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Study highlights effects of psychosocial stress in adolescent brain

Recent findings indicated associations between hyperactive amygdala responses and regions responsible for emotional processing with high levels of psychosocial stress in adolescents with greater conduct and hyperactivity/inattention problems.

“Despite evidence that psychopathology and psychosocial stress may affect emotion perception at behavioral and neural levels, to our knowledge there have been no studies exploring how psychopathology-related symptoms and psychosocial stress interact to modulate amygdala activation related to emotional processing,” Erin Burke Quinlan, PhD, of King’s College London, and colleagues wrote.

To assess associations between conduct, hyperactivity/inattention, emotional symptoms and neural reactivity to social-emotional stimuli, researchers evaluated 1,288 community-recruited adolescents with a mean age of 14.4 years. Assessment occurred at eight study sites in England, France, Germany and Ireland. Researchers used bilateral amygdala regions to determine the relationship between the three symptom domains and functional MRI neural reactivity during passive viewing of dynamic angry and neutral facial expressions.

Adolescents with high levels of conduct or hyperactivity/inattention symptoms who experienced more stressful life events exhibited hyperactivity in the amygdala and several brain regions when viewing social-emotional stimuli.

This association was not observed among adolescents with high levels of emotional symptoms.

Adolescents with conduct problems and hyperactivity symptoms exhibited a cluster in the midcingulate.

Exploratory functional connectivity analyses suggested an association between amygdala-precuneus connectivity and hyperactivity/inattention symptoms.

“Our results highlight the importance of studying how environmental stress affects functional brain responses to social-emotional stimuli, particularly in adolescents with externalizing symptoms,” the researchers wrote. “Improved understanding of how stress and externalizing symptoms influence social-affective neurobiological processes may inform the development of therapies that enhance emotional awareness and reduce disproportionate neural reactions in challenging social situations.” – by Amanda Oldt

Disclosure: Quinlan reports no relevant financial disclosures. Please see the study for a full list of relevant financial disclosures.