Archival ReportBiological Substrates of Emotional Reactivity and Regulation in Adolescence During an Emotional Go-Nogo Task
Section snippets
Participants
Eighty subjects between the ages of 7 and 32 years were scanned with fMRI. Data from 6 subjects were excluded because of effects of time on task in performance (i.e., steep decline in nontarget accuracy after initial runs) or because the subject fell asleep, data from 12 subjects were excluded (4 children, 3 adolescents, and 5 adults) because of excessive head motion (> 2 mm translation or 2° of rotation) or insufficient number (< 4) of correct nontarget trials in a given condition, and data
Behavioral Results
The effect of emotional expression on reaction time was examined with a repeated measures general linear model (GLM), including age group (children, adolescents, adults) and gender (male, female) as between-subjects factors and emotion (fear, happy, calm) as the within-subjects factor. There were main effects of emotion [F(2,65) = 42.00, p < .001] and age [F(2,66) = 19.43, p < .001] on reaction time. There was also an interaction between emotion and age on reaction time [F(4,130) = 6.13, p <
Discussion
A neural basis for difficulties in regulating behavior in emotional contexts in adolescents was tested. The findings are consistent with a neurobiological model (26) of competition between enhanced activity in subcortical emotional processing systems and less-mature top-down prefrontal systems. The ability to engage in top-down regulation of emotional centers such as the amygdala is likely to be important during adolescence in guiding behavior in highly emotional contexts. Our findings suggest
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