Research on the neural correlates associated with risk for suicidal ideation (SI) has been limited, particularly in one increasingly at risk group—adolescents. Previous research with adolescents indicates that poor emotion regulation skills are linked with SI, but these studies have not previously examined neural activation in service of emotion regulation between those with and without SI histories.
Here we examine whether SI is associated with neural responses during an emotion regulation fMRI task in a group of adolescents (N=49) ages 13 to 20 years old ( M = 16.95).
While there were no differences between youth with and without SI in self-reported emotional responses to negative pictures, youth with SI activated the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) more than youth without SI on trials where they attempted to regulate their emotional responses compared to trials where they passively viewed negative pictures. In contrast, during passive viewing of negative stimuli, youth with SI activated the dlPFC, temporoparietal junction, and cerebellum less than same age controls.
These findings were robust to controls for depression and adversity exposure and are consistent with the idea that youth with SI have disrupted emotion regulation, potentially related to differences in recruitment of top-down control regions. In contrast, youth without SI activated regions implicated in emotion regulation even when not directed to effortfully control their emotional response. This is the first study to examine neural function during emotion regulation as a potential neural correlate of risk for SI in adolescents.