1
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
0 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: found
      Is Open Access

      Newborn left amygdala volume associates with attention disengagement from fearful faces at eight months

      research-article

      Read this article at

      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Highlights

          • After 5 months of age, infants begin to prioritize attention to fearful over other facial expressions.

          • Amygdala and related early-maturing subcortical network, is important for emergence of this attentional bias.

          • Left amygdala volume associates positively with the emerging perceptual vigilance for fearful faces during infancy.

          • possible link from the prenatally defined variability in the amygdala size to social traits

          Abstract

          After 5 months of age, infants begin to prioritize attention to fearful over other facial expressions. One key proposition is that amygdala and related early-maturing subcortical network, is important for emergence of this attentional bias – however, empirical data to support these assertions are lacking. In this prospective longitudinal study, we measured amygdala volumes from MR images in 65 healthy neonates at 2–5 weeks of gestation corrected age and attention disengagement from fearful vs. non-fearful facial expressions at 8 months with eye tracking. Overall, infants were less likely to disengage from fearful than happy/neutral faces, demonstrating an age-typical bias for fear. Left, but not right, amygdala volume (corrected for intracranial volume) was positively associated with the likelihood of disengaging attention from fearful faces to a salient lateral distractor ( r = .302, p = .014). No association was observed with the disengagement from neutral or happy faces in equivalent conditions ( r = .166 and .125, p = .186 and .320, respectively). These results are the first to link the amygdala volume with the emerging perceptual vigilance for fearful faces during infancy. They suggest a link from the prenatally defined variability in the amygdala size to early postnatal emotional and social traits.

          Related collections

          Most cited references53

          • Record: found
          • Abstract: found
          • Article: not found

          Morphometric analysis of white matter lesions in MR images: method and validation.

          The analysis of MR images is evolving from qualitative to quantitative. More and more, the question asked by clinicians is how much and where, rather than a simple statement on the presence or absence of abnormalities. The authors present a study in which the results obtained with a semiautomatic, multispectral segmentation technique are quantitatively compared to manually delineated regions. The core of the semiautomatic image analysis system is a supervised artificial neural network classifier augmented with dedicated preand postprocessing algorithms, including anisotropic noise filtering and a surface-fitting method for the correction of spatial intensity variations. The study was focused on the quantitation of white matter lesions in the human brain. A total of 36 images from six brain volumes was analyzed twice by each of two operators, under supervision of a neuroradiologist. Both the intra- and interrater variability of the methods were studied in terms of the average tissue area detected per slice, the correlation coefficients between area measurements, and a measure of similarity derived from the kappa statistic. The results indicate that, compared to a manual method, the use of the semiautomatic technique not only facilitates the analysis of the images, but also has similar or lower intra- and interrater variabilities.
            Bookmark
            • Record: found
            • Abstract: found
            • Article: not found

            Maternal cortisol over the course of pregnancy and subsequent child amygdala and hippocampus volumes and affective problems.

            Stress-related variation in the intrauterine milieu may impact brain development and emergent function, with long-term implications in terms of susceptibility for affective disorders. Studies in animals suggest limbic regions in the developing brain are particularly sensitive to exposure to the stress hormone cortisol. However, the nature, magnitude, and time course of these effects have not yet been adequately characterized in humans. A prospective, longitudinal study was conducted in 65 normal, healthy mother-child dyads to examine the association of maternal cortisol in early, mid-, and late gestation with subsequent measures at approximately 7 y age of child amygdala and hippocampus volume and affective problems. After accounting for the effects of potential confounding pre- and postnatal factors, higher maternal cortisol levels in earlier but not later gestation was associated with a larger right amygdala volume in girls (a 1 SD increase in cortisol was associated with a 6.4% increase in right amygdala volume), but not in boys. Moreover, higher maternal cortisol levels in early gestation was associated with more affective problems in girls, and this association was mediated, in part, by amygdala volume. No association between maternal cortisol in pregnancy and child hippocampus volume was observed in either sex. The current findings represent, to the best of our knowledge, the first report linking maternal stress hormone levels in human pregnancy with subsequent child amygdala volume and affect. The results underscore the importance of the intrauterine environment and suggest the origins of neuropsychiatric disorders may have their foundations early in life.
              Bookmark
              • Record: found
              • Abstract: found
              • Article: not found

              Distant influences of amygdala lesion on visual cortical activation during emotional face processing.

              Emotional visual stimuli evoke enhanced responses in the visual cortex. To test whether this reflects modulatory influences from the amygdala on sensory processing, we used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in human patients with medial temporal lobe sclerosis. Twenty-six patients with lesions in the amygdala, the hippocampus or both, plus 13 matched healthy controls, were shown pictures of fearful or neutral faces in task-releant or task-irrelevant positions on the display. All subjects showed increased fusiform cortex activation when the faces were in task-relevant positions. Both healthy individuals and those with hippocampal damage showed increased activation in the fusiform and occipital cortex when they were shown fearful faces, but this was not the case for individuals with damage to the amygdala, even though visual areas were structurally intact. The distant influence of the amygdala was also evidenced by the parametric relationship between amygdala damage and the level of emotional activation in the fusiform cortex. Our data show that combining the fMRI and lesion approaches can help reveal the source of functional modulatory influences between distant but interconnected brain regions.
                Bookmark

                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Journal
                Dev Cogn Neurosci
                Dev Cogn Neurosci
                Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience
                Elsevier
                1878-9293
                1878-9307
                15 August 2020
                October 2020
                15 August 2020
                : 45
                : 100839
                Affiliations
                [a ]The FinnBrain Birth Cohort Study, Turku Brain and Mind Center, Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Turku, Finland
                [b ]Department of Psychiatry, Turku University Hospital, University of Turku, Turku, Finland
                [c ]Turku Collegium for Science and Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland
                [d ]Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, UK (Sigrid Juselius Fellowship), United Kingdom
                [e ]Department of Psychology, University of Turku, Finland
                [f ]Infant Cognition Laboratory, Center for Child Health Research, School of Medicine, University of Tampere, Finland
                [g ]Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
                [h ]Turku Institute for Advanced Studies, Department of Psychology and Speech-Language Pathology, University of Turku, Finland
                [i ]Department of Medical Physics, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland
                [j ]Turku University Hospital and University of Turku, Department of Child Psychiatry, Finland
                [k ]Centre for Population Health Research, University of Turku and Turku University Hospital, Finland
                Author notes
                [* ]Corresponding author at:The FinnBrain Birth Cohort Study, Teutori building, 2nd floor, Lemminkäisenkatu 3, Turku,21520, Finland jetro.tuulari@ 123456utu.fi
                [1]

                Shared contribution

                Article
                S1878-9293(20)30087-6 100839
                10.1016/j.dcn.2020.100839
                7451600
                32836078
                00f7f13c-7c7d-42d1-bcb0-30d8505f24c8
                © 2020 The Authors

                This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

                History
                : 3 December 2019
                : 26 June 2020
                : 12 August 2020
                Categories
                Original Research

                Neurosciences
                mri,eye tracking,amygdala,fear processing,fear bias,infant
                Neurosciences
                mri, eye tracking, amygdala, fear processing, fear bias, infant

                Comments

                Comment on this article