Dataset Information

Prefrontal Cortex Response to Threat: Race by Age Variation in 9-10 Year Old Children.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Considerable research has suggested that race and age are two major determinants of brain development, including but not limited to development of the prefrontal cortex (PFC). Minorities' Diminished Returns (MDRs), however, suggests that race (as a proxy of racism) may interact with various determinants of human and brain development. Minimal knowledge, however, exists on whether age and race also interact on shaping PFC response to threat among American children.

Purpose

Using data from a task-based functional brain imaging study and considering race as a sociological rather than a biological construct, we investigated combined effects of race and age on prefrontal cortical (PFC) response to threat. We explored racial heterogeneities in the association between age and PFC response to threat by comparing Black and White children.

Methods

This study used the task-based functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) data from the Adolescents Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study, a national, landmark, multi-center brain imaging investigation of 9-10 years old children in the US. The primary outcomes were mean beta weights of n-back runs measuring PFC response to threating versus neutral face contrast in the following regions of interest (ROIs): left hemisphere-lateral orbito-frontal, left hemisphere -superior-frontal, right hemisphere -caudal middle frontal, and right hemisphere -superior frontal cortex. The independent variable was age. Covariates were sex, ethnicity, family socioeconomic status, and neighborhood socioeconomic status. Race was the focal moderator. To analyze the data, we used linear regression models without and with interactions and SES as covariates.

Results

We included 5,066 9-10 years old children. Age and race did not show direct effects on PFC response to threatening relative to neutral faces. While ethnicity, sex, and socioeconomic status were controlled, age and race showed a systematic interaction on PFC response to threatening relative to neutral faces.

Conclusions

For American children, race and age do not have direct effects but multiplicative effects on PFC response to threat. The results may be reflective of social inequalities in how Black and White children are socialized and developed. The results are important given the role of the PFC in regulating the limbic system response to threat. Coordinated work of the limbic system and PFC is a core element of children's behavioral and emotional development. Future research is needed on how social stratification and racism shape emotion processing and regulation of American children in response to threat.

SUBMITTER: Assari S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7685290 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:Conditioned changes in the emotional response to threat (e.g. aversive unconditioned stimulus; UCS) are mediated in part by the prefrontal cortex (PFC). Unpredictable threats elicit large emotional responses, while the response is diminished when the threat is predictable. A better understanding of how PFC connectivity to other brain regions varies with threat predictability would provide important insights into the neural processes that mediate conditioned diminution of the emotional response to threat. The present study examined brain connectivity during predictable and unpredictable threat exposure using a fear conditioning paradigm (previously published in Wood et al., 2012) in which unconditioned functional magnetic resonance imaging data were reanalyzed to assess effective connectivity. Granger causality analysis was performed using the time series data from 15 activated regions of interest after hemodynamic deconvolution, to determine regional effective connectivity. In addition, connectivity path weights were correlated with trait anxiety measures to assess the relationship between negative affect and brain connectivity. Results indicate the dorsomedial PFC (dmPFC) serves as a neural hub that influences activity in other brain regions when threats are unpredictable. In contrast, the dorsolateral PFC (dlPFC) serves as a neural hub that influences the activity of other brain regions when threats are predictable. These findings are consistent with the view that the dmPFC coordinates brain activity to take action, perhaps in a reactive manner, when an unpredicted threat is encountered, while the dlPFC coordinates brain regions to take action, in what may be a more proactive manner, to respond to predictable threats. Further, dlPFC connectivity to other brain regions (e.g. ventromedial PFC, amygdala, and insula) varied with negative affect (i.e. trait anxiety) when the UCS was predictable, suggesting that stronger connectivity may be required for emotion regulation in individuals with higher levels of negative affect.