Why do children remember distracting details better than adults? This could be a silver lining-a benefit-of children's immature attention. The present work establishes this link between immature selective attention and children's broader learning. Furthermore, it adjudicates between two ways that immature attention could drive children's broad learning. One possibility is that children have a "diffuse" attentional spotlight, meaning irrelevant information "leaks" into long-term memory as children learn about relevant information. Alternatively, children's attention might dart between relevant and irrelevant information across time. While both mechanisms would broaden learning, only diffuse attention would facilitate memories for relevant and irrelevant information from the same event and associations between them. In a sample of children and adults (n = 130), we find clear evidence that immature attention underlies children's reduced memory selectivity for relevant content. Furthermore, relevant and irrelevant information from the same event were associated in adults' memory but not children's. We also observed that children learned about targets and distractors from different events, a pattern consistent with the idea that children's attention is more likely to dart than diffuse across items. Children's immature and darting attention may, therefore, explain why they remember "distracting" information better than adults.

Why do some experiences endure in memory better than others? Here, we explore the possibility that learning fluctuates rhythmically several times per second, with fortuitously timed experiences being more memorable. Although such fleeting opportunities for encoding would evade our awareness, they are predicted by a prominent model describing how theta rhythms in the brain coordinate memory – the Separate Phases for Encoding and Retrieval (SPEAR) model. Here, in a pre-registered study, we adapted a dense sampling approach to reconstruct the millisecond time-course of memory encoding in n=125 participants. We found that memory encoding fluctuated at a theta rhythm (3-10 Hz), that these rhythms were not a byproduct of rhythmic attention, and that—like theta rhythms in the brain—memory rhythms were modulated by putative markers of acetylcholine. Our findings provide behavioral evidence consistent with the SPEAR model of episodic memory.

An extensive and perplexing plurality of psychometric assesments, experimental-tasks, and biophysical measurement modalities have evolved alongside increasingly biopsychosocial models of behavior and psychopathology. Yet, despite alarming recent increasing rates of mental health problems, cumulative progress regarding the validity and comparative utility of wide-ranging measures to predict, isolate, or explain hallmark features and interacting systems in depression, anxiety, and ADHD remains concerningly enigmatic. Utilizing adolescent (Age 9-14) and parent data when available (combined N=~23,760) across 5 years from the ABCD dataset - we parcellated over a thousand unique biopsychosocial measures from all time points into 30 theoretically relevant, commonly-used, or potentially-informative domains. We then assessed their hierarchical and interactive predictive power using a novel integrative ensemble stacking of 4 state-of-the-art ML models. Further, addressing prior tradeoffs between high-dimensional prediction and interpretability, several synergistic methods were applied to provide uncertainty estimation, central features, and possible causal developmental dynamics. Results reveal notable overlapping transdiagnostic features as well as pronounced hierarchical differences between measurement-domains in predicting psychiatric, social, and cognitive outcomes. Myriad subjective-report metrics accounted for 27-76 fold more variation in ADHD, depression, and anxiety than an extensive available range of biophysical and experimental-task measurements. Still, many domain-specific features were highly predictive of several clinically meaningful operationalizations of depression and psychopathology. Illustrated are robust, consistent, and often bidirectional interactions between specific trait-like characteristics and dynamic features of coextensive psychopathology, somatic, social, and family relationships - accounting for substantial variation in ADHD, anxiety, and depression (r2=.49-.56). Psychiatric and social-quality targets in adults using available parent data exhibited similar hierarchical predictive patterns but also reveal important developmental differences. Collectively, these findings underscore the comparative predictive utility of wide-ranging current biopsychosocial measurements across several cardinal explanatory targets in psychiatry, and illuminate the structure and dynamics of the most prevalent mental-health challenges across the lifespan in novel detail, with implications for prediction, explanation, and control.

Adolescents from lower socioeconomic status backgrounds often underperform on tests of learning and academic achievement. Existing theories propose that these disparities reflect not only external constraints, like limited resources, but also internal decision strategies that adapt to the early environment and influence learning. These theories predict that adolescents from lower socioeconomic status backgrounds explore less and exploit more, which, in turn, reduces learning and academic achievement. Here, we test this possibility and show that lower socioeconomic status in adolescence is associated with less exploration on a reward learning task (n = 124, 12-14-year-olds from the United States). Computational modeling revealed that reduced exploration was related to higher loss aversion. Reduced exploration also mediated socioeconomic differences in task performance, school grades, and, in a lower-socioeconomic status subsample, academic skills. These findings raise the possibility that learning disparities across socioeconomic status relate not only to external constraints but also to internal decision strategies and provide some mechanistic insight into the academic achievement gap.

Disparities in socioeconomic status (SES) lead to unequal access to financial and social support. These disparities are believed to influence reward sensitivity, which in turn are hypothesized to shape how individuals respond to and pursue rewarding experiences. However, surprisingly little is known about how SES shapes reward sensitivity in adolescence. Here, we investigated how SES influenced adolescent responses to reward, both in behavior and the striatum—a brain region that is highly sensitive to reward. We examined responses to both immediate reward (tracked by phasic dopamine) and average reward rate fluctuations (tracked by tonic dopamine) as these distinct signals independently shape learning and motivation. Adolescents (n = 114; 12–14 years; 58 female) performed a gambling task during functional magnetic resonance imaging. We manipulated trial-by-trial reward and loss outcomes, leading to fluctuations between periods of reward scarcity and abundance. We found that a higher reward rate hastened behavioral responses, and increased guess switching, consistent with the idea that reward abundance increases response vigor and exploration. Moreover, immediate reward reinforced previously rewarding decisions (win–stay, lose–switch) and slowed responses (post reward pausing), particularly when rewards were scarce. Notably, lower-SES adolescents slowed down less after rare rewards than higher-SES adolescents. In the brain, striatal activations covaried with the average reward rate across time and showed greater activations during rewarding blocks. However, these striatal effects were diminished in lower-SES adolescents. These findings show that the striatum tracks reward rate fluctuations, which shape decisions and motivation. Moreover, lower SES appears to attenuate reward-driven behavioral and brain responses.

Background: Trait mindfulness, the tendency to attend to present-moment experiences without judgement, is negatively correlated with adolescent anxiety and depression. Understanding the neural mechanisms underlying trait mindfulness may inform the neural basis of psychiatric disorders. However, few studies have identified brain connectivity states that correlate with trait mindfulness in adolescence, nor have they assessed the reliability of such states. Methods: To address this gap in knowledge, we rigorously assessed the reliability of brain states across 2 functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scan from 106 adolescents aged 12 to 15 (50% female). We performed both static and dynamic functional connectivity analyses and evaluated the test-retest reliability of how much time adolescents spent in each state. For the reliable states, we assessed associations with self-reported trait mindfulness. Results: Higher trait mindfulness correlated with lower anxiety and depression symptoms. Static functional connectivity (ICCs from 0.31-0.53) was unrelated to trait mindfulness. Among the dynamic brains states we identified, most were unreliable within individuals across scans. However, one state, an hyperconnected state of elevated positive connectivity between networks, showed good reliability (ICC=0.65). We found that the amount of time that adolescents spent in this hyperconnected state positively correlated with trait mindfulness. Conclusions: By applying dynamic functional connectivity analysis on over 100 resting-state fMRI scans, we identified a highly reliable brain state that correlated with trait mindfulness. The brain state may reflect a state of mindfulness, or awareness and arousal more generally, which may be more pronounced in those who are higher in trait mindfulness.

Why do children's memories often differ from adults' after the same experience? Whereas prior work has focused on children's immature memory mechanisms to answer this question, here we focus on the costs of attentional lapses for learning. We track sustained attention and memory formation across time in 7- to 10-year-old children and adults (n = 120) to show that sustained attention causally shapes the fate of children's individual memories. Moreover, children's attention lapsed twice as frequently as adults', and attention fluctuated with memory formation more closely in children than adults. In addition, although attentional lapses impaired memory for expected events in both children and adults, they impaired memory for unexpected events in children only. Our work reveals that sustained attention is an important cognitive factor that controls access to children's long-term memory stores. Our work also raises the possibility that developmental differences in cognitive performance stem from developmental shifts in the ability to sustain attention.

BACKGROUND:Depression has frequently been associated with smaller hippocampal volume. The hippocampus varies in function along its anterior-posterior axis, with the anterior hippocampus more strongly associated with stress and emotion processing. The goals of this study were to examine the associations among parental history of anxiety/depression, polygenic risk scores for depression (PGS-DEP), and anterior and posterior hippocampal volumes in children and adolescents. To examine specificity to PGS-DEP, we examined associations of educational attainment polygenic scores (PGS-EA) with anterior and posterior hippocampal volume. METHODS:Participants were 350 3- to 21-year-olds (46 % female). PGS-DEP and PGS-EA were computed based on recent, large-scale genome-wide association studies. High-resolution, T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data were acquired, and a semi-automated approach was used to segment the hippocampus into anterior and posterior subregions. RESULTS:Children and adolescents with higher polygenic risk for depression were more likely to have a parent with a history of anxiety/depression. Higher polygenic risk for depression was significantly associated with smaller anterior but not posterior hippocampal volume. PGS-EA was not associated with anterior or posterior hippocampal volumes. LIMITATIONS:Participants in these analyses were all of European ancestry. CONCLUSIONS:Polygenic risk for depression may lead to smaller anterior but not posterior hippocampal volume in children and adolescents, and there may be specificity of these effects to PGS-DEP rather than PGS-EA. These findings may inform the earlier identification of those in need of support and the design of more effective, personalized treatment strategies. DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST:none. DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST:None.

Attentional lapses have been found to impair everything from basic perception to learning and memory. Yet, despite the well-documented costs of lapses on cognition, recent work suggests that lapses might unexpectedly confer some benefits. One potential benefit is that lapses broaden our learning to integrate seemingly irrelevant content that could later prove useful—a benefit that prior research focusing only on goal-relevant memory would miss. Here, we measure how fluctuations in sustained attention influence the learning of seemingly goal-irrelevant content that competes for attention with target content. Participants completed a correlated flanker task in which they categorized central targets (letters or numbers) while ignoring peripheral flanking symbols that shared hidden probabilistic relationships with the targets. We found that across participants, higher rates of attentional lapses correlated with greater learning of the target–flanker relationships. Moreover, within participants, learning was more evident during attentional lapses. These findings address long-standing theoretical debates and reveal a benefit of attentional lapses: they expand the scope of learning and decisions beyond the strictly relevant.

Children get a lot of attention for being powerful “learning machines” in the popular press, but the truth is they remember much less than adults. Even still, many of children’s individual memories are rich and complex and similar in quality to adults’, suggesting what improves in development is not just the quality of our memories, but the frequency with which we form them. Here, we ask why children form memories less often than adults; instead of focusing on memory mechanisms, we focus on an entirely separate aspect of cognition: sustained attention. In adults, sustained attention fluctuates to shape memory in each moment, but we know little about how attention fluctuates in childhood to shape memory formation. To address this gap, 7–10-year-old children and adults (n=120) completed a sustained attention task in which they classified trial-unique images as living or nonliving. We then tested memory for each image, and related attentional fluctuations during classification to subsequent memory. We found that attention fluctuated between states more frequently in children than adults, and that across children, attentional lapse rates correlated with lower memory performance. Within participants, attentional fluctuations shaped the fate of individual memories, such that lapses predicted memory failures. While these fluctuations shaped memory for expected events in both children and adults, they only shaped memory for unexpected events in children, highlighting their particularly detrimental and pervasive influence in development. Our findings raise the possibility that broad developmental differences in cognitive performance reflect the ability to sustain attention.

Children from lower income backgrounds tend to have poorer memory and language abilities than their wealthier peers. It has been proposed that these cognitive gaps reflect the effects of income-related stress on hippocampal structure, but the empirical evidence for this relationship has not been clear. Here, we examine how family income gaps in cognition relate to the anterior hippocampus, given its high sensitivity to stress, versus the posterior hippocampus. We find that anterior (but not posterior) hippocampal volumes positively correlate with family income up to an annual income of ~$75,000. Income-related differences in the anterior (but not posterior) hippocampus also predicted the strength of the gaps in memory and language. These findings add anatomical specificity to current theories by suggesting a stronger relationship between family income and anterior than posterior hippocampal volumes and offer a potential mechanism through which children from different income homes differ cognitively.

Realizing that we’ve made an error triggers cognitive and behavioral adjustments, including increased arousal, attention, and more cautious responding (Jentzsch & Dudschig, 2009). These post-error adjustments are thought to boost task engagement and facilitate learning (Holroyd & Coles, 2002; Yeung, Botvinick, & Cohen, 2004). Yet, how errors affect memory encoding–a cognitive process foundational to learning–remains unknown. One possibility is that by increasing arousal and task engagement, errors would improve people’s ability to encode information that comes next. Alternatively, errors might lead to too much arousal and/or attentional capture, impairing people’s ability to encode information that comes next. In two experiments, we tested whether categorization errors influence how well people encode information presented after errors. In experiment 1, participants (n=60) categorized trial-unique images as ‘living’ or ‘nonliving’ and following a short delay, performed a surprise memory test. We found that people formed memories worse after categorization errors (p<0.001). In experiment 2, we investigated whether increases in arousal and/or attentional capture by errors contributed to post-error memory decrements in a separate cognitive control task. Participants (n=60) performed a modified Simon task in which they categorized trial-unique images as ‘natural’ or ‘man-made’, while we recorded pupil size and eye fixations and recognition memory for the images was later tested. Consistent with an arousal mechanism, individuals who displayed the largest increase in pupil size after errors had the greatest post-error memory decrements (p<0.05). Moreover, people with the largest post-error memory decrements tended to have better memory for the error trials and generated fewer fixations on post-error trials (ps<0.05) – consistent with the possibility that errors captured attention, leaving fewer encoding resources for information presented next. Our results suggest that rather than preparing people for learning opportunities, errors transiently impair memory encoding due to both increased arousal after errors and attentional capture by errors.

Long-standing theories propose that acetylcholine biases memory by slowly shifting hippocampal dynamics to favor encoding or retrieval. However, recent characterizations of acetylcholine functions across multiple spatiotemporal scales suggest that its mnemonic influence is both broader in space, coordinating networks of regions, and narrower in time, having precisely timed consequences, than traditionally thought. Integrating this work, we review evidence for synchronous acetylcholine release across the hippocampus and neocortex, which could favor the encoding of attended and well-represented content during high-cholinergic states. Conversely, we propose that lower acetylcholine levels thought to benefit spontaneous hippocampal retrieval conflict with the high cortical levels necessary for attention-dependent aspects of recollection. We propose that rapid cholinergic mechanisms and neural oscillations may resolve these conflicting retrieval demands.

Making an error triggers a host of cognitive and behavioral adjustments theorized to boost task engagement and facilitate learning. yet how errors influence memory formation - a cognitive process foundational to learning - remains unknown. Adaptive cognitive accounts of error processing propose that errors increase arousal, task-engagement, and attention, and should therefore enhance subsequent memory formation. Conversely, non-adaptive accounts of error processing and related research in arousal-mediated memory selectivity predict that errors could impair subsequent memory formation. We tested these divergent predictions in two experiments. In experiment 1, participants categorized trial-unique images as 'living' or 'nonliving', and following a short delay, performed a surprise recognition memory task. In contrast to what adaptive cognitive accounts of error processing would predict, people formed memories more poorly after errors, even when performance after errors was accurate. In experiment 2, we asked whether poorer memory formation after errors correlated with arousal or visual engagement after errors. Participants performed a modified Simon task in which they categorized trial-unique images as 'natural' or 'man-made', while we recorded pupil dilation and visual fixations. Recognition memory was subsequently tested. We found that people who encoded memories more poorly after errors had larger pupillary responses to errors and spent less time fixating on stimuli after errors relative to before. Our results support non-adaptive theories of error processing by showing that errors transiently impair memory formation, possibly by increasing arousal and capturing attention.

Abstract Background Understanding the global impact of medulloblastoma on health related quality of life (HRQL) is critical to characterizing the broad impact of this disease and realizing the benefits of modern treatments. We evaluated HRQL in an international cohort of pediatric medulloblastoma patients. Methods Seventy‐six patients were selected from 10 sites across North America, Europe, and Asia, who participated in the Medulloblastoma Advanced Genomics International Consortium (MAGIC). The Health Utilities Index (HUI) was administered to patients and/or parents at each site. Responses were used to determine overall HRQL and attributes (ie specific subdomains). The impact of various demographic and medical variables on HRQL was considered—including molecular subgroup. Results The majority of patients reported having moderate or severe overall burden of morbidity for both the HUI2 and HUI3 (HUI2 = 60%; HUI3 = 72.1%) when proxy‐assessed. Self‐care in the HUI2 was rated as higher (ie better outcome) for patients from Western versus Eastern sites, P = .02. Patients with nonmetastatic status had higher values (ie better outcomes) for the HUI3 hearing, HUI3 pain, and HUI2 pain, all P < .05. Patients treated with a gross total resection also had better outcomes for the HUI3 hearing (P = .04). However, those who underwent a gross total resection reported having worse outcomes on the HUI3 vision (P = .02). No differences in HRQL were evident as a function of subgroup. Conclusions By examining an international sample of survivors, we characterized the worldwide impact of medulloblastoma. This is a critical first step in developing global standards for evaluating long‐term outcomes.

Medulloblastomas, the most common malignant brain tumor in children, are typically treated with radiotherapy. Refinement of this treatment has greatly improved survival rates in this patient population. However, radiotherapy also profoundly affects the developing brain and is associated with reduced hippocampal volume and blunted hippocampal neurogenesis. Such hippocampal (as well as extrahippocampal) abnormalities likely contribute to cognitive impairments in this population. While several aspects of memory have been examined in this population, the impact of radiotherapy on autobiographical memory has not previously been evaluated. Here we evaluated autobiographical memory in male and female patients who received radiotherapy for posterior fossa tumors (PFTs), including medulloblastoma, during childhood. Using the Children's Autobiographical Interview, we retrospectively assessed episodic and nonepisodic details for events that either preceded (i.e., remote) or followed (i.e., recent) treatment. For post-treatment events, PFT patients reported fewer episodic details compared with control subjects. For pretreatment events, PFT patients reported equivalent episodic details compared with control subjects. In a range of conditions associated with reduced hippocampal volume (including medial temporal lobe amnesia, mild cognitive impairment, Alzheimer's disease, temporal lobe epilepsy, transient epileptic amnesia, frontal temporal dementia, traumatic brain injury, encephalitis, and aging), loss of episodic details (even in remote memories) accompanies hippocampal volume loss. It is therefore surprising that pretreatment episodic memories in PFT patients with reduced hippocampal volume are retained. We discuss these findings in light of the anterograde and retrograde impact on memory of experimentally suppressing hippocampal neurogenesis in rodents. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Pediatric medulloblastoma survivors develop cognitive dysfunction following cranial radiotherapy treatment. We report that radiotherapy treatment impairs the ability to form new autobiographical memories, but spares preoperatively acquired autobiographical memories. Reductions in hippocampal volume and cortical volume in regions of the recollection network appear to contribute to this pattern of preserved preoperative, but impaired postoperative, memory. These findings have significant implications for understanding disrupted mnemonic processing in the medial temporal lobe memory system and in the broader recollection network, which are inadvertently affected by standard treatment methods for medulloblastoma tumors in children.

The developing hippocampus is highly sensitive to chemotherapy and cranial radiation treatments for pediatric cancers, yet little is known about the effects that cancer treatents have on specific hippocampal subfields. Here, we examined hippocampal subfield volumes in 29 pediatric brain tumor survivors treated with cranial radiation and chemotherapy, and 30 healthy developing children and adolescents. We also examined associations between hippocampal subfield volumes and short-term verbal memory. Hippocampal subfields (Cornus Ammonis (CA) 1, CA2-3, dentate gyrus (DG)-CA4, stratum radiatum-lacunosum-moleculare, and subiculum) were segmented using the Multiple Automatically Generated Templates for Different Brains automated segmentation algorithm. Neuropsychological assessment of short-term verbal associative memory was performed in a subset of brain tumor survivors (N = 11) and typically developing children (N = 16), using the Children's Memory Scale or Wechsler's Memory Scale-third edition. Repeated measures analysis of variance showed that pediatric brain tumor survivors had significantly smaller DG-CA4, CA1, CA2-3, and stratum radiatum-lacunosum-moleculare volumes compared with typically developing children. Verbal memory performance was positively related to DG-CA4, CA1, and stratum radiatum-lacunosum-moleculare volumes in pediatric brain tumor survivors. Unlike the brain tumor survivors, there were no associations between subfield volumes and memory in typically developing children and adolescents. These data suggest that specific subfields of the hippocampus may be vulnerable to brain cancer treatments, and may contribute to impaired episodic memory following brain cancer treatment in childhood.

Neural communication is facilitated by intricate networks of white matter (WM) comprised of both long and short range connections. The maturation of long range WM connections has been extensively characterized, with projection, commissural, and association tracts showing unique trajectories with age. There, however, remains a limited understanding of age-related changes occurring within short range WM connections, or U-fibers. These connections are important for local connectivity within lobes and facilitate regional cortical function and greater network economy. Recent studies have explored the maturation of U-fibers primarily using cross-sectional study designs. Here, we analyzed diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) data for healthy children and adolescents in both a cross-sectional (n=78; mean age=13.04 +/- 3.27 years) and a primarily longitudinal (n=26; mean age=10.78 +/- 2.69 years) cohort. We found significant age-related differences in fractional anisotropy (FA), mean diffusivity (MD), axial diffusivity (AD) and radial diffusivity (RD) across the frontal, parietal, and temporal lobes of participants within the cross-sectional cohort. By contrast, we report significant age-related differences in only FA for participants within the longitudinal cohort. Specifically, larger FA values were observed with age in frontal, parietal, and temporal lobes of the left hemisphere. Our results extend previous findings restricted to long range WM to demonstrate regional changes in the microstructure of short range WM during childhood and adolescence. These changes possibly reflect continued myelination and axonal organization of short range WM with increasing age in more anterior regions of the left hemisphere. Hum Brain Mapp 39:204-217, 2018. (c) 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.