Introduction: Social interactions are dynamic and complex. To understand associated processesand individual differences, including mentalizing network neural similarity, affective similarityand social anxiety symptoms, it is necessary to take a naturalistic neuroscience approach.Method: Undergraduate student friend pairs (N = 34, 85% White, 65% Women) watched clips oftheir own prior social interaction from both their own and their friend’s perspective while fMRIdata were collected. After each clip, participants rated their affect. Affective similarity capturedaffect rating concordance within dyads. Participants self-reported their trait-level social anxietysymptoms. Neural similarity within the mentalizing network was computed across threeconditions: 1) when both participants viewed identical visual stimuli (Same-Stimuli), 2) whenboth participants viewed the clip from their own perspective (Self-Perspective) and 3) when bothparticipants viewed the clip from their friend’s perspective (Friend-Perspective).Results: During the Self-Perspective condition, greater affective similarity was associated withgreater neural similarity. Social anxiety symptoms moderated the relation during the Friend-Perspective condition. Reporting fewer symptoms was associated with greater neural similaritywhen dyads experienced more affective similarity. Reporting more symptoms was associatedwith greater neural similarity when dyads experienced less affective similarity.Conclusion: Affective similarity related to mentalizing network neural similarity when friendstook the same perspective (Self-Perspective and Friend-Perspective) rather than when visualstimuli were identical (Same-Stimuli). This highlights the strength of naturalistic neurosciencemethods to understand social interaction dynamics, such as neural and affective similarity, andrelations with individual differences, such as social anxiety symptoms.
The COVID-19 pandemic brought about unprecedented changes and uncertainty to the daily lives of youth. The range of adjustment in light of a near-universal experience of COVID restrictions highlights the importance of identifying factors that may render some individuals more susceptible to heightened levels of anxiety during stressful life events than others. Two risk factors to consider are temperamental behavioral inhibition (BI) and difficulties in emotion regulation (ER). As such, the current paper focused on BI examined prior to COVID, because of its developmental link to anxiety and ER, as difficulties may be associated with differences in anxiety. We examined a neurocognitive marker of ER processes, delta-beta coupling (DBC). The current paper had two goals: (1) to examine BI in relation to COVID-related worry and social anxiety experienced during the pandemic, and (2) to explore the role of individual differences in early DBC in the relationship between BI and anxiety outcomes 6 months apart during COVID-19 (n = 86; T1 Mage = 15.95, SD = 1.73; T6 Mage = 16.43, SD = 1.73). We found support for the moderating role of DBC in the relationship between BI levels and social anxiety disorder (SAD) symptom severity during the pandemic. Here, high BI was predictive of increased SAD symptom levels in adolescents with stronger DBC.
ABSTRACTRespiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), a marker of self‐regulation, has been linked to developmental outcomes in young children. Although positive emotions may have the potential to facilitate physiological self‐regulation, and enhanced self‐regulation could underlie the development of positive emotions in early childhood, the relation between positive emotions and physiological self‐regulation in infancy has been relatively overlooked. The current study examined the bidirectional associations among maternal positive emotion, infant positive emotionality, and infant resting RSA across the first 18 months of life. We used data from the Longitudinal Attention and Temperament Study (LanTs; N = 309 in the current analysis) to test the within‐ and between‐person relations of study variables over time using a random‐intercepts cross‐lagged panel model. We found that infants with higher overall levels of positive emotionality also displayed greater resting RSA, and their mothers exhibited higher levels of positive emotion. However, there were negative cross‐lagged associations within‐person; higher than average infant positive emotionality predicted lower levels of infant resting RSA at the subsequent timepoint during early infancy, whereas higher than average infant RSA subsequently predicted decreased levels of infant positive emotionality later in infancy. Results highlight the importance of considering transactional relations between positive emotion and physiological self‐regulation in infancy.
The current study examined transactional associations between maternal internalizing symptoms, infant negative emotionality, and infant resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA). We used data from the Longitudinal Attention and Temperament Study (N = 217) to examine the associations between maternal internalizing symptoms, infant negative emotionality, and infant resting RSA from 4-months to 18-months using a random-intercepts cross-lagged panel model. We found that mothers with higher average internalizing symptoms have infants with higher levels of resting RSA. However, there were no stable, between-individual differences in infant negative emotionality across time. Additionally, we found significant negative within-dyad cross-lagged associations from maternal internalizing symptoms to subsequent measures of infant negative emotionality, as well as a significant negative cross-lagged association from maternal internalizing symptoms to child resting RSA after 12-months of age. Lastly, we find evidence for infant-directed effects of negative emotionality and resting RSA to maternal internalizing symptoms. Results highlight the complex, bidirectional associations in maternal-infant dyads during the first two years of life, and the importance of considering the co-development of infant reactivity and regulatory processes in the context of maternal internalizing symptoms.
Measurement of social processes is of interest across areas of research. Event-related potentials (ERPs) measured using electroencephalography (EEG) offer high temporal resolution, but little work has leveraged this strength to characterize the time course of social feedback processing. The present study aimed to replicate and extend previous research by systematically identifying the temporal dynamics of responses to both social acceptance and rejection feedback relative to neutral feedback, examining internal consistency of ERPs, and exploring correspondence with behavioral measures elicited during a peer interaction task. Emerging adults (N = 118) completed a computerized peer interaction task in which they made decisions to accept or reject peers and received rejection, acceptance, and neutral feedback while EEG data were recorded. Principal component analysis was used to derive temporally and spatially distinct ERP components sensitive to positive and negative social feedback. Participant voting patterns and post-task liking ratings for computer-controlled peers were also examined. Replicating prior work, components consistent with N1, P2, reward positivity (RewP), and P3 emerged, but distinct patterns of modulation by acceptance and rejection relative to neutral feedback were observed. Most components showed acceptable internal consistency. Sensitivity to peer feedback assessed through participant voting patterns and liking ratings for peers was correlated with RewP and P3 components. Results highlight the complexity of social feedback processing observable in a computerized peer interaction task and offer promising neural and behavioral measures that can be used to examine individual differences in sensitivity to both social acceptance and rejection feedback.
In this article we describe the dataset titled "Response inhibition and selective attention in adults and children with and without ADHD" which is publicly available on OpenNeuro.org. This dataset is comprised of neuroimaging and standardized cognitive assessment scores from 11 adults, 12 children diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and 15 age matched children without ADHD. Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) data were collected while participants completed selective attention and response inhibition tasks designed and balanced for within or cross-task comparisons. Previous research utilizing this dataset has yet to explore associations between brain function and cognitive assessment scores or differences in neural processes across stimuli features making this dataset valuable for its future contributions to the field as well as replication of prior findings.
This dataset examines language development with a longitudinal design and includes diffusion- and T1-weighted structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), task-based functional MRI (fMRI), and a battery of psycho-educational assessments and parental questionnaires. We collected data from 5.5-6.5-year-old children (ses-5) and followed them up when they were 7-8 years old (ses-7) and then again at 8.5-10 years old (ses-9). To increase the sample size at the older time points, another cohort of 7-8-year-old children (ses-7) were recruited and followed up when they were 8.5-10 years old (ses-9). In total, 322 children who completed at least one structural and functional scan were included. Children performed four fMRI tasks consisting of two word-level tasks examining phonological and semantic processing and two sentence-level tasks investigating semantic and syntactic processing. The MRI data is valuable for examining changes over time in interactive specialization due to the use of multiple imaging modalities and tasks in this longitudinal design. In addition, the extensive psycho-educational assessments and questionnaires provide opportunities to explore brain-behavior and brain-environment associations.
This article describes the public neuroimaging dataset entitled “Working Memory and Reward in Children with and without Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)” available on OpenNeuro.org. This dataset uses functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while participants complete 8 n-back tasks designed to explore working memory, monetary reward, and feedback processing in typically developing children and children diagnosed with ADHD. In addition, this dataset includes longitudinal scores from a battery of standardized measures of cognitive ability, ADHD symptoms, and reading skill. Neuroimaging and standardized testing data were collected from 79 children, aged 8.6–12.0, of which 35 had a formal diagnosis of ADHD at session T1. 48 children returned two years later to complete standardized testing at session T2. Although some work has been published on the spatial working memory task, future research could investigate the verbal working memory and longitudinal data which are unexplored. In addition, this dataset is accompanied by an adult dataset, including 24 participants completing the same tasks entitled, “Working Memory and Reward in Adults” and available on OpenNeuro.org.
Here we describe the public neuroimaging and behavioral dataset entitled “Cross-Sectional Multidomain Lexical Processing” available on the OpenNeuro project (https://openneuro.org). This dataset explores the neural mechanisms and development of lexical processing through task based functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of rhyming, spelling, and semantic judgement tasks in both the auditory and visual modalities. Each task employed varying degrees of trial difficulty, including conflicting versus non-conflicting orthography-phonology pairs (e.g. harm – warm, wall – tall) in the rhyming and spelling tasks as well as high versus low word pair association in the semantic tasks (e.g. dog – cat, dish – plate). In addition, this dataset contains scores from a battery of standardized psychoeducational assessments allowing for future analyses of brain-behavior relations. Data were collected from a cross-sectional sample of 91 typically developing children aged 8.7- to 15.5- years old. The cross-sectional design employed in this dataset as well as the inclusion of multiple measures of lexical processing in varying difficulties and modalities allows for multiple avenues of future research on reading development.
Here we describe “Brain development of deductive reasoning” a pediatric neuroimaging dataset freely available on OpenNeuro.org. This dataset includes neuroimaging and standardized assessment data from 56 participants aged 8.47–15 years. Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) data were collected while participants completed both set-inclusion and linear-order deductive reasoning tasks. A subset of participants (n=45) returned two years later for follow-up standardized assessment testing allowing for future research to investigate individual change in cognitive and academic skill. Previous research on this dataset has not examined the relation of skill and demographic measures to the neural basis of reasoning. Moreover, these studies have not examined the relation of the neural basis of reasoning to that of arithmetic or differences between children and adults in the neural basis of reasoning. Therefore, there are many opportunities to extend the research in the published reports on this data.
Morphology plays a critical role in effectively using and understanding a language. Therefore, it is important to identify the factors that contribute to the success with which individuals are able to learn morphological regularities. This study explores the potential role of prior knowledge in learning derivational morphemes in an artificial language. Consistent with the Complementary Learning Systems theory, it is hypothesized that native English-speaking participants will demonstrate faster learning and consolidation for morphological regularities that are consistent with morphological structures in English as opposed to morphological regularities that are infrequent in English.
We describe functional and structural data acquired using a 3T scanner in a sample of 132 typically developing children, who were scanned when they were approximately 11 years old (i.e. Time 1). Sixty-three of them were scanned again approximately 2 years later (i.e. Time 2). Children performed four tasks inside the scanner: two arithmetic tasks and two localizer tasks. The arithmetic tasks were a single-digit multiplication and a single-digit subtraction task. The localizer tasks, a written rhyming judgment task and a numerosity judgment task, were used to independently identify verbal and quantity brain areas, respectively. Additionally, we provide data on behavioral performance on the tasks inside the scanner, participants’ scores on standardized tests, including reading and math skill, and a developmental history questionnaire completed by parents. This dataset could be useful to answer questions regarding the neural bases of the development of math in children and its relation to individual differences in skill. The data, entitled “Brain Correlates of Math Development”, are freely available from OpenNeuro (https://openneuro.org).
Here we describe the open access dataset entitled "Longitudinal Brain Correlates of Multisensory Lexical Processing in Children" hosted on OpenNeuro.org. This dataset examines reading development through a longitudinal multimodal neuroimaging and behavioral approach, including diffusion-weighted and T1-weighted structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), task based functional MRI, and a battery of psycho-educational assessments and parental questionnaires. Neuroimaging, psycho-educational testing, and functional task behavioral data were collected from 188 typically developing children when they were approximately 10.5 years old (session T1). Seventy children returned approximately 2.5 years later (session T2), of which all completed longitudinal follow-ups of psycho-educational testing, and 49 completed neuroimaging and functional tasks. At session T1 participants completed auditory, visual, and audio-visual word and pseudo-word rhyming judgment tasks in the scanner. At session T2 participants completed visual word and pseudo-word rhyming judgement tasks in the scanner.
In addition to deficits in social communication, individuals diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) frequently exhibit changes in sensory and multisensory function. Recent evidence has focused on changes in audiovisual temporal processing, and has sought to relate these sensory‐based changes to weaknesses in social communication. These changes in audiovisual temporal function manifest as differences in the temporal epoch or “window” within which paired auditory and visual stimuli are integrated or bound, with those with ASD exhibiting expanded audiovisual temporal binding windows (TBWs). However, it is unknown whether this impairment is unique to audiovisual pairings, perhaps because of their relevance for speech processing, or whether it generalizes across pairings in different sensory modalities. In addition to the exteroceptive senses, there has been growing interest in ASD research in interoception (e.g., the monitoring of respiration, heartbeat, hunger, etc.), as these internally directed sensory processes appear to be altered as well in autism. In the current study, we sought to examine both exteroception and interoception in individuals with ASD and a group of typically developing (TD) matched controls, with an emphasis on temporal perception of audiovisual (exteroceptive) and cardiovisual (interoceptive to exteroceptive) cues. Results replicate prior findings showing expanded audiovisual TBWs in ASD in comparison to TD. In addition, strikingly, cardiovisual TBWs were fourfold larger in ASD than in TD, suggesting a putative complete lack of cardiovisual temporal acuity in ASD individuals. Results are discussed in light of recent evidence indicating a reduced tendency to rely on sensory priors in ASD. Autism Res 2018, 11: 194–205. © 2017 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.Lay SummaryStudies have shown that individuals with autism have difficulty in separating auditory and visual events in time. People with autism also weight sensory evidence originating from the external world and from their body differently. We measured simultaneity judgments regarding visual and auditory events and between visual and heartbeat events. Results suggest that while individuals with autism show unusual temporal function across the senses in a general manner, this deficit is greater when pairings bridged between the external world and the internal body.