Neural correlates of reactive and effortful control in young children

幼儿反应性和努力控制的神经相关性

• 批准号: 195750-2008
• 负责人: Lewis, Marc
• 金额: $ 1.09万
• 依托单位: University of Toronto
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2010-01-01 至 2011-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=452794
• 关键词: Neural; correlates; reactive; effortful; control

Emotion regulation can be defined as the control of attention, thought, and action impulses as well as regulation of emotional states themselves, and is thought to engage regions of the frontal cortex. Individual differences in personality style and in social functioning, as well as many forms of psychopathology, are associated with differences in emotion regulation. Between the ages of 3 and 7 years, children reach many milestones in the capacity for emotion regulation, but neural changes that accompany behavioural change are still not known. The goal of this study is to use a brain imaging method to capture individual differences in brain patterns subserving emotion regulation as they emerge in development. More specifically we wish to look at brain patterns associated with reactive and effortful control. Reactive control includes automatic attentional biases and control processes that are associated with automatic tendencies to approach or withdraw. Effortful control involves a wide range of more voluntary strategies of emotion regulation. We hypothesize that differences in behavioural measures of temperament and self-control may predict or be predicted by patterns of brain activity. To study this process, we will present emotional faces to children while they are involved in a simple attentional task. Data will be collected at three time points: Just prior to beginning junior kindergarten (3 1/2-4 years), during senior kindergarten (5 years), and at the end of Grade 1 (6 1/2-7 years). Personality questionnaires filled out by parents and laboratory measures of behaviours associated with reactive and effortful control will be compared with patterns of cortical activation, both concurrently and over time. We thus hope to gain some understanding of the link between individual styles of emotion regulation and brain development over a key developmental time window. This understanding will be important for basic psychological knowledge, but it may also help psychologists learn how to identify neural patterns associated with behaviour problems before they become too entrenched.

情绪调节可以被定义为对注意力、思维和行动冲动的控制以及对情绪状态本身的调节，并被认为涉及额叶皮质的区域。个性风格和社会功能的个体差异，以及许多形式的精神病理学，都与情绪调节的差异有关。在3岁到7岁之间，儿童的情绪调节能力达到了许多里程碑，但伴随行为变化的神经变化仍然未知。这项研究的目标是使用大脑成像方法来捕捉大脑模式中的个体差异，当它们在发育过程中出现时，有助于情绪调节。更具体地说，我们希望观察与反应性和努力控制相关的大脑模式。反应性控制包括与自动接近或退出倾向相关的自动注意偏向和控制过程。努力控制涉及一系列更自愿的情绪调节策略。我们假设，性情和自我控制的行为测量的不同可以预测或被大脑活动的模式预测。为了研究这一过程，我们将在孩子们参与一项简单的注意力任务时向他们展示情绪面孔。数据将在三个时间点收集：初中开始之前(3 1/2-4岁)，高中幼儿园期间(5岁)，以及一年级结束时(6 1/2-7岁)。父母填写的个性问卷以及与反应性和努力控制相关的行为的实验室测量将与同时和随时间推移的大脑皮层激活模式进行比较。因此，我们希望在一个关键的发育时间窗口内，对情绪调节的个体风格和大脑发育之间的联系有一些了解。这一理解对心理学基础知识很重要，但也可能帮助心理学家学习如何在行为问题变得过于根深蒂固之前识别与其相关的神经模式。