Resilience-Based Intervention with Underserved Children: Impact on Self-Regulation in a Randomized Clinical Trial in Schools.

Resilience and emotion regulation are crucial for optimal psychosocial functioning in children. This study assessed whether a group-based intervention, the Resilience Builder Program (RBP), improved student report of emotion regulation when administered in elementary schools. Sixty-seven students aged 9-12 years (M = 10.

Sleep-Related Problems and the Effects of Anxiety Treatment in Children and Adolescents.

This study examined (a) demographic and clinical characteristics associated with sleep-related problems (SRPs) among youth with anxiety disorders, and (b) the impact of anxiety treatment: cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT; Coping Cat), medication (sertraline), their combination, and pill placebo on SRPs. Youth (N = 488, ages 7-17, 50% female, 79% White) with a principal diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder, separation anxiety disorder, or social phobia participated. SRPs were reported by parents and youth.

No association between MspI allele of the ADRA2A polymorphism and ADHD: meta-analysis of family-based studies.

There is evidence for a genetic contribution to attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), although no candidate genes have attained genome-wide significance to date. Given that the noradrenergic system has been implicated in ADHD, the gene for the α2-adrenergic receptor (ADRA2A) has been hypothesized to contribute to the pathogenesis of ADHD. The present investigation reports results from a meta-analysis of family-based studies that did not find a significant association between the MspI polymorphism of the ADRA2A gene and ADHD.

Distinct neural signatures of threat learning in adolescents and adults.

Most teenage fears subside with age, a change that may reflect brain maturation in the service of refined fear learning. Whereas adults clearly demarcate safe situations from real dangers, attenuating fear to the former but not the latter, adolescents' immaturity in prefrontal cortex function may limit their ability to form clear-cut threat categories, allowing pervasive fears to manifest. Here we developed a discrimination learning paradigm that assesses the ability to categorize threat from safety cues to test these hypotheses on age differences in neurodevelopment.

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.

Individual differences in children's facial expression recognition ability: The role of nature and nurture.

We examined genetic and environmental influences on recognition of facial expressions in 250 pairs of 10-year-old monozygotic (83 pairs) and dizygotic (167 pairs) twins. Angry, fearful, sad, disgusted, and happy faces varying in intensity (15%-100%), head orientation, and eye gaze were presented in random order across 160 trials. Total correct recognition responses to each facial expression comprised the dependent variables.

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.