Training-associated changes and stability of attention bias in youth: Implications for Attention Bias Modification Treatment for pediatric anxiety.

Attention Bias Modification Treatment (ABMT), an emerging treatment for anxiety disorders, is thought to modify underlying, stable patterns of attention. Therefore, ABMT research should take into account the impact of attention bias stability on attention training response, especially in pediatric populations. ABMT research typically relies on the dot-probe task, where individuals detect a probe following an emotional-neutral stimulus pair.

Colloids with valence and specific directional bonding.

The ability to design and assemble three-dimensional structures from colloidal particles is limited by the absence of specific directional bonds. As a result, complex or low-coordination structures, common in atomic and molecular systems, are rare in the colloidal domain. Here we demonstrate a general method for creating the colloidal analogues of atoms with valence: colloidal particles with chemically distinct surface patches that imitate hybridized atomic orbitals, including sp, sp(2), sp(3), sp(3)d, sp(3)d(2) and sp(3)d(3).

Decoupling of rotational and translational diffusion in supercooled colloidal fluids.

We use confocal microscopy to directly observe 3D translational and rotational diffusion of tetrahedral clusters, which serve as tracers in colloidal supercooled fluids. We find that as the colloidal glass transition is approached, translational and rotational diffusion decouple from each other: Rotational diffusion remains inversely proportional to the growing viscosity whereas translational diffusion does not, decreasing by a much lesser extent. We quantify the rotational motion with two distinct methods, finding agreement between these methods, in contrast with recent simulation results.

Nucleus accumbens, thalamus and insula connectivity during incentive anticipation in typical adults and adolescents.

Reward neurocircuitry links motivation with complex behavioral responses. Studies of incentive processing have repeatedly demonstrated activation of nucleus accumbens (NAc), thalamus, and anterior insula, three key components of reward neurocircuitry. The contribution of the thalamus to this circuitry in humans has been relatively ignored, a gap that needs to be filled, given the central role of this structure in processing and filtering information.

Attention training towards positive stimuli in clinically anxious children.

Objective: Attention bias modification training (ABMT) is a promising treatment. Nevertheless, few studies examine its effectiveness in anxious children. This study examined the efficacy of such an ABMT protocol in pediatric anxiety.

The neural correlates of emotion-based cognitive control in adults with early childhood behavioral inhibition.

The present study is the first to assess whether the neural correlates of cognitive control processes differ in adults with and without a behaviorally inhibited temperament during early childhood. Adults with and without childhood behavioral inhibition completed an emotional conflict task while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging scanning. While no group differences in behavior were observed, adults with childhood behavioral inhibition, relative to adults without childhood behavioral inhibition, exhibited greater dorsomedial prefrontal cortex activity during conflict detection and greater putamen activity during conflict adaptation.

Effect of mother's dominance rank on offspring temperament in infant rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta).

In humans, temperament plays an important role in socialization and personality. Some temperaments, such as behavioral inhibition are associated with an increased risk for psychopathology. Nonhuman primates can serve as a model for neurobiological and developmental contributions to emotional development and several recent studies have begun to investigate temperament in nonhuman primates.

Parametric modulation of neural activity by emotion in youth with bipolar disorder, youth with severe mood dysregulation, and healthy volunteers.

CONTEXT Youth with bipolar disorder (BD) and those with severe, nonepisodic irritability (severe mood dysregulation [SMD]) exhibit amygdala dysfunction during facial emotion processing. However, studies have not compared such patients with each other and with comparison individuals in neural responsiveness to subtle changes in facial emotion; the ability to process such changes is important for social cognition. To evaluate this, we used a novel, parametrically designed faces paradigm.

Synthesis and assembly of colloidal particles with sticky dimples.

The preparation of anisotropic colloidal particles by a simple yet versatile temperature-controlled swelling process is described. The resulting polymeric particles feature a surface dimple, the size and shape of which were determined by the amount of oil captured in particles and the interfacial tension between the three phases: polystyrene (PS), decane, and the suspending medium. Following the removal of free or physically adsorbed surfactant from the swollen particles, hydrophobic dimples were produced upon evaporation of the oil phase.

Early childhood temperament predicts substance use in young adults.

Behavioral inhibition (BI) is an important early childhood marker of risk for later psychiatric problems. The current 20-year prospective, longitudinal study focused on individual differences in this early temperament and adolescent brain function. As adolescents, 83 participants initially identified in infancy with the temperament of BI were assessed using functional imaging to examine striatal responses to incentives.

The MAOA gene predicts happiness in women.

Psychologists, quality of life and well-being researchers have grown increasingly interested in understanding the factors that are associated with human happiness. Although twin studies estimate that genetic factors account for 35-50% of the variance in human happiness, knowledge of specific genes is limited. However, recent advances in molecular genetics can now provide a window into neurobiological markers of human happiness.

Threat bias in attention orienting: evidence of specificity in a large community-based study.

Background: Preliminary research implicates threat-related attention biases in paediatric anxiety disorders. However, major questions exist concerning diagnostic specificity, effects of symptom-severity levels, and threat-stimulus exposure durations in attention paradigms. This study examines these issues in a large, community school-based sample.

Maternal over-control moderates the association between early childhood behavioral inhibition and adolescent social anxiety symptoms.

Behavioral inhibition (BI) and maternal over-control are early risk factors for later childhood internalizing problems, particularly social anxiety disorder (SAD). Consistently high BI across childhood appears to confer risk for the onset of SAD by adolescence. However, no prior studies have prospectively examined observed maternal over-control as a risk factor for adolescent social anxiety (SA) among children initially selected for BI.

Impaired functional but preserved structural connectivity in limbic white matter tracts in youth with conduct disorder or oppositional defiant disorder plus psychopathic traits.

Youths with conduct disorder or oppositional defiant disorder and psychopathic traits (CD/ODD+PT) are at high risk of adult antisocial behavior and psychopathy. Neuroimaging studies demonstrate functional abnormalities in orbitofrontal cortex and the amygdala in both youths and adults with psychopathic traits. Diffusion tensor imaging in psychopathic adults demonstrates disrupted structural connectivity between these regions (uncinate fasiculus).

Attention bias of anxious youth during extended exposure of emotional face pairs: an eye-tracking study.

Background: Previous studies demonstrate that anxiety is characterized by biased attention toward threats, typically measured by differences in motor reaction time to threat and neutral cues. Using eye-tracking methodology, the current study measured attention biases in anxious and nonanxious youth, using unrestricted free viewing of angry, happy, and neutral faces.

Methods: Eighteen anxious and 15 nonanxious youth (8-17 years old) passively viewed angry-neutral and happy-neutral face pairs for 10 s while their eye movements were recorded.

Neural substrates of childhood anxiety disorders: a review of neuroimaging findings.

The development of fear is a normative process, and significant progress has been made in identifying fear neurocircuitry. The normal development of fear goes awry in children who develop anxiety disorders, and dysfunction in fear circuitry is likely. In this article, the authors present current knowledge about the neural basis of normal fear development and reviews findings from structural and functional neuroimaging studies of childhood anxiety disorders.

Investigating the genetic and environmental bases of biases in threat recognition and avoidance in children with anxiety problems.

Background: Adults with anxiety show biased categorization and avoidance of threats. Such biases may emerge through complex interplay between genetics and environments, occurring early in life. Research on threat biases in children has focuses on a restricted range of biases, with insufficient focus on genetic and environmental origins.

Reduced activity within the dorsal endogenous orienting of attention network to fearful expressions in youth with disruptive behavior disorders and psychopathic traits.

Using behavioral and blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) response indices through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the current study investigated whether youths with disruptive behavior disorders (conduct disorder and oppositional defiant disorder) plus psychopathic traits (DBD + PT) show aberrant sensitivity to eye gaze information generally and/or whether they show particular insensitivity to eye gaze information in the context of fearful expressions. The participants were 36 children and adolescents (ages 10-17 years); 17 had DBD + PT and 19 were healthy comparison subjects. Participants performed a spatial attention paradigm where spatial attention was cued by eye gaze in faces displaying fearful, angry, or neutral affect.

The influence of oxytocin administration on responses to infant faces and potential moderation by OXTR genotype.

Rationale: Oxytocin is a neuropeptide that is associated with increases in social affiliative behaviors, particularly toward infants. However, no previous study has investigated healthy adults' responses to infant faces following oxytocin administration. In addition, given that preliminary evidence suggests that a single-nucleotide polymorphism of the oxytocin receptor (OXTR) gene, rs53576, may influence behaviors associated with parental sensitivity, we assessed whether such responses vary according to OXTR rs53576 genotype.

Cross-sectional and longitudinal abnormalities in brain structure in children with severe mood dysregulation or bipolar disorder.

Background: There is debate as to whether chronic irritability (operationalized as severe mood dysregulation, SMD) is a developmental form of bipolar disorder (BD). Although structural brain abnormalities in BD have been demonstrated, no study compares neuroanatomy among SMD, BD, and healthy volunteers (HV) either cross-sectionally or over time. Furthermore, the developmental trajectories of structural abnormalities in BD or SMD are unknown.

A latent modeling approach to genotype-phenotype relationships: maternal problem behavior clusters, prenatal smoking, and MAOA genotype.

This study illustrates the application of a latent modeling approach to genotype-phenotype relationships and gene × environment interactions, using a novel, multidimensional model of adult female problem behavior, including maternal prenatal smoking. The gene of interest is the monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) gene which has been well studied in relation to antisocial behavior. Participants were adult women (N = 192) who were sampled from a prospective pregnancy cohort of non-Hispanic, white individuals recruited from a neighborhood health clinic.

Reduced dorsal anterior cingulate cortical activity during emotional regulation and top-down attentional control in generalized social phobia, generalized anxiety disorder, and comorbid generalized social phobia/generalized anxiety disorder.

Background: Generalized social phobia (GSP) and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) are both associated with emotion dysregulation. Research implicates dorsal anterior cingulate cortex in both explicit emotion regulation (EER) and top-down attentional control (TAC). Although studies have examined these processes in GSP or GAD, no work compares findings across the two disorders or examines functioning in cases comorbid for both disorders (GSP/GAD).

Developmental effects of decision-making on sensitivity to reward: an fMRI study.

Studies comparing neural correlates of reward processing across development yield inconsistent findings. This challenges theories characterizing adolescents as globally hypo- or hypersensitive to rewards. Developmental differences in reward sensitivity may fluctuate based on reward magnitude, and on whether rewards require decision-making.

A developmental study of the neural circuitry mediating motor inhibition in bipolar disorder.

Objective: Despite increased interest in the developmental trajectory of the pathophysiology mediating bipolar disorder, few studies have compared adults and youths with bipolar disorder. Deficits in motor inhibition are thought to play an important role in the pathophysiology of the illness across the age spectrum. The authors compared the neural circuitry mediating this process in bipolar youths relative to bipolar adults and in healthy volunteers.