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Neural correlates of the self-concept in adolescence-A focus on the significance of friends.

ABSTRACT: The formation of a coherent and unified self-concept represents a key developmental stage during adolescence. Imaging studies on self-referential processing in adolescents are rare, and it is not clear whether neural structures involved in self-reflection are also involved in reflections of familiar others. In the current study, 41 adolescents were asked to make judgments about trait adjectives during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI): they had to indicate whether the word describes themselves, their friends, their teachers or politicians. Findings indicate a greater overlap in neural networks for responses to self- and friend-related judgments compared to teachers and politicians. In particular, classic self-reference structures such as the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and medial posterior parietal cortex also exhibited higher activation to judgments about friends. In contrast, brain responses towards judgments of teachers (familiar others) compared to politicians (unfamiliar others) did not significantly differ. Results support behavioral findings of a greater relevance of friends for the development of a self-concept during adolescence and indicate underlying functional brain processes. Hum Brain Mapp 38:987-996, 2017. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

SUBMITTER: Romund L

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6866771 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Neural correlates of the self-concept in adolescence-A focus on the significance of friends.

Romund Lydia L Golde Sabrina S Lorenz Robert C RC Raufelder Diana D Pelz Patricia P Gleich Tobias T Heinz Andreas A Beck Anne A

Human brain mapping 20161011 2

The formation of a coherent and unified self-concept represents a key developmental stage during adolescence. Imaging studies on self-referential processing in adolescents are rare, and it is not clear whether neural structures involved in self-reflection are also involved in reflections of familiar others. In the current study, 41 adolescents were asked to make judgments about trait adjectives during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI): they had to indicate whether the word describes t ...[more]

PMID: 27726253

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Project description:BACKGROUND:Rates of adolescent obesity and overweight are high. The offspring of overweight parents are at increased risk of becoming obese later in life. Investigating neural correlates of familial obesity risk and current overweight status in adolescence could help identify biomarkers that predict future obesity and that may serve as novel targets for obesity interventions. OBJECTIVE:Our primary aim was to use functional MRI to compare neural responses to words denoting high or low energy density (ED) foods and non-foods, in currently lean adolescents at higher compared with lower familial risk for obesity, and in overweight compared with lean adolescents. Secondary aims were to assess group differences in subjective appetite when viewing food and non-food words, and in objective ad libitum intake of high-ED foods in a laboratory setting. DESIGN:We recruited 36 adolescents (14-19y), of whom 10 were (obese/overweight "overweight"), 16 lean with obese/overweight mothers (lean high-risk, "lean-HR"), and 10 lean with lean mothers (lean low-risk, "lean-LR"). All underwent fMRI scanning while they viewed words representing high-ED foods, low-ED foods, or non-foods, and provided appetitive ratings in response to each word stimulus. They then consumed a multi-item ad libitum buffet meal. RESULTS:Food compared with non-food words activated a distributed emotion/reward system including insula and pregenual anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Participants who were at increasing risk for obesity exhibited progressively weaker activation of an attentional/regulatory system including dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (PFC), dorsal ACC, and basal ganglia nuclei (activation was greatest in lean-LR, intermediate in lean-HR, and weakest in the overweight group). These group differences were most apparent for neural responses to high-compared with low-ED foods. Lean-HR (compared with lean-LR and overweight) adolescents reported greater desire for high-ED foods. Meal intake was greatest for the overweight, then lean-HR, then lean-LR groups. CONCLUSIONS:Adolescents at higher obesity risk exhibited reduced neural responses to high-ED food cues in a neural system that subserves attention and self-regulation. They also reported heightened appetitive responses to high-ED cues. Interventions that promote the capacity for self-regulation could prevent youth who have a familial predisposition for obesity from translating risk into reality.

Project description:IntroductionThe neural substrates of states devoted to processing self-related information ("self-related states") remain not fully elucidated. Besides the complexity of the problem, there is evidence suggesting that self-related states vary according to the information domain being considered. Here, we investigated brain correlates for self-related states concerning historical aspects of one's life (autobiographical self), and one's ongoing body status (core self). We focused on memory-related regions, body-related regions, CMSs (cortical midline structures), and ICs (insular cortices).MethodsThis was a block-design fMRI study contrasting brain activity for core self (interoception and exteroception) and autobiographical self (personality traits and biographic facts) information domains. It involved 19 participants, who answered questions about each domain (four conditions).ResultsAll conditions appeared to engage the regions of interest. Nonetheless, autobiographical self compared with core self showed greater activity in memory-related regions (e.g., hippocampus), MPFC (medial prefrontal cortex), superior PMC (posteromedial cortex), and anterior ICs. Core self compared with autobiographical self was associated with greater activity in body-related regions (e.g., somatosensory cortices, and EBA [extrastriate body area]), superior PMC, and posterior ICs. In addition, (1) facts compared with traits showed greater activity in body-related regions, memory-related regions, MPFC, and PMC; (2) traits compared with facts were associated with greater activity in the posterior part of the anterior cingulate cortex; (3) interoception compared with exteroception was associated with greater activity in body-related regions (e.g. postcentral gyrus), memory-related regions, MPFC, inferior PMC and ICs; (4) exteroception compared with interoception showed greater activity in some body-related regions (e.g., premotor cortices and EBA) and superior PMC.ConclusionsThe results support the notion that the neural correlates of self-related states depend on the information domain. Those states seem distinguishable in terms of activity in memory-related and body-related regions, and activity in regions that have been associated with self processes (CMSs and the ICs).

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Neural correlates of the self-concept in adolescence-A focus on the significance of friends.

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Neural correlates of the self-concept in adolescence-A focus on the significance of friends.

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