Amygdala reactivity and ventromedial prefrontal cortex coupling in the processing of emotional face stimuli in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder
Publication year
2022Source
European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 31, 12, (2022), pp. 1895-1907ISSN
Publication type
Article / Letter to editor
Display more detailsDisplay less details
Organization
Cognitive Neuroscience
PI Group Memory & Emotion
Human Genetics
Psychiatry
Journal title
European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
Volume
vol. 31
Issue
iss. 12
Page start
p. 1895
Page end
p. 1907
Subject
130 000 Cognitive Neurology & Memory; Radboudumc 7: Neurodevelopmental disorders DCMN: Donders Center for Medical Neuroscience; Cognitive Neuroscience - Radboud University Medical Center; Psychiatry - Radboud University Medical CenterAbstract
Impaired emotion recognition is common in individuals with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and may, via deficient emotion self-regulation, relate to the frequently co-occurring affective and social problems. The present study used an emotional face-matching task and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate neural responses during the processing of angry and fearful faces and visuo-spatial control stimuli. Additionally, measures for emotion dysregulation, ADHD type, and age were investigated in relation to the behavioral and neural fMRI data. We utilized a sample of 61 adolescents/young adults with ADHD and 51 age-matched healthy controls (age range: 12-28 years). Participants with ADHD had higher emotion dysregulation scores than controls. They also reacted slower and less accurate in response to emotional but not visuo-spatial control stimuli. Neural response differences between emotional and visuo-spatial trials were significantly smaller in cases, particularly in the left amygdala. While coupling between the right amygdala and bilateral ventromedial prefrontal cortex was stronger for emotional than visuo-spatial stimuli in control subjects, levels of positive coupling between the trial types did not significantly differ in participants with ADHD. Neither emotion dysregulation scores, nor ADHD type or age were related to the behavioral and neural processing alterations during the emotional face-matching task. Results indicate that emotion recognition deficits in ADHD are particularly associated with lower amygdala activation to emotional stimuli and alterations in the functional connections of the amygdala to medial prefrontal areas. Emotion recognition deficits and associated neural alterations were unrelated to emotion dysregulation, ADHD type, or age.
This item appears in the following Collection(s)
- Academic publications [243908]
- Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging [3982]
- Electronic publications [130674]
- Faculty of Medical Sciences [92803]
- Open Access publications [104963]
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