Altered functional activations of prefrontal brain areas during emotional processing of fear in Inuit adolescents exposed to environmental contaminants.

Exposure to mercury, lead and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) have been associated with emotional dysregulation, but their neuronal correlates have yet to be examined. Inuit from Nunavik (Northern Quebec, Canada) face internalizing problems and are among the most exposed individuals to these environmental contaminants in the world. The aim of this study was to examine the link between pre- and postnatal exposure to these contaminants and brain fear-circuitry in Inuit adolescents.

Fear conditioning and extinction in anxious youth, offspring at-risk for anxiety and healthy comparisons: An fMRI study.

Dysfunctions in fronto-amygdala circuitry have been linked to anxiety. Questions remain regarding the impact of familial-risk and ongoing anxiety on such circuitry function, especially in youth. Using fMRI fear conditioning and extinction paradigms, we examined these relationships in 10-17 year-olds: 22 youth with an anxiety disorder, 22 healthy youth born to parents with past or current anxiety disorders (at risk), and 32 healthy comparisons.

On a continuum to anxiety disorders: Adolescents at parental risk for anxiety show smaller rostral anterior cingulate cortex and insula thickness.

Background: Having a parent with an anxiety disorder increases the risk of anxiety symptoms and anxiety disorders during the lifespan. Moreover, childhood and adolescence anxiety disorders and symptoms have been linked to a range of brain structure abnormalities. However, to date, no study has investigated brain anatomy in adolescents at high risk based on parental anxiety disorders and in adolescents with an anxiety disorder but without any treatment or therapy.

The conditioning and extinction of fear in youths: what's sex got to do with it?

Adult work shows differences in emotional processing influenced by sexes of both the viewer and expresser of facial expressions. We investigated this in 120 healthy youths (57 boys; 10-17 years old) randomly assigned to fear conditioning and extinction tasks using either neutral male or female faces as the conditioned threat and safety cues, and a fearful face paired with a shrieking scream as the unconditioned stimulus. Fear ratings and skin conductance responses (SCRs) were assessed.

The bank of standardized stimuli (BOSS): comparison between French and English norms.

Throughout the last decades, numerous picture data sets have been developed, such as the Snodgrass and Vanderwart (1980) set, and have been normalized for variables such as name and familiarity; however, due to cultural and linguistic differences, norms can vary from one country to another. The effect due specifically to culture has already been demonstrated by comparing samples from different countries where the same language is spoken. On the other hand, it is still not clear how differences between languages may affect norms.

Symmetry brings an impression of familiarity but does not improve recognition memory.

Studies have shown that symmetric stimuli are recognized better than asymmetric stimuli but evidence suggests that this advantage may result from a familiarity bias induced by symmetry. We used a classic episodic memory paradigm to test this bias and see if it truly accounts for the symmetry advantage. Subjects first encoded symmetric and asymmetric figures.