairment in responsiveness to animacy information may have implications for social cognitive development.

Looming Threats and Animacy: Reduced Responsiveness in Youth with Disrupted Behavior Disorders.

Theoretical models have implicated amygdala dysfunction in the development of Disruptive Behavior Disorders (DBDs; Conduct Disorder/Oppositional Defiant Disorder). Amygdala dysfunction impacts valence evaluation/response selection and emotion attention in youth with DBDs, particularly in those with elevated callous-unemotional (CU) traits. However, amygdala responsiveness during social cognition and the responsiveness of the acute threat circuitry (amygdala/periaqueductal gray) in youth with DBDs have been less well-examined, particularly with reference to CU traits.

Youth with substance abuse histories exhibit dysfunctional representation of expected value during a passive avoidance task.

Individuals with substance abuse (SA) histories show impairment in the computations necessary for decision-making, including expected value (EV) and prediction error (PE). Neuroimaging findings, however, have been inconsistent. Sixteen youth with (SA) and 29 youth without (SA) substance abuse histories completed a passive avoidance task while undergoing functional MRI.

Prediction Error Representation in Individuals With Generalized Anxiety Disorder During Passive Avoidance.

Objective: Deficits in reinforcement-based decision making have been reported in generalized anxiety disorder. However, the pathophysiology of these deficits is largely unknown; published studies have mainly examined adolescents, and the integrity of core functional processes underpinning decision making remains undetermined. In particular, it is unclear whether the representation of reinforcement prediction error (PE) (the difference between received and expected reinforcement) is disrupted in generalized anxiety disorder.

Dysfunctional representation of expected value is associated with reinforcement-based decision-making deficits in adolescents with conduct problems.

Background: Previous work has shown that patients with conduct problems (CP) show impairments in reinforcement-based decision-making. However, studies with patients have not previously demonstrated any relationships between impairment in any of the neurocomputations underpinning reinforcement-based decision-making and specific symptom sets [e.g.

BOLD data representing activation and connectivity for rare no-go versus frequent go cues.

The neural circuitry underlying response control is often studied using go/no-go tasks, in which participants are required to respond as fast as possible to go cues and withhold from responding to no-go stimuli. In the current task, response control was studied using a fully counterbalanced design in which blocks with a low frequency of no-go cues (75% go, 25% no-go) were alternated with blocks with a low frequency of go cues (25% go, 75% no-go); see also "Segregating attention from response control when performing a motor inhibition task: Segregating attention from response control" [1]. We applied a whole brain corrected, paired t-test to the data assessing for regions differentially activated by low frequency no-go cues relative to high frequency go cues.

Segregating attention from response control when performing a motor inhibition task: Segregating attention from response control.

Considerable work has demonstrated that inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), anterior insula cortex (AIC) and the supplementary motor area (SMA) are responsive during inhibitory control tasks. However, there is disagreement as to whether this relates to response selection/ inhibition or attentional processing. The current study investigates this by using a Go/No-go task with a factorial design.

The Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, Module 4: Application of the Revised Algorithms in an Independent, Well-Defined, Dutch Sample (n = 93).

This study examined the discriminative ability of the revised Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule module 4 algorithm (Hus and Lord in J Autism Dev Disord 44(8):1996-2012, 2014) in 93 Dutch males with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), schizophrenia, psychopathy or controls. Discriminative ability of the revised algorithm ASD cut-off resembled the original algorithm ASD cut-off: highly specific for psychopathy and controls, lower sensitivity than Hus and Lord (2014; i.e.

Prediction errors to emotional expressions: the roles of the amygdala in social referencing.

Social referencing paradigms in humans and observational learning paradigms in animals suggest that emotional expressions are important for communicating valence. It has been proposed that these expressions initiate stimulus-reinforcement learning. Relatively little is known about the role of emotional expressions in reinforcement learning, particularly in the context of social referencing.

Reward: empirical contribution. Temporal discounting and conduct disorder in adolescents.

The current study examined temporal discounting (the decrease in subjective reward value as a function of increasing delay) in youths with conduct disorder (CD) and the extent to which this was modulated by level of psychopathic traits. In the temporal discounting task, participants were asked to choose between immediate rewards of varying values and a larger reward, held at a constant value ($10), whose receipt was delayed by different time intervals across trials (e.g.

Disruptive behavior disorders: taking an RDoC(ish) approach.

The disruptive behavior disorders include Conduct Disorder (CD), Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). These disorders are highly comorbid with each other as well as with mood and anxiety disorders and personality disorders (particularly borderline personality disorder). The goal of this chapter is to consider these disorders from an RDoC(ish) approach.