+ McNeilly, E. A., Mills, K. L., Kahn, L. E., Crowley, R., Pfeifer, J. H., & Allen, N. B. (2021, April 8). Adolescent Social Communication Through Smartphones: Linguistic Features of Internalizing Symptoms and Daily Mood. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/6gdkf

The increasing use of smartphone technology by adolescents has led to unprecedented opportunities to identify early indicators of shifting mental health. This intensive longitudinal study examined the extent to which differences in mental health and daily mood are associated with digital social communication in adolescence. In a sample of 30 adolescents (ages 11-15 years), we analyzed 22,152 messages from social media, email, and texting across one month. Lower daily mood was associated with linguistic features reflecting self-focus and reduced temporal distance. Adolescents with lower daily mood tended to send fewer positive emotion words on a daily basis, and more total words on low mood days. Adolescents with lower daily mood and higher depression symptoms tended to use more future focus words. Dynamic linguistic features of digital social communication that relate to changes in mental states may represent a novel target for passive detection of risk and early intervention in adolescence. [Preprint].

+ Byrne, M.L., Chavez, S.J., Vijayakumar, N., Cheng, T.W., Flournoy, J.C., Barendse, M.E.A., Shirtcliff, E.A., Allen, N.B., Pfeifer, J.H. The structure of puberty in early adolescent girls: Pubertal processes and method variance.

Correctly measuring and operationalizing pubertal processes during development is important for capturing variation in both normative development and trajectories associated with adverse outcomes. The aim of the current study was to understand how this variance may be captured by different pubertal processes (adrenarche and gonadarche) and how multiple methods may contribute to variance (and how they are correlated). The study explored multi-method cross-sectional pubertal data, including self-reported physical characteristics from the Pubertal Development Scale (PDS) and Morris & Udry line drawings, and levels of hormones dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), testosterone (T), and estradiol (E2) in saliva and hair, from a cohort of 174 early adolescent girls aged 10-13 years. Authors developed a theory-driven structural equation modelling framework of puberty for girls that includes multiple measures of puberty and considers both processes of adrenarche and gonadarche. Self-reported puberty and hormone levels from saliva and hair can estimate an overall pubertal process as well as each process of adrenarche and gonadarche. The self-reported PDS item on height growth had the lowest standardized loading of the self-report items. In full models with all measures, the more parsimonious one-factor model was not a significantly worse fit than the two-factor model. The shared variance between the hormonal latent puberty factor and the self-reported latent puberty factor was 32%. This suggests fairly good reliability between hormones and self-report puberty data but also suggests that measuring puberty via hormones and via self-report questionnaires is not entirely redundant, and models of puberty require collecting both. Exploratory analyses showed 34%, 48%, and 52% shared variance between chronological age and the adrenarcheal, gonadarcheal, and overall pubertal factors, respectively, suggesting that there is additional variance in these pubertal processes that is not explained by age alone. When controlling for age, the adrenarcheal and gonadarcheal factors were still strongly associated (90% shared variance), suggesting that these factors are correlated when calculated as pubertal timing (i.e., stage compared to same-age peers), as well. Finally, correlations with age were higher when using the latent factors, whether for self-report questionnaire data alone, or for hormones, and correlations were highest when using all available self-report and biological measures. [Preprint]. [Supplemental Material]

+ Cosme, D., Flournoy, J. C., Livingston, J., Lieberman, M. D., Dapretto, M., & Pfeifer, J. H. (2021, June 22). Testing the adolescent social reorientation model using hierarchical growth curve modeling with parcellated fMRI data. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/8eyf5

Adolescence is characterized as a period when social relationships and experiences shift toward peers. The social reorientation model of adolescence posits this shift is driven by neurobiological changes that increase the salience of status-related social information. We focused on two phenomena that are highly salient and dynamic during adolescence—social status and self-perception—and tested this hypothesis by examining longitudinal changes in neural responses during a self/other evaluation task. Using hierarchical growth curve modeling with parcellated whole-brain data, we found weak evidence for this hypothesis. Social brain regions showed increased responsivity across adolescence, but this trajectory wasn’t unique to status-related social information. Brain regions associated with self-focused cognition showed heightened responses during self-evaluation in the transition to mid-adolescence, especially for status-related social information. Together, these results qualify existing models of adolescent social reorientation and highlight the multifaceted changes in self and social development during adolescence. [Preprint].

+ Cosme, D., Mobasser, A., Ross, G., & Pfeifer, J. H. (2019, August 24). If you’re happy and you know it: Neural correlates of self-evaluated psychological health and well-being. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/86n3b

What does it mean to be well? Prior research suggests that it’s more than just the absence of illness or disease; a complete picture of psychological health is also defined in terms of the “good life,” or well-being. Amid continued debate as to what constitutes the good life, one point of relative agreement is that a person’s psychological health is contingent on their own subjective evaluation. The goal of the current study was to further our understanding of psychological functioning by investigating the neural correlates of self-evaluated psychological health and well-being. A sample of 113 incoming college freshmen completed an fMRI task in which they evaluated words and phrases related to three constructs associated with psychological health–well-being, ill-being, and social connectedness–in terms of self-descriptiveness and perceived malleability. Behaviorally, well-being and social connectedness items were more likely to be endorsed as self-descriptive than ill-being items, and social items were perceived to be more malleable. Neurally, self-evaluation was associated with increased activity in the default mode network, consistent with preregistered hypotheses. We observed strong spatial overlap in neural representations among constructs, though patterns of activity in a priori regions of interest–pgACC, vmPFC, and VS–exhibited low similarity among constructs. Furthermore, we found that these neural predictors explained additional variance in trial-level evaluations of psychological health, but not in individual differences in psychological health when aggregating across trials. Specifically, multilevel logistic regression revealed that greater vmPFC activity increased the likelihood of endorsing items as self-descriptive, but only for ill-being items. Exploratory specification curve analyses suggested that closer examination of these neural correlates using multivariate approaches may provide additional insight into individual differences in psychological health. [Preprint].

+ Cheng T, Magis-Weinberg L, Guazzelli Williamson V, Ladouceur, C, Whittle, S, Herting, M, Uban, K, Byrne, M, Barendse, M, Shirtcliff, E, .Pfeifer, J. (2021). A researcher’s guide to modeling pubertal development in the first wave of the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development study. Frontiers in Endocrinology.

The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development℠ (ABCD) Study is an ongoing, diverse, longitudinal, and multi-site study of 11,880 adolescents in the United States. The ABCD Study provides open access to data about pubertal development at a large scale, and this article is a researcher’s guide that both describes its pubertal variables and outlines recommendations for use. These considerations are contextualized with reference to cross-sectional empirical analyses of pubertal measures within the baseline ABCD dataset by Herting, Uban, and colleagues (2021). We discuss strategies to capitalize on strengths, mitigate weaknesses, and appropriately interpret study limitations for researchers using pubertal variables within the ABCD dataset, with the aim of building toward a robust science of adolescent development. [Article] [Preprint]

+ Jankowski, K. F., & Pfeifer, J. H. (2021). Self-conscious emotion processing in autistic adolescents: Over-reliance on learned social rules during tasks with heightened perspective-taking demands may serve as compensatory strategy for less reflexive mentalizing. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. DOI: 10.1007/s10803-020-04808-6.

Autistic adolescents experience a secondary wave of social cognitive challenges which impact interpersonal success. We investigated self-conscious emotion (SCE) processing in autistic and neurotypical adolescents. Participants watched videos of peers acting embarrassed and proud and rated inferred and empathic SCEs. We compared intensity ratings across groups and conducted correlations with social cognitive abilities and autistic features. Autistic adolescents recognized SCEs and felt empathic SCEs; however, they made atypical emotion attributions when perspective-taking demands were high, which more strongly reflected the situational context. Atypical attributions were associated with perspective-taking difficulties and autistic feature intensity. An over-reliance on contextual cues may reflect a strict adherence to learned social rules, possibly compensating for less reflexive mentalizing, which may underlie interpersonal challenges in ASD.

Keywords: Autism; Empathy; Perspective-taking; Self-conscious emotions; Social context; Social emotions. [Article].

+ Pfeifer, J. H., & Allen, N. B. (2020). Puberty initiates cascading relationships between neurodevelopmental, social, and internalizing processes across adolescence. Biological Psychiatry. Advance online publication.

Adolescence is a period of dramatic developmental transitions—from puberty-related changes in hormones, bodies, and brains to an increasingly complex social world. The concurrent increase in the onset of many mental disorders has prompted the search for key developmental processes that drive changes in risk for psychopathology during this period of life. Hormonal surges and consequent physical maturation linked to pubertal development in adolescence are thought to affect multiple aspects of brain development, social cognition, and peer relations, each of which have also demonstrated associations with risk for mood and anxiety disorders. These puberty-related effects may combine with other nonpubertal influences on brain maturation to transform adolescents’ social perception and experiences, which in turn continue to shape both mental health and brain development through transactional processes. In this review, we focus on pubertal, neural, and social changes across the duration of adolescence that are known or thought to be related to adolescent-emergent disorders, specifically depression, anxiety, and deliberate self-harm (nonsuicidal self-injury). We propose a theoretical model in which social processes (both social cognition and peer relations) are critical to understanding the way in which pubertal development drives neural and psychological changes that produce potential mental health vulnerabilities, particularly (but not exclusively) in adolescent girls. [Article].

+ Barendse, M.E.A, Vijayakumar, N., Byrne, M.L. , Flannery, J.E., Cheng, T.W., Flournoy, J.C., Nelson, B.W., Cosme, D., Mobasser, A., Chavez, S.J., Hval, L., Brady, B., Nadel, H., Helzer, A., Shirtcliff, E.A., Allen, N.B., Pfeifer, J.H. (2020). Study Protocol: Transitions in Adolescent Girls (TAG). Frontiers in Psychiatry 10:1018.

Background: Despite recent studies linking pubertal processes to brain development, as well as research demonstrating the importance of both pubertal and neurodevelopmental processes for adolescent mental health, there is limited knowledge of the full pathways and mechanisms behind the emergence of mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety disorders in adolescence. The Transitions in Adolescent Girls (TAG) study aims to understand the complex relationships between pubertal development, brain structure and connectivity, the behavioral and neural correlates of social and self-perception processes, and adolescent mental health in female adolescents.

Methods: The TAG study includes 174 female adolescents aged 10.0 to 13.0 years, recruited from the local community in Lane County, Oregon, USA. The participants, along with a parent/guardian, will complete three waves of assessment over the course of 3 years; the third wave is currently underway. Each wave includes collection of four saliva samples (one per week) and one hair sample for the assessment of hormone levels and immune factors; an MRI session including structural, diffusion, resting-state functional and task-based functional scans; the Kiddie Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia (K-SADS), a diagnostic interview on current and lifetime mental health; production of a short self-narrative video; and measurement of height, weight, and waist circumference. The functional MRI tasks include a self-evaluation paradigm and a self-disclosure paradigm. In addition, adolescents and their parents/guardians complete a number of surveys to report on the adolescent's pubertal development, mental health, social environment and life events; adolescents also report on various indices of self-perception and social-emotional functioning.

Discussion: The knowledge gained from this study will include developmental trajectories of pubertal, neurological, and social processes and their roles as mechanisms in predicting emergence of mental illness in female adolescents. This knowledge will help identify modifiable, developmentally specific risk factors as targets for early intervention and prevention efforts. [Article].

+ Barendse, M.E.A., Cosme, D., Flournoy, J. C., Vijayakumar, N., Cheng, T. W., Allen, N. B., & Pfeifer, J. H. (2020). Neural correlates of self-evaluation in relation to age and pubertal development in early adolescent girls. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 44, 100799.

Early adolescence is marked by puberty, and is also a time of flux in self-perception. However, there is limited research on the neural correlates of self-evaluation in relation to pubertal development. The current study examined relationships between neural activation during self-evaluation of social traits and maturation (age and pubertal development) in a community sample of female adolescents. Participants (N = 143; age M = 11.65, range = 10.0–13.0) completed a functional MRI task in which they judged the self-descriptiveness of adjectives for prosocial, antisocial and social status-related traits. Pubertal development was based on self-report, and was also examined using morning salivary testosterone, dehydroepiandrosterone, and estradiol. Contrary to preregistered hypotheses, neither age nor pubertal development were related to neural activation during self-evaluation. We further examined whether activation in two regions-of-interest, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and perigenual anterior cingulate (pgACC), was associated with trial-level self-evaluative behavior. In line with preregistered hypotheses, higher vmPFC and pgACC activation during self-evaluation were both associated with a higher probability of endorsing negative adjectives, and a lower probability of endorsing positive adjectives. Future studies should examine neural trajectories of self-evaluation longitudinally, and investigate the predictive value of the neural correlates of self-evaluation for adolescent mental health. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved) [Article] [Preregistration]

+ Flournoy, J.C., Vijayakumar, N., Cheng, T. W., Cosme, D., Flannery, J.E., Pfeifer, J. H. (2020). Improving practices and inferences in developmental cognitive neuroscience. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 45, 100807.

The past decade has seen growing concern about research practices in cognitive neuroscience, and psychology more broadly, that shake our confidence in many inferences in these fields. We consider how these issues affect developmental cognitive neuroscience, with the goal of progressing our field to support strong and defensible inferences from our neurobiological data. This manuscript focuses on the importance of distinguishing between confirmatory versus exploratory data analysis approaches in developmental cognitive neuroscience. Regarding confirmatory research, we discuss problems with analytic flexibility, appropriately instantiating hypotheses, and controlling the error rate given how we threshold data and correct for multiple comparisons. To counterbalance these concerns with confirmatory analyses, we present two complementary strategies. First, we discuss the advantages of working within an exploratory analysis framework, including estimating and reporting effect sizes, using parcellations, and conducting specification curve analyses. Second, we summarize defensible approaches for null hypothesis significance testing in confirmatory analyses, focusing on transparent and reproducible practices in our field. Specific recommendations are given, and templates, scripts, or other resources are hyperlinked, whenever possible. [Article].

+ Vijayakumar, N., Flournoy, J.C., Mills, K.L., Cheng, T.W., Mobasser, A., Flannery, J.E., Allen, N.B. and Pfeifer, J.H. (2020). Getting to know you: An fMRI study of self-disclosure to friends during adolescence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Adolescence is often defined as a period of social reorientation, characterized by increased engagement with, and reliance on, same-aged peers. Consistent with these shifting motivations, we hypothesized that communicating information about oneself to friends would be intrinsically valued during adolescence. We also examined behavioral and neural differences when sharing information of varying depth in intimacy. These questions were investigated in a sample of early adolescent girls (N = 125, ages 10.0-13.0 years) who completed an fMRI adaptation of a monetary choice task on self-disclosure. Behaviorally, adolescents gave up money to share self-referential information with (real-life) close friends, and neural analyses identified extensive engagement of regions that support reward, social cognition and emotion regulation when engaging in disclosure. Behavioral and neural valuation of sharing superficial information were related to individual differences in self-worth and friendship quality. Comparatively, across all levels of analyses, adolescents were less likely to share intimate information. Findings highlight both the value and costs associated with self-disclosure during this time of increased peer sensitivity. [Article] [Preprint].

+ Vijayakumar, N., & Pfeifer, J. H. (2020). Self-disclosure during adolescence: exploring the means, targets, and types of personal exchanges. Current Opinion in Psychology, 31, 135–140.

Sharing information about oneself, or self-disclosing, is a fundamental interpersonal process that facilitates the attainment of key developmental milestones during adolescence. Changes in self-disclosure behaviors may reflect or support the social reorientation that sees children become increasingly reliant on peers for social and emotional support. Neuroimaging research has highlighted protracted maturation of the structure and function of brain regions that support social cognitive and reward processes underlying self-disclosure during adolescence. This review explores behavioral and neural trends in self-disclosure during adolescence, including research that uses novel experimental paradigms to extend the field beyond self-report measures. Findings show that certain aspects of self-disclosure behavior have adapted to changing social environments, but they remain intrinsically valued across the adolescent period and are essential for relationship development, identity formation and overall self-worth and well-being. [Article].

+ ^{^}Cheng, T. W., ^{^}Vijayakumar, N., Flournoy, J. C., Peake, S. J., Flannery, J. E., Mobasser, A., Fisher, P. A., & Pfeifer, J. H. (2020). Feeling left out or just surprised? Neural correlates of social exclusion and overinclusion in adolescence. Cognitive, Affective & Behavioral Neuroscience, 20(2), 340–355.

Social belonging is an important human drive that influences mood and behavior. Neural responses to social exclusion are well-characterized, but the specificity of these responses to processing rejection-related affective distress is unknown. The present study compares neural responses to exclusion and overinclusion, a condition that similarly violates fairness expectations but does not involve rejection, with a focus on implications for models of dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) and anterior insula (AI) function. In an fMRI adaptation of the Cyberball paradigm with adolescents aged 11.1-17.7 years (N = 69), we employed parametric modulators to examine scaling of neural signal with cumulative exclusion and inclusion events, an approach that overcomes arbitrary definitions of condition onsets/offsets imposed on fluid, continuous gameplay. We identified positive scaling of dACC and posterior insula response with cumulative exclusion events, but these same regions exhibited trending signal decreases with cumulative inclusion events. Furthermore, areas within the dACC and insula also responded to context incongruency (throws to the participant in the exclusion run; throws between computer players in the overinclusion run). These findings caution against interpretations that responses in these regions uniquely reflect the affective distress of exclusion within social interaction paradigms. We further identified that the left ventrolateral PFC, rostromedial PFC, and left intraparietal sulcus responded similarly to cumulative exclusion and inclusion. These findings shed light on which neural regions exhibit patterns of differential sensitivity to exclusion or overinclusion, as well as those that are more broadly engaged by both types of social interaction. [Article].

+ Pfeifer, J. H., & Weston, S. J. (2020). Developmental cognitive neuroscience initiatives for advancements in methodological approaches: Registered Reports and Next-Generation Tools. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 44, 100755.

Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience is excited to introduce two new article types at the journal, effective May 15, 2020: Next-Gen Tools and Registered Reports. Next-Gen Tools provide an outlet for methodological advancements and best practices in developmental cognitive neuroscience. Registered Reports provide the opportunity for peer review of study protocol, including hypotheses and methods, prior to data collection or analysis. As many articles have been written about this important tool for open science, we focus on topics we believe are of particular relevance to developmental cognitive neuroscientists. One emphasis is on what are called registered reports of secondary data analysis, that is, proposals to analyze data that have already been collected. Given the wide-spread use of longitudinal methods and pre-existing data in the field, we believe this type of registered report will be common, perhaps the majority of this submission type at DCN. We also present potential challenges for registered reports in developmental cognitive neuroscience and suggest possible solutions, in an effort to facilitate the adoption of this approach. Both article types will also appear as ongoing virtual special sections. [Article].

+ Nelson, B. W., Sheeber, L., Pfeifer, J. H., & Allen, N. B. (2020). Psychobiological Markers of Allostatic Load in Depressed and Non-Depressed Mothers and Their Adolescent Offspring. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. Advance online publication.

Background A substantial body of research has emerged suggesting that depression is strongly linked to poor physical health outcomes, which may be partly due to increased allostatic load across stress response systems. Interestingly, health risks associated with depression are also borne by the offspring of depressed persons. Our aim was to simultaneously investigate whether maternal depression is associated not only with increased allostatic load across cardiac control, inflammation, cellular aging, but also if this is transmitted to adolescent children, possibly increasing the risk for early onset of psychiatric conditions and disease in these offspring.

Methods A preregistered, case–control study of 180 low-income mothers (50% mothers depressed, 50% mothers nondepressed) and their adolescent offspring was conducted to determine how depressed mothers and their adolescent offspring systematically differ in terms of autonomic, sympathetic, and parasympathetic cardiac control; inflammation; cellular aging; and behavioral health in offspring, which are indicators suggestive of higher allostatic load.

Results Findings indicate that depressed mothers and their adolescent offspring differ in terms of comorbid mental and physical health risk profiles that are suggestive of higher allostatic load. Findings indicate that depressed mothers exhibit elevated resting heart rate and decreased heart rate variability, and adolescent offspring of depressed mothers exhibit greater mental health symptoms, elevated heart rate, and accelerated biological aging (shorter telomeres). These effects persisted after controlling for a range of potential covariates, including medication use, sex, age, and adolescents’ own mental health symptoms.

Conclusions Findings indicate that maternal depression is associated with increased allostatic load in depressed women and their adolescent children, possibly increasing risk for early onset of psychiatric conditions and disease in these offspring. Future research is needed to delineate why some biological systems are more impacted than others and to explore how findings might inform preventative programs targeted at adolescent offspring of depressed mothers. [Article]. [Preregistration]

+ Andrews, J. A., Mills, K. L., Flournoy, J. C., Flannery, J. E., Mobasser, A., Ross, G., Durnin, M., Peake, S. J., Fisher, P. A., & Pfeifer, J. H. (2020). Rethinking adolescent risk-taking: Perception of social risk impacts expected involvement in health-risk behaviour during adolescence.Journal of Research on Adolescence. Advance online publication.

This study examined how individual differences in expectations of social consequences relate to individuals’ expected involvement in health-risk behaviors (HRBs). A total of 122 adolescents (aged 11–17) reported their expected involvement in a number of risk behaviors and whether or not they expect to be liked more or less by engaging in the behavior: the expected social benefit. Higher perceived social benefit was associated with higher anticipated involvement in said behavior. This relationship was stronger for adolescents who reported a higher degree of peer victimization, supporting the hypothesis that experiencing victimization increases the social value of peer interactions. Findings suggest that adolescents incorporate expectations of social consequences when making decisions regarding their involvement in HRBs. [Article].

+ Gruber, J., Mendle, J., Lindquist, K. A., Schmader, T., Clark, L. A., Bliss-Moreau, E., Akinola, M., Atlas, L., Barch, D. M., Barrett, L. F., Borelli, J. L., Brannon, T. N., Bunge, S. A., Campos, B., Cantlon, J., Carter, R., Carter-Sowell, A. R., Chen, S., Craske, M. G., Cuddy, A., … Williams, L. A. (2020). The Future of Women in Psychological Science. Perspectives on Psychological Science: A Journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Advance online publication.

There has been extensive discussion about gender gaps in representation and career advancement in the sciences. However, psychological science itself has yet to be the focus of discussion or systematic review, despite our field’s investment in questions of equity, status, well-being, gender bias, and gender disparities. In the present article, we consider 10 topics relevant for women’s career advancement in psychological science. We focus on issues that have been the subject of empirical study, discuss relevant evidence within and outside of psychological science, and draw on established psychological theory and social-science research to begin to chart a path forward. We hope that better understanding of these issues within the field will shed light on areas of existing gender gaps in the discipline and areas where positive change has happened, and spark conversation within our field about how to create lasting change to mitigate remaining gender differences in psychological science. [Article].

+ Horn, S. R., Fisher, P. A., Pfeifer, J. H., Allen, N. B., & Berkman, E. T. (2020). Levers and barriers to success in the use of translational neuroscience for the prevention and treatment of mental health and promotion of well-being across the lifespan. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 129(1), 38–48.

Neuroscientific tools and approaches such as neuroimaging, measures of neuroendocrine and psychoneuroimmune activity, and peripheral physiology are increasingly used in clinical science and health psychology research. We define translational neuroscience (TN) as a systematic, theory-driven approach that aims to develop and leverage basic and clinical neuroscientific knowledge to aid the development and optimization of clinical and public health interventions. There is considerable potential across basic and clinical science fields for this approach to provide insights into mental and physical health pathology that had previously been inaccessible. For example, TN might hold the potential to enhance diagnostic specificity, better recognize increased vulnerability in at-risk populations, and augment intervention efficacy. Despite this potential, there has been limited consideration of the advantages and limitations of such an approach. In this article, we articulate extant challenges in defining TN and propose a unifying conceptualization. We illustrate how TN can inform the application of neuroscientific tools to realistically guide clinical research and inform intervention design. We outline specific leverage points of the TN approach and barriers to progress. Ten principles of TN are presented to guide and shape the emerging field. We close by articulating ongoing issues facing TN research. [Article].

+ Vijayakumar N, Pfeifer JH, Flournoy JC, Hernandez LM, Dapretto M. Affective reactivity during adolescence: Associations with age, puberty and testosterone. Cortex. 2019 Aug;117:336-350. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2019.04.024. Epub 2019 May 17. PMID: 31200127; PMCID: PMC7057923.

Adolescence is a period of heightened social engagement that is accompanied by normative changes in neural reactivity to affective stimuli. It is also a period of concurrent endocrine and physical changes associated with puberty. A growing body of research suggests that hormonal shifts during adolescence impact brain development, but minimal research in humans has examined the relationship between intra-individual changes in puberty and brain function. The current study examines linear and nonlinear changes in affective reactivity in a longitudinal sample of 82 adolescents who underwent three fMRI sessions between the ages of 9 and 18 years. Changes in response to affective facial stimuli were related to age, pubertal stage, and testosterone levels. Using multilevel modeling, we highlight extensive nonlinear development of socio-emotional responsivity across the brain. Results include mid-pubertal peaks in amygdala and hippocampus response to fearful expressions, as well as sex differences in regions subserving social and self-evaluative processes. However, testosterone levels exhibited inverse patterns of association with neural response compared to pubertal stage in females (e.g., U-shaped relationship with the amygdala and hippocampus). Findings highlight potentially unique roles of age, pubertal stage and testosterone on socio-emotional development during adolescence, as well as sex differences in these associations. [Article].

+ Flannery, J., Callaghan, B., Sharpton, T., Fisher, P., & Pfeifer, J. (2019). Is adolescence the missing developmental link in Microbiome–Gut–Brain axis communication?. Developmental psychobiology. 61(5), 783–795.

Gut microbial research has recently opened new frontiers in neuroscience and potentiated novel therapies for mental health problems (Mayer, et al., 2014). Much of our understanding of the gut microbiome's role in brain function and behavior, however, has been largely derived from research on nonhuman animals. Even less is known about how the development of the gut microbiome influences critical periods of neural and behavioral development, particularly adolescence. In this review, we first discuss why the gut microbiome has become increasingly relevant to developmental cognitive neuroscience and provide a synopsis of the known connections of the gut microbiome with social-affective brain function and behavior, specifically highlighting human developmental work when possible. We then focus on adolescence, a key period of neurobiological and social-affective development. Specifically, we review the links between the gut microbiome and six overarching domains of change during adolescence: (a) social processes, (b) motivation and behavior, (c) neural development, (d) cognition, (e) neuroendocrine function, and (f) physical health and wellness. Using a developmental science perspective, we summarize key changes across these six domains to underscore the promise for the gut microbiome to bidirectionally influence and transform adolescent development. [Article].

+ Ferschmann, L., Vijayakumar, N., Grydeland, H., Overbye, K., Sederevicius, D., Due-Tønnessen, P., Fjell, A. M., Walhovd, K. B., Pfeifer, J. H., & Tamnes, C. K. (2019). Prosocial behavior relates to the rate and timing of cortical thinning from adolescence to young adulthood. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 40, 100734.

Prosocial behavior, or voluntary actions that intentionally benefit others, relate to desirable developmental outcomes such as peer acceptance, while lack of prosocial behavior has been associated with several neurodevelopmental disorders. Mapping the biological foundations of prosociality may thus aid our understanding of both normal and abnormal development, yet how prosociality relates to cortical development is largely unknown. Here, relations between prosociality, as measured by the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (self-report), and changes in thickness across the cortical mantle were examined using mixed-effects models. The sample consisted of 169 healthy individuals (92 females) aged 12–26 with repeated MRI from up to 3 time points, at approximately 3-year intervals (301 scans). In regions associated with social cognition and behavioral control, higher prosociality was associated with greater cortical thinning during early-to-middle adolescence, followed by attenuation of this process during the transition to young adulthood. Comparatively, lower prosociality was related to initially slower thinning, followed by comparatively protracted thinning into the mid-twenties. This study showed that prosocial behavior is associated with regional development of cortical thickness in adolescence and young adulthood. The results suggest that the rate of thinning in these regions, as well as its timing, may be factors related to prosocial behavior. [Article].

+ Van der Cruijsen, R., Peters, S., Zoetendaal, K. P. M., Pfeifer, J. H., & Crone, E. A. (2019). Direct and reflected self-concept show increasing similarity across adolescence: A functional neuroimaging study. Neuropsychologia, 129, 407–417. doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2019.05.001

In adolescence, the perceived opinions of others are important in the construction of one's self-concept. Previous studies found involvement of medial Prefrontal Cortex (mPFC) and temporal-parietal junction (TPJ) in direct (own perspective) and reflected (perceived perspective of others) self-evaluations, but no studies to date examined differences in these processes across adolescence. In this study, 150 adolescents between 11 and 21 years old evaluated their traits from their own perspective and from the perceived perspective of peers in a fMRI session. Results showed overlapping behavioural and neural measures for direct and reflected self-evaluations, in mPFC, precuneus and right TPJ. The difference in behavioural ratings declined with age, and this pattern was mirrored by activity in the mPFC, showing a diminishing difference in activation for direct > reflected self-evaluations with increasing age. Right TPJ was engaged more strongly for reflected > direct evaluations in adolescents who were less positive about themselves, and those who showed who showed less item-by-item agreement between direct and reflected self-evaluations. Together, the results suggest that the internalization of others' opinions in constructing a self-concept occurs on both the behavioural and neural levels across adolescence, which may aid in developing a stable self-concept. [Article].

+ Pfeifer, J. H., Allen, N. B., Byrne, M. L., & Mills, K. L. (2018). Modeling Developmental Change: Contemporary Approaches to Key Methodological Challenges in Developmental Neuroimaging. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 33, 1-4. doi: 10.1016/j.dcn.2018.10.001.

Developmental cognitive neuroscience is a truly interdisciplinary field of research that has the potential to answer critical questions about neural plasticity and neural substrates of learning and behavior across cognitive, affective, and social domains of functioning. It therefore has the potential to not only help us understand trajectories and mechanisms of typical development, but also translate this knowledge to the prevention and treatment of emerging psychopathology and health-risking behaviors. However, to reach these goals our field must be able to model how these processes change within individuals across time. Given how central this methodological issue is to our endeavours, it is surprising that there has been relatively little attention paid to integrating neuroscientific methods with cutting edge statistical techniques for modelling longitudinal change, nor have there been published methodological guidelines on many relevant topics. The current special issue sets out to begin to address this lacuna. [Article].

+ Telzer, E. H., McCormack, E., Peters, S., Cosme, D. C., Pfeifer, J. H., & van Duijvenvoorde, A. (2018). Methodological considerations for developmental longitudinal fMRI research. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 33, 149-160. doi: 10.1016/j.dcn.2018.02.004

There has been a large spike in longitudinal fMRI studies in recent years, and so it is essential that researchers carefully assess the limitations and challenges afforded by longitudinal designs. In this article, we provide an overview of important considerations for longitudinal fMRI research in developmental samples, including task design, sampling strategies, and group-level analyses. We first discuss considerations for task designs, weighing the pros and cons of many commonly used tasks, as well as outlining how the tasks may be impacted by repeated exposure. Secondly, we review the types of group-level analyses that can be conducted on longitudinal fMRI data, analyses which must account for repeated measures. Finally, we review and critique recent longitudinal studies that have emerged in the past few years. [Article].

+ Crone, E. A., & Pfeifer, J. H. (2018). What happens in emotional development? Adolescent emotionality. In A. Fox, R. Lapate, A. Shackman, & R. Davidson (Eds.), The Nature of Emotion, 2nd Ed.

+ ^{^}Op de Macks, Z. A. O., ^{^}Flannery, J. E., Peake, S. J., Flournoy, J. C., Mobasser, A., Alberti, S. L., … & Pfeifer, J. H. (2018). Novel insights from the Yellow Light Game: Safe and risky decisions differentially impact adolescent outcome-related brain function. NeuroImage, 181, 568-581.

Changes across the span of adolescence in the adolescent reward system are thought to increase the tendency to take risks. While developmental differences in decision and outcome-related reward processes have been studied extensively, existing paradigms have largely neglected to measure how different types of decisions modulate reward-related outcome processes. We modified an existing decision-making paradigm (the Stoplight Task; Chein et al., 2011) to create a flexible laboratory measure of decision-making and outcome processing, including the ability to assess modulatory effects of safe versus risky decisions on reward-related outcome processes: the Yellow Light Game (YLG). We administered the YLG in the MRI scanner to 81 adolescents, ages 11–17 years, recruited from the community. Results showed that nucleus accumbens activation was enhanced for (1) risky > safe decisions, (2) positive > negative outcomes, and (3) outcomes following safe decisions compared to outcomes following risky decisions, regardless of whether these outcomes were positive or negative. Outcomes following risky decisions (compared to outcomes following safe decisions) were associated with enhanced activity in cortical midline structures. Furthermore, while there were no developmental differences in risk-taking behavior, more pubertally mature adolescents showed enhanced nucleus accumbens activation during positive > negative outcomes. These findings suggest that outcome processing is modulated by the types of decisions made by adolescents and highlight the importance of investigating processes involved in safe as well as risky decisions to better understand the adolescent tendency to take risks.

Keywords: fMRI, Risk taking, Adolescence, Reward, Ventral striatum, Driving game [Article].

+ Pfeifer, J. H., & Berkman, E. T. (2018). Self and identity development in adolescence: Neural evidence and implications for a value-based choice perspective on motivated behavior. Child Development Perspectives. doi: doi/10.1111/cdep.12279

Following a key developmental task of childhood—building a foundation of self-knowledge in the form of domain-specific self-concepts—adolescents begin to explore their emerging identities in ways that foster autonomy and connectedness. Neuroimaging studies of self-related processes demonstrate enhanced engagement of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (PFC) in adolescence, which may facilitate and reflect the development of identity by integrating the value of potential actions and choices. Drawing from neuroeconomic and social-cognitive accounts, we propose that motivated behavior during adolescence can be modeled by a general value-based decision-making process centered around value accumulation in the ventromedial PFC. This approach advances models of adolescent neurodevelopment that focus on reward sensitivity and cognitive control by considering more diverse value inputs, including contributions of developing self- and identity-related processes. It also considers adolescent decision making and behavior from adolescents' point of view rather than adults' perspectives on what adolescents should value or how they should behave. [Article].

+ Telzer, E. H., McCormick, E. M., Peters, S., Cosme, D., Pfeifer, J. H., & van Duijvenvoorde, A. C. (2018). Methodological considerations for developmental longitudinal fMRI research. Developmental cognitive neuroscience, 33, 149-160.

There has been a large spike in longitudinal fMRI studies in recent years, and so it is essential that researchers carefully assess the limitations and challenges afforded by longitudinal designs. In this article, we provide an overview of important considerations for longitudinal fMRI research in developmental samples, including task design, sampling strategies, and group-level analyses. We first discuss considerations for task designs, weighing the pros and cons of many commonly used tasks, as well as outlining how the tasks may be impacted by repeated exposure. Secondly, we review the types of group-level analyses that can be conducted on longitudinal fMRI data, analyses which must account for repeated measures. Finally, we review and critique recent longitudinal studies that have emerged in the past few years. [Article].

+ Madhyastha, T., Peverill, M., Koh, N., McCabe, C., Flournoy, J., Mills, K., … & McLaughlin, K. A. (2018). Current methods and limitations for longitudinal fMRI analysis across development. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 33, 118-128.

The human brain is remarkably plastic. The brain changes dramatically across development, with ongoing functional development continuing well into the third decade of life and substantial changes occurring again in older age. Dynamic changes in brain function are thought to underlie the innumerable changes in cognition, emotion, and behavior that occur across development. The brain also changes in response to experience, which raises important questions about how the environment influences the developing brain. Longitudinal functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies are an essential means of understanding these developmental changes and their cognitive, emotional, and behavioral correlates. This paper provides an overview of common statistical models of longitudinal change applicable to developmental cognitive neuroscience, and a review of the functionality provided by major software packages for longitudinal fMRI analysis. We demonstrate that there are important developmental questions that cannot be answered using available software. We propose alternative approaches for addressing problems that are commonly faced in modeling developmental change with fMRI data. [Article].

+ Alarcon, G., Pfeifer, J. H., Fair, D. A., & Nagel, B. J. (2018). Adolescent Gender Differences in Cognitive Control Performance and Functional Connectivity Between Default Mode and Fronto-Parietal Networks Within a Self-Referential Context. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 12, 73.

Ineffective reduction of functional connectivity between the default mode network (DMN) and frontoparietal network (FPN) during cognitive control can interfere with performance in healthy individuals—a phenomenon present in psychiatric disorders, such as depression. Here, this mechanism is studied in healthy adolescents by examining gender differences in task-regressed functional connectivity using functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and a novel task designed to place the DMN—supporting self-referential processing (SRP)—and FPN—supporting cognitive control—into conflict. Compared to boys, girls showed stronger functional connectivity between DMN and FPN during cognitive control in an SRP context (n = 40; boys = 20), a context that also elicited more errors of omission in girls. The gender difference in errors of omission was mediated by higher self-reported co-rumination—the extensive and repetitive discussion of problems and focus on negative feelings with a same-gender peer—by girls, compared to boys. These findings indicate that placing internal and external attentional demands in conflict lead to persistent functional connectivity between FPN and DMN in girls, but not boys; however, deficits in performance during this context were explained by co-rumination, such that youth with higher co-rumination displayed the largest performance deficits. Previous research shows that co-rumination predicts depressive symptoms during adolescence; thus, gender differences in the mechanisms involved with transitioning from internal to external processing may be relevant for understanding heightened vulnerability for depression in adolescent girls.

Keywords: adolescence, self-referential processing, cognitive control, gender differences, co-rumination, functional magnetic resonance imaging, default mode network, fronto-parietal network [Article].

+ Cosme, D. C., Mobasser, A., Zeithamova, D., Berkman, E. T., & Pfeifer, J. H. (2018). Choosing to regulate: Does choice enhance craving regulation? Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 13, 300-309. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsy010.

Goal-directed behavior and lifelong well-being often depend on the ability to control appetitive motivations, such as cravings. Cognitive reappraisal is an effective way to modulate emotional states, including cravings, but is often studied under explicit instruction to regulate. Despite the strong prediction from Self-Determination Theory that choice should enhance task engagement and regulation success, little is known empirically about whether and how regulation is different when participants choose (vs are told) to exert control. To investigate how choice affects neural activity and regulation success, participants reappraised their responses to images of personally-craved foods while undergoing functional neuroimaging. Participants were either instructed to view or reappraise (‘no-choice’) or chose freely to view or reappraise (‘yes-choice’). Choice increased activity in the frontoparietal control network. We expected this activity would be associated with increased task engagement, resulting in better regulation success. However, contrary to this prediction, choice slightly reduced regulation success. Follow-up multivariate functional neuroimaging analyses indicated that choice likely disrupted allocation of limited cognitive resources during reappraisal. While unexpected, these results highlight the importance of studying upstream processes such as regulation choice, as they may affect the ability to regulate cravings and other emotional states.

Keywords: craving regulation, cognitive reappraisal, choice, autonomy, self-determination [Article].

+ Vijayakumar, N., Op de Macks, Z., Shirtcliff, E. A., & Pfeifer, J. H. (2018). Puberty and the human brain: Insights into adolescent development. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 92, 417-436. doi: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2018.06.004

Alongside the exponential flourish of research on age-related trajectories of human brain development during childhood and adolescence in the past two decades, there has been an increase in the body of work examining the association between pubertal development and brain maturation. This review systematically examines empirical research on puberty-related structural and functional brain development in humans, with the aim of identifying convergent patterns of associations. We emphasize longitudinal studies, and discuss pervasive but oft-overlooked methodological issues that may be contributing to inconsistent findings and hindering progress (e.g., conflating distinct pubertal indices and different measurement instruments). We also briefly evaluate support for prominent models of adolescent neurodevelopment that hypothesize puberty-related changes in brain regions involved in affective and motivational processes. For the field to progress, replication studies are needed to help resolve current inconsistencies and gain a clearer understanding of pubertal associations with brain development in humans, knowledge that is crucial to make sense of the changes in psychosocial functioning, risk behavior, and mental health during adolescence.

Keywords: Adolescence; Brain development; Functional MRI; Hormones; Puberty; Structural MRI. [Article].

+ Jankowski, K. F., Batres, J., Smyda, G., Pfeifer, J. H., & Quevedo, K. (2018). Feeling left out: Depressed adolescents atypically recruit emotional salience and regulation networks during social exclusion. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 13, 863-876. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsy055

Depression is associated with negative attention and attribution biases and maladaptive emotion responsivity and regulation, which adversely impact self-evaluations and interpersonal relationships. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we investigated the neural substrates of these impairments. We compared neural activity recruited by 126 clinically depressed and healthy adolescents (ages 11–17 years) during social exclusion (Exclusion > Inclusion) using Cyberball. Results revealed significant interaction effects within left anterior insula (AI)/inferior frontal gyrus and left middle temporal gyrus. Insula hyperresponsivity was associated with peer exclusion for depressed adolescents but peer inclusion for healthy adolescents. In additional, healthy adolescents recruited greater lateral temporal activity during peer exclusion. Complementary effect size analyses within independent parcellations offered converging evidence, as well as highlighted medium-to-large effects within subgenual/ventral anterior cingulate cortex and lateral prefrontal, lateral temporal and lateral parietal regions implicated in emotion regulation. Depressogenic neural patterns were associated with negative self-perceptions and negative information processing biases. These findings suggest a neural mechanism underlying cognitive biases in depression, as reflected by emotional hyperresponsivity and maladaptive regulation/reappraisal of negative social evaluative information. This study lends further support for salience and central executive network dysfunction underlying social threat processing, and in particular, highlights the anterior insula as a key region of disturbance in adolescent depression.

Keywords: social exclusion, fMRI, depression, adolescence, emotion regulation, salience [Article].

+ Alarcon, G., Pfeifer, J. H., Fair, D. A., & Nagel, B. J. (2018). Adolescent gender differences in cognitive control performance and functional connectivity between default mode and fronto-parietal networks within a self-referential context. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 12, 73. doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2018.00073

Ineffective reduction of functional connectivity between the default mode network (DMN) and frontoparietal network (FPN) during cognitive control can interfere with performance in healthy individuals—a phenomenon present in psychiatric disorders, such as depression. Here, this mechanism is studied in healthy adolescents by examining gender differences in task-regressed functional connectivity using functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and a novel task designed to place the DMN—supporting self-referential processing (SRP)—and FPN—supporting cognitive control—into conflict. Compared to boys, girls showed stronger functional connectivity between DMN and FPN during cognitive control in an SRP context (n = 40; boys = 20), a context that also elicited more errors of omission in girls. The gender difference in errors of omission was mediated by higher self-reported co-rumination—the extensive and repetitive discussion of problems and focus on negative feelings with a same-gender peer—by girls, compared to boys. These findings indicate that placing internal and external attentional demands in conflict lead to persistent functional connectivity between FPN and DMN in girls, but not boys; however, deficits in performance during this context were explained by co-rumination, such that youth with higher co-rumination displayed the largest performance deficits. Previous research shows that co-rumination predicts depressive symptoms during adolescence; thus, gender differences in the mechanisms involved with transitioning from internal to external processing may be relevant for understanding heightened vulnerability for depression in adolescent girls. [Article].

+ Pfeifer, J. H. (2017). Social neuroscience. In B. Hopkins, E. Geangu, & S. Linkenauger (Eds.), Cambridge Encyclopedia of Child Development.

[Article].

+ Vijayakumar, N., Cheng, T. W., & Pfeifer, J. H. (2017). Neural correlates of social exclusion across ages: a coordinate-based meta-analysis of functional MRI studies. Neuroimage,153, 359-368 doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2017.02.050 NIHMS: 855486

Given the recent surge in functional neuroimaging studies on social exclusion, the current study employed activation likelihood estimation (ALE) based meta-analyses to identify brain regions that have consistently been implicated across different experimental paradigms used to investigate exclusion. We also examined the neural correlates underlying Cyberball, the most commonly used paradigm to study exclusion, as well as differences in exclusion-related activation between developing (7–18 years of age, from pre-adolescence up to late adolescence) and emerging adult (broadly defined as undergraduates, including late adolescence and young adulthood) samples. Results revealed involvement of the bilateral medial prefrontal and posterior cingulate cortices, right precuneus and left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex across the different paradigms used to examine social exclusion; similar activation patterns were identified when restricting the analysis to Cyberball studies. Investigations into age-related effects revealed that ventrolateral prefrontal activations identified in the full sample were driven by (i.e. present in) developmental samples, while medial prefrontal activations were driven by emerging adult samples. In addition, the right ventral striatum was implicated in exclusion, but only in developmental samples. Subtraction analysis revealed significantly greater activation likelihood in striatal and ventrolateral prefrontal clusters in the developmental samples as compared to emerging adults, though the opposite contrast failed to identify any significant regions. Findings integrate the knowledge accrued from functional neuroimaging studies on social exclusion to date, highlighting involvement of lateral prefrontal regions implicated in regulation and midline structures involved in social cognitive and self-evaluative processes across experimental paradigms and ages, as well as limbic structures in developing samples specifically. [Article].

+ Quevedo, K., Ng, R., Scott, H., Smyda, G., Pfeifer, J. H., & Malone, S. (2017). Neurobiology of self-processing in abused depressed adolescents. Development and Psychopathology, 29, 1057-1073. doi:10.1017/S0954579416001024

Maltreatment is associated with chronic depression, high negative self-attributions, and lifetime psychopathology. Adolescence is a sensitive period for the formation of self-concept. Identifying neurobiomarkers of self-processing in depressed adolescents with and without maltreatment may parse the effects of trauma and depression on self-development and chronic psychopathology. Depressed adolescents (n = 86) maltreated due to omission (DO, n = 13) or commission (DCM, n = 28) or without maltreatment (DC, n = 45), and HCs (HC, n = 37) appraised positive and negative self-descriptors in the scanner. DCM and DO showed hypoactivity in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) while processing positive versus negative self-descriptors compared to DC youth, who in turn showed reduced dACC recruitment versus HC. HC youth showed the highest activation in the dACC and striatum during positive self-descriptors; these regions showed a linear decline in activity across DC, DO, and DCM. Low dACC activity to positive versus negative self-descriptors was linked to inadequate coregulation of children's emotions by parents. Negative self-cognitions prevalent in DCM and DO adolescents may be perpetuated by activity in the dACC and striatum. Reduced activation of the dACC and striatum for positive self-descriptors, coupled with enhanced activity for negative self-descriptors, may heighten the risk for persistent depression. [Article].

+ Flannery, J. E., Giuliani, N. R., Flournoy, J. C., & Pfeifer, J. H. (2017). Neurodevelopmental changes across adolescence in viewing and labeling dynamic peer emotions. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 25, 113-127. doi: 10.1016/j.dcn.2017.02.003 NIHMS: 855475

Adolescence is a sensitive period of social-affective development, characterized by biological, neurological, and social changes. The field currently conceptualizes these changes in terms of an imbalance between systems supporting reactivity and regulation, specifically nonlinear changes in reactivity networks and linear changes in regulatory networks. Previous research suggests that the labeling or reappraisal of emotion increases activity in lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC), and decreases activity in amygdala relative to passive viewing of affective stimuli. However, past work in this area has relied heavily on paradigms using static, adult faces, as well as explicit regulation. In the current study, we assessed cross-sectional trends in neural responses to viewing and labeling dynamic peer emotional expressions in adolescent girls 10–23 years old. Our dynamic adolescent stimuli set reliably and robustly recruited key brain regions involved in emotion reactivity (medial orbital frontal cortex/ventral medial prefrontal cortex; MOFC/vMPFC, bilateral amygdala) and regulation (bilateral dorsal and ventral LPFC). However, contrary to the age-trends predicted by the dominant models in studies of risk/reward, the LPFC showed a nonlinear age trend across adolescence to labeling dynamic peer faces, whereas the MOFC/vMPFC showed a linear decrease with age to viewing dynamic peer faces. There were no significant age trends observed in the amygdala. [Article].

+ Giuliani, N. R., Flournoy, J. C., Ivie, E., Von Hippel, A., & Pfeifer, J. H. (2017). Presentation and validation of the DuckEES child and adolescent dynamic facial expressions stimulus set. International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research, 2(1), e1553. doi: 10.1002/mpr.1553

The stimulus sets presently used to study emotion processing are primarily static pictures ofindividuals (primarily adults) making emotional facial expressions. However, the dynamic,stereotyped movements associated with emotional expressions contain rich information missingfrom static pictures, such as the difference between happiness and pride. We created a set of1.1 s dynamic emotional facial stimuli representing boys and girls aged 8–18. A separate groupof 36 individuals (mean [M] age = 19.5 years, standard deviation [SD] = 1.95, 13 male) chosethe most appropriate emotion label for each video from a superset of 250 videos. Validity andreliability statistics were performed across all stimuli, which were then used to determine whichstimuli should be included in the final stimulus set. We set a criterion for inclusion of 70%agreement with the modal response made for each video. The final stimulus set contains 142videos of 36 actors (M age = 13.24 years, SD = 2.09, 14 male) making negative (disgust,embarrassment, fear, sadness), positive (happiness, pride), and neutral facial expressions. Thepercent correct among the final stimuli was high (median = 88.89%; M = 88.38%, SD = 7.74%),as was reliability (κ = 0.753). KEYWORDS: children and adolescents, dynamic videos, emotional facial expressions, stimulus set [Article].

+ Pfeifer, J. H., Mahy, C., Merchant, J. S., Chen, C., Masten, C. L., Fuligni, A. J., Lieberman, M. D., Lessard, J., Dong, Q., & Chen, C. (2017). Neural systems for reflected and direct self-appraisals in Chinese young adults: Exploring the role of the temporal-parietal junction. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 23(1), 45. [Article]

Objectives: Although cortical midline structures (CMS) are the most commonly identified neural foundations of self-appraisals, research is beginning to implicate the temporal-parietal junction (TPJ) in more interdependent self-construals. The goal of this study was to extend this research in an understudied population by (a) examining both direct (first-person) and reflected (third-person) self-appraisals across 2 domains (social and academics), and (b) exploring individual differences in recruitment of the TPJ during reflected self-appraisals. Method: The neural correlates of direct and reflected self-appraisals in social and academic domains were examined in 16 Chinese young adults (8 males, 8 females; aged 18–23 years) using functional MRI. Results: As expected, when making reflected self-appraisals (i.e., reporting what they believed others thought about them, regardless of domain), Chinese participants recruited both CMSs and the TPJ. Similar to previous research in East Asian and interdependent samples, CMSs and the TPJ were relatively more active during direct self-appraisals in the social than in the academic domain. We additionally found that, to the extent participants reported that reflected academic self-appraisals differed from direct academic self-appraisals, they demonstrated greater engagement of the TPJ during reflected academic self-appraisals. Exploratory cross-national comparisons with previously published data from American participants revealed that Chinese young adults engaged the TPJ relatively more during reflected self-appraisals made from peer perspectives. Conclusions: In combination with previous research, these findings increase support for a role of the TPJ in self-appraisal processes, particularly when Chinese young adults consider peer perspectives. The possible functional contributions provided by the TPJ are explored and discussed. [Article].

+ Tackman, A. M., Srivastava, S., Pfeifer, J. H., & Dapretto, M. (2017). Development of conscientiousness in childhood and adolescence: Typical trajectories and associations with academic, health, and relationship changes. Journal of Research in Personality, 67, 85-96. doi: 10.1016/j.jrp.2016.05.002

Conscientiousness is related to a range of important life outcomes, so it is important to understand its development early in life. We examined how conscientiousness changes from late childhood through middle adolescence and what other psychosocial changes it co-occurs with. We developed and validated a conscientiousness scale for use in existing data. Then in a longitudinal study of participants at ages 10, 13, and 16 (N = 90 at Time 1) we used growth curve modeling to examine how conscientiousness co-develops with academic, health, and relationship functioning. Mean levels of conscientiousness decreased from 10 to 13 and then increased to age 16. The later increase was stronger among females. Changes in conscientiousness were associated with adaptive changes in other variables. [Article].

+ Quevedo, K., Martin, J., Scott, H., Smyda, G., & Pfeifer, J. H. (2016). The neurobiology of self-knowledge in depressed and self-injurious youth. Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, 254, 145-155. doi: 10.1016/j.pscychresns.2016.06.015

There is limited information regarding the neurobiology underlying non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) in clinically-referred youth. However, the salience of disturbed interpersonal relationships and disrupted self-processing associated with NSSI suggests the neural basis of social processes as a key area for additional study. Adolescent participants (N=123; M=14.75 years, SD=1.64) were divided into three groups: NSSI plus depression diagnosis (NSSI), depression only (DEP), healthy controls (HC). In the scanner, participants completed an Interpersonal Self-Processing task by taking direct (own) and indirect (mothers', best friends', or classmates') perspectives regarding self-characteristics. Across all perspectives, NSSI showed higher BOLD activation in limbic areas, and anterior and posterior cortical midline structures versus DEP and HC, while HC showed greater activity in rostrolateral, frontal pole and occipital cortex than NSSI and DEP youth. Moreover, NSSI youth showed heightened responses in amygdala, hippocampus, parahippocampus, and fusiform when taking their mothers' perspective, which were negatively correlated with self-reports of the mother's support of adolescents' emotional distress in the NSSI group. NSSI youth also yielded greater precuneus and posterior cingulate cortex activity during indirect self-processing from their classmates' perspective. Findings suggest a role for disruptions in self- and emotion-processing, and conflicted social relationships in the neurobiology of NSSI among depressed adolescents. [Article].

+ Flournoy, J. C., Pfeifer, J. H., Moore, W. E. III, Tackman, A., Mazziotta, J. C., Iacoboni, M., & Dapretto, M. (2016). Neural Reactivity to Emotional Faces May Mediate the Relationship Between Childhood Empathy and Adolescent Prosocial Behavior. Child Development, 87(6), 1691-1702.

Reactivity to others' emotions can result in empathic concern (EC), an important motivator of prosocial behavior, but can also result in personal distress (PD), which may hinder prosocial behavior. Examining neural substrates of emotional reactivity may elucidate how EC and PD differentially influence prosocial behavior. Participants (N=57) provided measures of EC, PD, prosocial behavior, and neural responses to emotional expressions at age 10 and 13. Initial EC predicted subsequent prosocial behavior. Initial EC and PD predicted subsequent reactivity to emotions in the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and inferior parietal lobule, respectively. Activity in the IFG, a region linked to mirror neuron processes, as well as cognitive control and language, mediated the relation between initial EC and subsequent prosocial behavior.

Keywords: empathy, mirror neuron system, prosocial behavior [Article].

+ Tackman, A. M., Srivastava, S., Pfeifer, J. H., & Dapretto, M. (2016). Development of conscientiousness in childhood and adolescence: Typical trajectories and associations with academic, health, and relationship changes. Journal of Research in Personality. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2016.05.002

Conscientiousness is related to a range of important life outcomes, so it is important to understand its development early in life. We examined how conscientiousness changes from late childhood through middle adolescence and what other psychosocial changes it co-occurs with. We developed and validated a conscientiousness scale for use in existing data. Then in a longitudinal study of participants at ages 10, 13, and 16 (N = 90 at Time 1) we used growth curve modeling to examine how conscientiousness co-develops with academic, health, and relationship functioning. Mean levels of conscientiousness decreased from 10 to 13 and then increased to age 16. The later increase was stronger among females. Changes in conscientiousness were associated with adaptive changes in other variables. [Article].

+ Pfeifer, J. H., & Allen, N. B. (2016). The audacity of specificity: Moving adolescent developmental neuroscience towards more powerful scientific paradigms and translatable models. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 17, 131-137. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2015.12.012

[Article].

+ Graham, A. M., Pfeifer, J. H., Fisher, P. A., Carpenter, S., & Fair, D. A. (2015). Early life stress is associated with default system integrity and emotionality during infancy. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 56(11), 1212-1222. doi: 10.1111/jcpp.12409

Background: Extensive animal research has demonstrated the vulnerability of the brain to early life stress (ELS) with consequences for emotional development and mental health. However, the influence of moderate and common forms of stress on early human brain development is less well-understood and precisely characterized. To date, most work has focused on severe forms of stress, and/or on brain functioning years after stress exposure. Methods: In this report we focused on conflict between parents (interparental conflict), a common and relatively moderate form of ELS that is highly relevant for children's mental health outcomes. We used resting state functional connectivity MRI to examine the coordinated functioning of the infant brain (N = 23; 6-12-months-of-age) in the context of interparental conflict. We focused on the default mode network (DMN) due to its well-characterized developmental trajectory and implications for mental health. We further examined DMN strength as a mediator between conflict and infants' negative emotionality. Results: Higher interparental conflict since birth was associated with infants showing stronger connectivity between two core DMN regions, the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) and the anterior medial prefrontal cortex (aMPFC). PCC to amygdala connectivity was also increased. Stronger PCC-aMPFC connectivity mediated between higher conflict and higher negative infant emotionality. Conclusions: The developing DMN may be an important marker for effects of ELS with relevance for emotional development and subsequent mental health. Increasing understanding of the associations between common forms of family stress and emerging functional brain networks has potential to inform intervention efforts to improve mental health outcomes.

Keywords: Functional MRI; brain development; family functioning; infancy; stress. [Article].

+ Graham, A. M., Pfeifer, J. H., Fisher, P. A., Lin, W., Gao, W., & Fair, D. A. (2015). The potential of infant fMRI research and the study of early life stress as a promising exemplar. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 12, 12-39. doi: 10.1016/j.dcn.2014.09.005.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) research with infants and toddlers has increased rapidly over the past decade, and provided a unique window into early brain development. In the current report, we review the state of the literature, which has established the feasibility and utility of task-based fMRI and resting state functional connectivity MRI (rs-fcMRI) during early periods of brain maturation. These methodologies have been successfully applied beginning in the neonatal period to increase understanding of how the brain both responds to environmental stimuli, and becomes organized into large-scale functional systems that support complex behaviors. We discuss the methodological challenges posed by this promising area of research. We also highlight that despite these challenges, early work indicates a strong potential for these methods to influence multiple research domains. As an example, we focus on the study of early life stress and its influence on brain development and mental health outcomes. We illustrate the promise of these methodologies for building on, and making important contributions to, the existing literature in this field. [Article].

+ Giuliani, N. R., & Pfeifer, J. H. (2015). Age-related changes in reappraisal of appetitive cravings during adolescence. Neuroimage, 108, 173-181. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2014.12.037

The ability to regulate temptation and manage appetitive cravings is an important aspect of healthy adolescent development, but the neural systems underlying this process are understudied. In the present study, 60 healthy females evenly distributed from 10 to 23 years of age used reappraisal to regulate the desire to consume personally-craved and not craved unhealthy foods. Reappraisal elicited activity in common self-regulation regions including the dorsal and ventral lateral prefrontal cortex (specifically superior and inferior frontal gyri), dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, and inferior parietal lobule. Viewing personally-craved foods (versus not craved foods) elicited activity in regions including the ventral striatum, as well as more rostral and ventral anterior cingulate cortex extending into the orbitofrontal cortex. Age positively correlated with regulation-related activity in the right inferior frontal gyrus, and negatively correlated with reactivity-related activity in the right superior and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices. Age-adjusted BMI negatively correlated with regulation-related activity in the predominantly left lateralized frontal and parietal regions. These results suggest that the age-related changes seen in the reappraisal of negative emotion may not be as pronounced in the reappraisal of food craving. Therefore, reappraisal of food craving in particular may be an effective way to teach teenagers to manage cravings for other temptations encountered in adolescence, including alcohol, drugs, and unhealthy food. [Article].

+ Kahn, L. E., Peake, S. J., Stormshak, B., Dishion, T., & Pfeifer, J. H. (2015). Learning to play it safe (or not): Stable and evolving neural responses in adolescent risky decision-making. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 27, 13-25. doi:10.1162/jocn_a_00694.

Adolescent decision-making is a topic of great public and scientific interest. However, much of the neuroimaging research in this area contrasts only one facet of decision-making (e.g., neural responses to anticipation or receipt of monetary rewards). Few studies have directly examined the processes that occur immediately before making a decision between two options that have varied and unpredictable potential rewards and penalties. Understanding adolescent decision-making from this vantage point may prove critical to ameliorating risky behavior and improving developmental outcomes. In this study, participants aged 14–16 years engaged in a driving simulation game while undergoing fMRI. Results indicated activity in ventral striatum preceded risky decisions and activity in right inferior frontal gyrus (rIFG) preceded safe decisions. Furthermore, participants who reported higher sensation-seeking and sensitivity to reward and punishment demonstrated lower rIFG activity during safe decisions. Finally, over successive games, rIFG activity preceding risky decisions decreased, whereas thalamus and caudate activity increased during positive feedback (taking a risk without crashing). These results indicate that regions traditionally associated with reward processing and inhibition not only drive risky decision-making in the moment but also contribute to learning about risk tradeoffs during adolescence. [Article].

+ Jankowski, K. F., & Pfeifer, J. H. (2015). Puberty, peers, and perspective-taking: Examining adolescent self-concept development through the lens of social cognitive neuroscience. In A. Toga & M. D. Lieberman (Eds.), Brain Mapping: An Encyclopedic Reference, vol. 3, pp. 45-51. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-397025-1.00152-4.

Adolescence is a key transitional period, characterized by significant physical, psychological, and social changes, which encourage increased self-exploration and self-evaluation. This article examines adolescent self-concept development through the lens of social cognitive neuroscience. Key social and cognitive changes are summarized, particularly enhanced perspective taking and peer influence. These behavioral changes are then linked with relevant trajectories of functional brain development. An overview of neuroimaging research exploring self-evaluative processing is provided, underscoring the importance of cortical midline structures, as well as regions supporting reward processing and social cognition. Adolescent and adult neural patterns are also compared, highlighting neurodevelopmental differences within the aforementioned regions.

Keywords: Adolescence, Autism, Child development, Cognition, fMRI, Neuroimaging, Neuroscience, Peers, Perspective taking, Puberty, Self, Self-concept, Self-evaluation, Social cognition, Theory of mind. [Article].

+ Sherman, L. E., Rudie, J. D., Pfeifer, J. H., Masten, C. L., McNealy, K., & Dapretto, M. (2014). Development of the Default Mode and Central Executive Networks across early adolescence: A longitudinal study. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 10, 148-159. doi: 10.1016/j.dcn.2014.08.002

The mature brain is organized into distinct neural networks defined by regions demonstrating correlated activity during task performance as well as rest. While research has begun to examine differences in these networks between children and adults, little is known about developmental changes during early adolescence. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we examined the Default Mode Network (DMN) and the Central Executive Network (CEN) at ages 10 and 13 in a longitudinal sample of 45 participants. In the DMN, participants showed increasing integration (i.e., stronger within-network correlations) between the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) and the medial prefrontal cortex. During this time frame participants also showed increased segregation (i.e., weaker between-network correlations) between the PCC and the CEN. Similarly, from age 10 to 13, participants showed increased connectivity between the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and other CEN nodes, as well as increasing DMN segregation. IQ was significantly positively related to CEN integration at age 10, and between-network segregation at both ages. These findings highlight early adolescence as a period of significant maturation for the brain's functional architecture and demonstrate the utility of longitudinal designs to investigate neural network development. [Article].

+ Mahy, C. E. V., Moses, L. J., & Pfeifer, J. H. (2014). How and where: Theory-of-Mind in the brain.Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 9, 68-81. doi: 10.1016/j.dcn.2014.01.002

Theory of mind (ToM) is a core topic in both social neuroscience and developmental psychology, yet theory and data from each field have only minimally constrained thinking in the other. The two fields might be fruitfully integrated, however, if social neuroscientists sought evidence directly relevant to current accounts of ToM development: modularity, simulation, executive, and theory theory accounts. Here we extend the distinct predictions made by each theory to the neural level, describe neuroimaging evidence that in principle would be relevant to testing each account, and discuss such evidence where it exists. We propose that it would be mutually beneficial for both fields if ToM neuroimaging studies focused more on integrating developmental accounts of ToM acquisition with neuroimaging approaches, and suggest ways this might be achieved.

Keywords: Executive functioning; Modularity; Neuroimaging; Simulation; Theory of mind; Theory theory. [Article].

+ Jankowski, K. F., Moore, W. E. III, Merchant, J. S., Kahn, L. E., & Pfeifer, J. H. (2014). But do you think I’m cool? Developmental differences in striatal recruitment during direct and reflected social self-evaluations. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 8, 40-54. doi: 10.1016/j.dcn.2014.01.003

The current fMRI study investigates the neural foundations of evaluating oneself and others during early adolescence and young adulthood. Eighteen early adolescents (ages 11-14, M=12.6) and 19 young adults (ages 22-31, M=25.6) evaluated whether academic, physical, and social traits described themselves directly (direct self-evaluations), described their best friend directly (direct other-evaluations), described themselves from their best friend's perspective (reflected self-evaluations), or in general could change over time (control malleability-evaluations). Compared to control evaluations, both adolescents and adults recruited cortical midline structures during direct and reflected self-evaluations, as well as during direct other-evaluations, converging with previous research. However, unique to this study was a significant three-way interaction between age group, evaluative perspective, and domain within bilateral ventral striatum. Region of interest analyses demonstrated a significant evaluative perspective by domain interaction within the adolescent sample only. Adolescents recruited greatest bilateral ventral striatum during reflected social self-evaluations, which was positively correlated with age and pubertal development. These findings suggest that reflected social self-evaluations, made from the inferred perspective of a close peer, may be especially self-relevant, salient, or rewarding to adolescent self-processing--particularly during the progression through adolescence - and this feature persists into adulthood.

Keywords: Adolescence; Medial prefrontal cortex; Puberty; Self; Social cognition; Ventral striatum. [Article].

+ Moore, W. E. III, Merchant, J. S., Kahn, L. E., & Pfeifer, J. H. (2014). ‘Like me?’: Ventromedial prefrontal cortex is sensitive to both personal relevance and self-similarity during social comparisons. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 9, 421-6. doi: 10.1093/scan/nst007

Social comparisons are an important means by which we gain information about the self, but little is known about the neural mechanisms underlying comparative social judgment, as most prior functional magnetic resonance imaging research on this topic has investigated judgments of self or others in isolation. Ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) has routinely been implicated in social cognitive tasks that rely on such absolute judgments about the self or others, but it is unclear whether activity in this region is modulated by personal relevance of social stimuli or self-similarity of judgment targets. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we demonstrate that these forces interact to determine vmPFC response during social comparisons, as well as neural activity in the bilateral anterior insulae. Comparisons between the self and similar others exhibit a unique response in this region when compared with other judgment contexts, suggesting that the special psychological status afforded to these social comparisons is indexed by activity in the vmPFC and insula. [Article].

+ Peake, S. J., Dishion, T., Stormshak, B., Moore, W. E. III, & Pfeifer, J. H. (2013). Risk-taking and social exclusion in adolescence: Behavioral and neural evidence of peer influences on decision-making. Neuroimage, 82, 23-34. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2013.05.061

Social exclusion and risk-taking are both common experiences of concern in adolescence, yet little is known about how the two may be related at behavioral or neural levels. In this fMRI study, adolescents (N=27, 14 male, 14-17years-old) completed a series of tasks in the scanner assessing risky decision-making before and after an episode of social exclusion. In this particular context, exclusion was associated with greater behavioral risk-taking among adolescents with low self-reported resistance to peer influence (RPI). When making risky decisions after social exclusion, adolescents who had lower RPI exhibited higher levels of activity in the right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ), and this response in rTPJ was a significant mediator of the relationship between RPI and greater risk-taking after social exclusion. Lower RPI was also associated with lower levels of activity in lPFC during crashes following social exclusion, but unlike rTPJ this response in lPFC was not a significant mediator of the relationship between RPI and greater risk-taking after social exclusion. The results suggest that mentalizing and/or attentional mechanisms have a unique direct effect on adolescents' vulnerability to peer influence on risk-taking. [Article].

+ Pfeifer, J. H., Kahn, L. E., Merchant, J. S., Peake, S. A., Veroude, K., Masten, C. L., Lieberman, M. D., Mazziotta, J. C., & Dapretto, M. (2013). Longitudinal change in the neural bases of adolescent social self-evaluations: Effects of age and pubertal development. Journal of Neuroscience, 24, 7415-7419. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4074-12.2013

Self-evaluations undergo significant transformation during early adolescence, developing in parallel with the heightened complexity of teenagers' social worlds. Intuitive theories of adolescent development, based in part on animal work, suggest that puberty is associated with neural-level changes that facilitate a “social reorientation” (Nelson et al., 2005). However, direct tests of this hypothesis using neuroimaging are limited in humans. This longitudinal fMRI study examined neurodevelopmental trajectories associated with puberty, self-evaluations, and the presumed social reorientation during the transition from childhood to adolescence. Participants (N = 27, mean age = 10.1 and 13.1 years at time points one and two, respectively) engaged in trait evaluations of two targets (the self and a familiar fictional other), across two domains of competence (social and academic). Responses in ventromedial PFC increased with both age and pubertal development during self-evaluations in the social domain, but not in the academic domain. These results suggest that changes in social self-evaluations are intimately connected with biology, not just peer contexts, and provide important empirical support for the relationship between neurodevelopment, puberty, and social functioning. [Article].

+ Masten, C.L., Eisenberger, N.I., Pfeifer, J.H., & Dapretto, M. (2013). Neural responses to witnessing peer rejection after being socially excluded: fMRI as a window into adolescents’ emotional processing. Developmental Science, 16, 743-759. doi: 10.1111/desc.12056

During adolescence, concerns about peer rejection and acceptance become increasingly common. Adolescents regularly experience peer rejection firsthand and witness these behaviors among their peers. In the current study, neuroimaging techniques were employed to conduct a preliminary investigation of the affective and cognitive processes involved in witnessing peer acceptance and rejection – specifically when these witnessed events occur in the immediate aftermath of a firsthand experience with rejection. During an fMRI scan, 23 adolescents underwent a simulated experience of firsthand peer rejection. Then, immediately following this experience they watched as another adolescent was ostensibly first accepted and then rejected. Findings indicated that in the immediate aftermath of being rejected by peers, adolescents displayed neural activity consistent with distress when they saw another peer being accepted, and neural activity consistent with emotion regulation and mentalizing (e.g. perspective-taking) processes when they saw another peer being rejected. Furthermore, individuals displaying a heightened sensitivity to firsthand rejection were more likely to show neural activity consistent with distress when observing a peer being accepted. Findings are discussed in terms of how witnessing others being accepted or rejected relates to adolescents’ interpretations of both firsthand and observed experiences with peers. In addition, the potential impact that witnessed events might have on the broader perpetuation of bullying at this age is also considered.

[Article].

+ Graham, A. M., Fisher, P. A., & Pfeifer, J. H. (2013). What sleeping babies hear: An fMRI study of interparental conflict and infants’ emotion processing. Psychological Science, 24, 782-789. doi: 10.1177/0956797612458803

Experiences of adversity in the early years of life alter the developing brain. However, evidence documenting this relationship often focuses on severe stressors and relies on peripheral measures of neurobiological functioning during infancy. In the present study, we employed functional MRI during natural sleep to examine associations between a more moderate environmental stressor (nonphysical interparental conflict) and 6- to 12-month-old infants’ neural processing of emotional tone of voice. The primary question was whether interparental conflict experienced by infants is associated with neural responses to emotional tone of voice, particularly very angry speech. Results indicated that maternal report of higher interparental conflict was associated with infants’ greater neural responses to very angry relative to neutral speech across several brain regions implicated in emotion and stress reactivity and regulation (including rostral anterior cingulate cortex, caudate, thalamus, and hypothalamus). These findings suggest that even moderate environmental stress may be associated with brain functioning during infancy. [Article].

+ Masten, C.L., Eisenberger, N.I., Pfeifer, J.H., Colich, N. L., & Dapretto, M. (2013). Associations among pubertal development, empathic ability, and neural responses while witnessing peer rejection in adolescence. Child Development, 84, 1338-54. doi: 10.1111/cdev.12056

Links among concurrent and longitudinal changes in pubertal development and empathic ability from ages 10 to 13 and neural responses while witnessing peer rejection at age 13 were examined in 16 participants. More advanced pubertal development at age 13, and greater longitudinal increases in pubertal development, related to increased activity in regions underlying cognitive aspects of empathy. Likewise, at age 13 greater perspective taking related to activity in cognitive empathy-related regions; however, affective components of empathy (empathic concern and personal distress) were associated with activity in both cognitive and affective pain-related regions. Longitudinal increases in empathic ability related to cognitive and affective empathy-related circuitry. Findings provide preliminary evidence that physical and cognitive-emotional development relate to adolescents' neural responses when witnessing peer rejection. [Article].

+ Pfeifer, J. H., Merchant, J. S., Colich, N., Hernandez, L., Rudie, J., & Dapretto, M. (2013). Neural and behavioral responses during self-evaluative processes differ in youth with and without autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 2, 272-285. doi: 10.1007/s10803-012-1563-3. PMID: 22760337. PMCID: PMC3507334.

This fMRI study investigated neural responses while making appraisals of self and other, across the social and academic domains, in children and adolescents with and without autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Compared to neurotypical youth, those with ASD exhibited hypoactivation of ventromedial prefrontal cortex during self-appraisals. Responses in middle cingulate cortex (MCC) and anterior insula (AI) also distinguished between groups. Stronger activity in MCC and AI during self-appraisals was associated with better social functioning in the ASD group. Although self-appraisals were significantly more positive in the neurotypical group, positivity was unrelated to brain activity in these regions. Together, these results suggest that multiple brain regions support making self-appraisals in neurotypical development, and function atypically in youth with ASD. [Article].

+ Poore, J. C., Pfeifer, J. H., Berkman, E., Inagaki, T., Welborne, L., & Lieberman, M. D. (2012). Prediction-error in the context of real social relationships modulates the reward system. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 6, 218. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2012.00218

The human reward system is sensitive to both social (e.g., validation) and non-social rewards (e.g., money) and is likely integral for relationship development and reputation building. However, data is sparse on the question of whether implicit social reward processing meaningfully contributes to explicit social representations such as trust and attachment security in pre-existing relationships. This event-related fMRI experiment examined reward system prediction-error activity in response to a potent social reward-social validation-and this activity's relation to both attachment security and trust in the context of real romantic relationships. During the experiment, participants' expectations for their romantic partners' positive regard of them were confirmed (validated) or violated, in either positive or negative directions. Primary analyses were conducted using predefined regions of interest, the locations of which were taken from previously published research. Results indicate that activity for mid-brain and striatal reward system regions of interest was modulated by social reward expectation violation in ways consistent with prior research on reward prediction-error. Additionally, activity in the striatum during viewing of disconfirmatory information was associated with both increases in post-scan reports of attachment anxiety and decreases in post-scan trust, a finding that follows directly from representational models of attachment and trust.

Keywords: attachment; fMRI; love; prediction-error; reward system; social reward; striatum; trust. [Article].

+ Pfeifer, J. H., & Allen, N. (2012). Arrested development? Reconsidering dual-systems models of brain function in adolescence and disorders. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 16, 322-329. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2012.04.011. PMID: 22613872. PMCID: PMC3711850.

The dual-systems model of a ventral affective system, whose reactivity confers risks and liabilities, and a prefrontal control system, whose regulatory capacities buffer against these vulnerabilities, is an intuitive account that pervades many fields in the cognitive neurosciences--especially in the study of populations that differ from neurotypical adults, such as adolescents or individuals with affective or impulse regulation disorders. However, recent evidence that is inconsistent with dual-systems models illustrates the complexity of developmental and clinical variations in brain function. Building new models to account for this complexity is critical to progress in these fields, and will be facilitated by research that emphasizes network-based approaches and maps relationships between structure and function, as well as brain and behavior, over time. [Article].

+ Pfeifer, J. H., & Peake, S. J. (2012). Self-development: Integrating cognitive, socioemotional, and neuroimaging perspectives. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 2, 55-69.

This review integrates cognitive, socioemotional, and neuroimaging perspectives on self-development. Neural correlates of key processes implicated in personal and social identity are reported from studies of children, adolescents, and adults, including autobiographical memory, direct and reflected self-appraisals, and social exclusion. While cortical midline structures of medial prefrontal cortex and medial posterior parietal cortex are consistently identified in neuroimaging studies considering personal identity from a primarily cognitive perspective (“who am I?”), additional regions are implicated by studies considering personal and social identity from a more socioemotional perspective (“what do others think about me, where do I fit in?”), especially in child or adolescent samples. The involvement of these additional regions (including tempo–parietal junction and posterior superior temporal sulcus, temporal poles, anterior insula, ventral striatum, anterior cingulate cortex, middle cingulate cortex, and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex) suggests mentalizing, emotion, and emotion regulation are central to self-development. In addition, these regions appear to function atypically during personal and social identity tasks in autism and depression, exhibiting a broad pattern of hypoactivation and hyperactivation, respectively. [Article].

+ Muscatell, K. A., Morelli, S. A., Falk, E. B., Way, B. M., Pfeifer, J. H., Galinsky, A. D., Lieberman, M. D., Dapretto, M., & Eisenberger, N. I. (2012). Social status modulates neural activity in the mentalizing network. Neuroimage, 60, 1771-1777.

The current research explored the neural mechanisms linking social status to perceptions of the social world. Two fMRI studies provide converging evidence that individuals lower in social status are more likely to engage neural circuitry often involved in 'mentalizing' or thinking about others' thoughts and feelings. Study 1 found that college students' perception of their social status in the university community was related to neural activity in the mentalizing network (e.g., DMPFC, MPFC, precuneus/PCC) while encoding social information, with lower social status predicting greater neural activity in this network. Study 2 demonstrated that socioeconomic status, an objective indicator of global standing, predicted adolescents' neural activity during the processing of threatening faces, with individuals lower in social status displaying greater activity in the DMPFC, previously associated with mentalizing, and the amygdala, previously associated with emotion/salience processing. These studies demonstrate that social status is fundamentally and neurocognitively linked to how people process and navigate their social worlds. [Article].

+ Pfeifer, J. H., & Blakemore, S.-J. (2012). Adolescent social cognitive and affective neuroscience: Past, present, and future. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 7, 1-10.

In this article, we review three areas of research within adolescent social cognitive and affective neuroscience: (i) emotion reactivity and regulation, (ii) mentalizing and (iii) peer relations, including social rejection or acceptance as well as peer influence. The review provides a context for current contributions to the special issue of Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience on Adolescence, and highlights three important themes that emerge from the special issue, which are relevant to future research. First, the age of participants studied (and labels for these age groups) is a critical design consideration. We suggest that it might be logical to reduce the reliance on convenience samples of undergraduates to represent adults in psychology and cognitive neuroscience studies, since there is substantial evidence that the brain is still developing within this age range. Second, developmental researchers are broadening their scope of inquiry by testing for non-linear effects, via increased use of longitudinal strategies or much wider age ranges and larger samples. Third, there is increasing appreciation for the interrelatedness of the three areas of focus in this special issue (emotion reactivity and regulation, mentalizing, and peer relations), as well as with other areas of interest in adolescent development. [Article].

+ Moore, W. E., Pfeifer, J. H., Masten, C. L., Iacoboni, M., Mazziotta, J. C., & Dapretto, M. (2012). Facing puberty: Associations between pubertal development and neural responses to affective facial displays. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 7, 35-43.

Adolescence is marked by profound psychosocial and physiological changes. Although investigations into the interactions between these forces have begun to shed light on the neural correlates of affective processing during the transition to adolescence, relatively little is known about the relationship between pubertal development and emotion perception at the neural level. In the current longitudinal study, 45 neurotypical participants were shown affective facial displays while undergoing fMRI, at ages 10 and 13. Neural responses to emotional expressions at both time points were then correlated with a self-report measure of pubertal development, revealing positive associations with activity in amygdala, thalamus and visual cortical areas at age 10 that increased in magnitude and extent by age 13. At the latter time point, pubertal development was additionally correlated with enhanced responses to faces in temporal pole, ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) and dorsomedial PFC. Longitudinal comparisons revealed that the relationships between pubertal development and activity in the amygdala, hippocampus and temporal pole were significantly stronger during early adolescence than late childhood. These results suggest that pubertal development per se is linked to neural processing of socioemotional stimuli, particularly with respect to the integration of complex perceptual input and higher order cortical processing of affective content. [Article].

+ Fisher, P. A., & Pfeifer, J. H. (2011). Conceptual and methodological issues in neuroimaging studies of the effects of child maltreatment. Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, 165, 1133-1134.

[Article].

+ Pfeifer, J. H., Masten, C. L., Moore, W. E., Oswald, T. M., Iacoboni, M., Mazziotta, J.C., & Dapretto, M. (2011). Entering adolescence: Resistance to peer influence, risky behavior, and neural changes in emotion reactivity. Neuron, 69, 1029-1036.

Adolescence is often described as a period of heightened reactivity to emotions paired with reduced regulatory capacities, a combination suggested to contribute to risk-taking and susceptibility to peer influence during puberty. However, no longitudinal research has definitively linked these behavioral changes to underlying neural development. Here, 38 neurotypical participants underwent two fMRI sessions across the transition from late childhood (10 years) to early adolescence (13 years). Responses to affective facial displays exhibited a combination of general and emotion-specific changes in ventral striatum (VS), ventromedial PFC, amygdala, and temporal pole. Furthermore, VS activity increases correlated with decreases in susceptibility to peer influence and risky behavior. VS and amygdala responses were also significantly more negatively coupled in early adolescence than in late childhood while processing sad and happy versus neutral faces. Together, these results suggest that VS responses to viewing emotions may play a regulatory role that is critical to adolescent interpersonal functioning. [Article].

+ Masten, C. L., Eisenberger, N. I., Borofsky, L. A., McNealy, K., Pfeifer, J. H., & Dapretto, M. (2011). Subgenual anterior cingulate responses to peer rejection: A marker of adolescents’ risk for depression. Development and Psychopathology, 23, 283-292.

Extensive developmental research has linked peer rejection during adolescence with a host of psychopathological outcomes, including depression. Moreover, recent neuroimaging research has suggested that increased activity in the subgenual region of the anterior cingulate cortex (subACC), which has been consistently linked with depression, is related to heightened sensitivity to peer rejection among adolescents. The goal of the current study was to directly test the hypothesis that adolescents' subACC responses are predictive of their risk for future depression, by examining the relationship between subACC activity during peer rejection and increases in depressive symptoms during the following year. During a functional magnetic resonance imaging scan, 20 13-year-olds were ostensibly excluded by peers during an online social interaction. Participants' depressive symptoms were assessed via parental reports at the time of the scan and 1 year later. Region of interest and whole-brain analyses indicated that greater subACC activity during exclusion was associated with increases in parent-reported depressive symptoms during the following year. These findings suggest that subACC responsivity to social exclusion may serve as a neural marker of adolescents' risk for future depression and have implications for understanding the relationship between sensitivity to peer rejection and the increased risk of depression that occurs during adolescence. [Article].

+ Masten, C. L., Eisenberger, N. I., Pfeifer, J. H., & Dapretto, M. (2010). Witnessing peer rejection during adolescence: Neural correlates of empathy for experiences of social exclusion. Social Neuroscience, 2, 1-12.

Neuroimaging studies with adults have begun to reveal the neural bases of empathy; however, this research has focused on empathy for physical pain, rather than empathy for negative social experiences. Moreover, this work has not examined adolescents who may frequently witness and empathize with others that experience negative social experiences such as peer rejection. Here, we examined neural activity among early adolescents observing social exclusion compared to observing inclusion, and how this activity related to both trait empathy and subsequent prosocial behavior. Participants were scanned while they observed an individual whom they believed was being socially excluded. At least one day prior to the scan they reported their trait empathy, and following the scan they wrote emails to the excluded victim that were rated for prosocial behavior (e.g., helping, comforting). Observing exclusion compared to inclusion activated regions involved in mentalizing (i.e., dorsomedial prefrontal cortex), particularly among highly empathic individuals. Additionally, individuals who displayed more activity in affective, pain-related regions during observed exclusion compared to inclusion subsequently wrote more prosocial emails to excluded victims. Overall findings suggest that when early adolescents witness social exclusion in their daily lives, some may actually ‘feel the pain’ of the victims and act more prosocially toward them as a result. Keywords: Adolescence; Empathy; Peer rejection; Social exclusion; Functional magnetic resonance imaging [Article].

+ Pfeifer, J. H., Masten, C. L., Borofsky, L. A., Dapretto, M., Fuligni, A. J., & Lieberman, M. D. (2009). Neural correlates of direct and reflected self-appraisals in adolescents and adults: When social perspective taking informs self-perception. Child Development, 80, 1016-1038.

Classic theories of self-development suggest people define themselves in part through internalized perceptions of other people’s beliefs about them, known as reflected self-appraisals. This study uses functional magnetic resonance imaging to compare the neural correlates of direct and reflected self-appraisals in adolescence (N = 12, ages 11–14 years) and adulthood (N = 12, ages 23–30 years). During direct self-reflection, adolescents demonstrated greater activity than adults in networks relevant to self-perception (medial prefrontal and parietal cortices) and social-cognition (dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, temporal–parietal junction, and posterior superior temporal sulcus), suggesting adolescent self-construals may rely more heavily on others’ perspectives about the self. Activity in the medial fronto-parietal network was also enhanced when adolescents took the perspective of someone more relevant to a given domain. [Article].

+ Pfeifer, J. H., Dapretto, M., & Lieberman, M. D. (2009). The neural foundations of evaluative self-knowledge in middle childhood, early adolescence, and adulthood. In P. D. Zelazo, M. Chandler, & E. Crone (Eds.) Developmental Social Cognitive Neuroscience (141-163). New York, NY: Psychology Press.

Couldn’t find abstract. [Article].

+ Pfeifer, J. H., & Dapretto, M. (2009). A mirror in my mind: Empathy and the mirror neuron system. In J. Decety & W. Ickes (Eds.), The Social Neuroscience of Empathy (183-198). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

During elementary school, children's report cards usually contain a section devoted to their "social skills," to provide parents with an idea of how well their child gets along with others, exhibits prosocial behavior, and displays appropriate emotional responses—including empathy—in interpersonal situations. Although the current political climate emphasizes academic success to the general neglect of social skills development, the systems underlying empathy and interpersonal competence remain a focus of continued research in the field of developmental, social, and clinical psychology, and more recently in the neurosciences as well. New directions are being forged by collaborations among these different disciplines. In this chapter we briefly discuss the multiple definitions of empathy across subfields and illustrate how these different characterizations of empathy have influenced research in the neurosciences. We then focus on a developmental definition of empathy and examine how this construct may be supported by a particular neural mechanism, the mirror neuron system (MNS). The potential role of the mirror neuron system in social developmental disorders, including autism, is also discussed. Finally, we outline future directions for a developmental social neuroscience approach to empathy. [Article].

+ Masten, C. L., Eisenberger, N., Borofsky, L. A., McNealy, K. S., Pfeifer, J. H., Mazziotta, J. C., & Dapretto, M. (2009). Neural correlates of social exclusion during adolescence: Understanding the distress of peer rejection, Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 4, 143-157.

Developmental research has demonstrated the harmful effects of peer rejection during adolescence; however, the neural mechanisms responsible for this salience remain unexplored. In this study, 23 adolescents were excluded during a ball-tossing game in which they believed they were playing with two other adolescents during an fMRI scan; in reality, participants played with a preset computer program. Afterwards, participants reported their exclusion-related distress and rejection sensitivity, and parents reported participants' interpersonal competence. Similar to findings in adults, during social exclusion adolescents displayed insular activity that was positively related to self-reported distress, and right ventrolateral prefrontal activity that was negatively related to self-reported distress. Findings unique to adolescents indicated that activity in the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex (subACC) related to greater distress, and that activity in the ventral striatum related to less distress and appeared to play a role in regulating activity in the subACC and other regions involved in emotional distress. Finally, adolescents with higher rejection sensitivity and interpersonal competence scores displayed greater neural evidence of emotional distress, and adolescents with higher interpersonal competence scores also displayed greater neural evidence of regulation, perhaps suggesting that adolescents who are vigilant regarding peer acceptance may be most sensitive to rejection experiences. [Article].

+ Pfeifer, J. H., Iacoboni, M., Mazziotta, J. C. & Dapretto, M. (2008). Mirroring others’ emotions relates to empathy and social abilities during childhood. Neuroimage, 39, 2076-2085.

The mirror neuron system (MNS) has been proposed to play an important role in social cognition by providing a neural mechanism by which others’ actions, intentions, and emotions can be understood. Here functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to directly examine the relationship between MNS activity and two distinct indicators of social functioning in typically-developing children (aged 10.1 years±7 months): empathy and interpersonal competence. Reliable activity in pars opercularis, the frontal component of the MNS, was elicited by observation and imitation of emotional expressions. Importantly, activity in this region (as well as in the anterior insula and amygdala) was significantly and positively correlated with established behavioral measures indexing children’s empathic behavior (during both imitation and observation) and interpersonal skills (during imitation only). These findings suggest that simulation mechanisms and the MNS may indeed be relevant to social functioning in everyday life during typical human development. [Article].

+ Pfeifer, J. H., Lieberman, M., & Dapretto, M. (2007). “I know you are but what am I?!”: Neural bases of self- and social knowledge retrieval in children and adults. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 19, 1323-1337.

Previous neuroimaging research with adults suggests that the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and the medial posterior parietal cortex (MPPC) are engaged during self-knowledge retrieval processes. However, this has yet to be assessed in a developmental sample. Twelve children and 12 adults (average age = 10.2 and 26.1 years, respectively) reported whether short phrases described themselves or a highly familiar other (Harry Potter) while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging. In both children and adults, the MPFC was relatively more active during self- than social knowledge retrieval, and the MPPC was relatively more active during social than self-knowledge retrieval. Direct comparisons between children and adults indicated that children activated the MPFC during self-knowledge retrieval to a much greater extent than adults. The particular regions of the MPPC involved varied between the two groups, with the posterior precuneus engaged by adults, but the anterior precuneus and posterior cingulate engaged by children. Only children activated the MPFC significantly above baseline during self-knowledge retrieval. Implications for social cognitive development and the processing functions performed by the MPFC are discussed. [Article].

+ Pfeifer, J. H., Ruble, D. N., Fuligni, A. J., Bachman, M. A., Alvarez, J. M., & Cameron, J. A. (2007). Social identity and intergroup attitudes in immigrant and non-immigrant children. Developmental Psychology, 43, 496-507.

Ethnic and American identity, as well as positivity and negativity toward multiple social groups, were assessed in 392 children attending 2nd or 4th grade in various New York City neighborhoods. Children from 5 ethnic groups were recruited, including White and Black Americans, as well as recent immigrants from China, the Dominican Republic, and the former Soviet Union. For ethnic minority children, greater positivity bias (evaluating one’s ingroup more positively than outgroups) was predicted by immigrant status and ethnic identity, whereas negativity bias (evaluating outgroups more negatively than one’s ingroup) was associated with increased age, immigrant status, and (among 4th graders only) ethnic identity. In addition, a more central American identity was associated with less intergroup bias among ethnic minority children. [Article].

+ Pfeifer, J. H., Brown, C. S., & Juvonen, J. (2007). Teaching tolerance in schools: Lessons learned since Brown v. Board of Education about the development and reduction of children’s prejudice. Social Policy Report, 21 (2), 3-23.

More than five decades after Brown v. Board of Education and four decades after the Civil Rights era, racial prejudice remains a national problem cutting across social class and culture. Although schools may seem ideal places to teach children about tolerance and harmony, there is little consensus on how to best reduce negative sentiments and behaviors toward peers of different racial or ethnic backgrounds. To understand the modest gains made by various prejudice reduction programs (each relying on different theoretical assumptions), we first review what psychologists have learned about the environmental conditions affecting prejudice, the social-cognitive constraints supporting prejudice, and the multiple manifestations of prejudice among children since this issue gained national attention via the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954. We then apply these lessons learned to analyze the effectiveness and promise of three approaches: multicultural curricula, cooperative learning techniques, and anti-bias/social-cognitive skills training. In conclusion, recommendations are made about age-and context-appropriate methods to reduce prejudice in schools and future topics to address in basic research. [Article].

+ Lieberman, M. D., Eisenberg, N. I., Crockett, M., Tom, S., Pfeifer, J. H., & Way, B. M. (2007). Putting feelings into words: Affect labeling disrupts amygdala activity to affective stimuli. Psychological Science, 18, 421-428.

Putting feelings into words (affect labeling) has long been thought to help manage negative emotional experiences; however, the mechanisms by which affect labeling produces this benefit remain largely unknown. Recent neuroimaging studies suggest a possible neurocognitive pathway for this process, but methodological limitations of previous studies have prevented strong inferences from being drawn. A functional magnetic resonance imaging study of affect labeling was conducted to remedy these limitations. The results indicated that affect labeling, relative to other forms of encoding, diminished the response of the amygdala and other limbic regions to negative emotional images. Additionally, affect labeling produced increased activity in a single brain region, right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (RVLPFC). Finally, RVLPFC and amygdala activity during affect labeling were inversely correlated, a relationship that was mediated by activity in medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC). These results suggest that affect labeling may diminish emotional reactivity along a pathway from RVLPFC to MPFC to the amygdala. [Article].

+ Dapretto, M., Davies, M. S., Pfeifer, J. H., Scott, A. A., Sigman, M., Bookheimer, S. Y., & Iacoboni, M. (2006). Understanding emotions in others: Mirror neuron dysfunction in children with autism spectrum disorders. Nature Neuroscience, 9, 28-30.

To examine mirror neuron abnormalities in autism, high-functioning children with autism and matched controls underwent fMRI while imitating and observing emotional expressions. Although both groups performed the tasks equally well, children with autism showed no mirror neuron activity in the inferior frontal gyrus (pars opercularis). Notably, activity in this area was inversely related to symptom severity in the social domain, suggesting that a dysfunctional 'mirror neuron system' may underlie the social deficits observed in autism. [Article].

+ Lieberman, M. D., & Pfeifer, J. H. (2005). The self and social perception: Three kinds of questions in social cognitive neuroscience. In A. Easton & N. Emery (Eds.), Cognitive Neuroscience of Emotional and Social Behavior (pp. 195-235). Philadelphia: Psychology Press.

A great deal of research in social psychology is motivated by one of two broad goals: (1) to understand the mental processes involved in how people make sense of the social world; (2) to understand how self-processes are shaped by the social world. In other words, social psychologists are deeply interested in the interplay between intrapersonal and interpersonal processes. In the final analysis, most social psychologists agree that neither can be understood in isolation. Though many naively take for granted a sovereign self that is inaccessible to others and independent of their influence, the opening quotation from William James, as well as the theoretical and empirical history of social psychology, suggests that the development and maintenance of the self is shaped by one’s situational context. Alternatively, many believe that perceiving the social world is a relatively objective process akin to, albeit more complicated than, perceiving the nonsocial world. Endless evidence suggests that this, too, is a naive view, an issue addressed in the philosophy of Martin Buber. Perceiving the social world is a subjective process shaped by an individual’s current motivation, emotion, and cognition, as well as his or her more long-standing traits such as personalities, self-schemas, and chronically accessible constructs. An even more extreme position was taken by the philosopher Nietzsche, who suggested that social perception is nothing but the projection of our own idiosyncratic representations onto the world in his claim, “Whoever thought that he had understood something of me had merely construed something out of me, after his own image” (Nietzsche, 1908/1969, p. 261). [Article].

+ Govender, T., Chavez, S.J., Cheng, T.W., Flournoy, J.C., Donaldson, S., Kim, O.J., Allen, N.B., Pfeifer, J.H., Byrne, M.L. (2020). Examining Neural and Behavioral Correlates of Negative Self and Social Evaluation in Adolescent Girls. Poster presented at Flux Society, Sept 2020 (Virtual).

Prior research has examined fear of negative evaluation in the context of social anxiety, with the impact it has on self-referential processing and social evaluation being largely understudied. To examine this gap in literature, we utilized a self and social evaluative task that was administered to a sample of adolescent girls (N = 70). In this task, participants were asked to create a three-minute introduction video where they describe themselves. These videos were later cut into short 10-20 second clips. Additionally, participants were told that “another girl” (a confederate) their age had created a similar video and while they are in a MRI scanner, their screens would either be connected with the other girls’, meaning they would both be watching the same clip at the same time, or their screens would be disconnected, meaning they would be watching their own clips. Participants were also asked to complete a questionnaire that measures fear of negative evaluation and a brief questionnaire asking what they thought of their own video. This study looks at the association between fear of negative evaluation and change in neural activity when the “other girl” and participant are both viewing the participants’ video compared to when the participant is viewing their own video. We expect a difference in activation of cortical midline structures (CMS) between these two conditions, with the magnitude of this contrast being explained by individual differences in fear of negative evaluation. While we specifically expect to see differences in CMS, we will perform a whole-brain exploratory analysis to extract group-level ROIs that reflect differences in self vs. other evaluation. These ROIs will be interrogated to look at individual differences in the correlation between fear of negative evaluation and mean BOLD response. Understanding the difference in neural mechanisms between social and self-evaluation has implications for adolescent emotional and psychosocial development.

+ Barendse, MEA, Flannery, J, Govender, T, Pfeifer, J (2020). Pubertal timing and the development of self-evaluative behavior and neural processing. Flux conference presentation

Previous studies have shown that early pubertal timing, particularly in girls, is a risk factor for internalizing disorders in adolescence. The mechanisms behind this are unknown, but changes in self-perception are a candidate mechanism. The current study uses data from a longitudinal project of 174 girls to examine how pubertal timing is related to the development of self-evaluation both behaviorally and neurally. Participants were 10.0 to 13.0 years old at Time 1 and were followed up 18 months later. At each time point, participants completed a functional MRI paradigm in which they decided whether or not an adjective describes them, including positive and negative adjectives focused on social traits. They also completed the Pubertal Development Scale (PDS) and Tanner stage line drawings (LD) at both time points and reported on the date of menarche. Responses to the PDS and LD were converted into a composite Tanner stage measure and residualized on age to obtain a measure of pubertal timing. Self-reported subjective timing and age at menarche were also examined. Multilevel mixed effects models showed that girls with earlier pubertal timing based on residualized Tanner stage as well as earlier subjective timing evaluated themselves less positively. Further, earlier timing based on residualized Tanner stage was associated with less temporal pole activation during self-evaluation. This differential activation in a region important for perspective taking could be a potential mechanism explaining less positive self-perceptions in girls who go through puberty early. This project is preregistered [here].

+ Barendse, M.E.A., Flournoy, J. C., Cheng, T.W., Chavez, S., Byrne, M., Allen, N. B., & Pfeifer, J. H. (2020). Pubertal development in relation to neural and behavioral indicators of self-perception. SRA conference presentation

Forming a clear and multifaceted concept of the self is an important life challenge in adolescence. Previous studies have shown that the self-concept changes during adolescence and that underlying neural correlates change with age, including in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). Very few studies have examined the change in self-evaluations/-concept or its neural correlates in relation to pubertal development. The current study uses data from 143 girls to examine this. Participants were 10.0 to 13.0 years old at the first assessment and were followed up 1.5 years later. They completed a functional MRI paradigm in which they decided whether or not an adjective describes them, including positive and negative adjectives focused on prosocial, antisocial, sociability and status-related attributes. Participants also completed the Pubertal Development Scale, Tanner stage line drawings and morning saliva samples to measure DHEA, testosterone and estradiol levels. More advanced self-reported pubertal status was associated with more negative self-evaluation. Cross-sectionally at the first assessment, neither age nor self-reported or hormonal pubertal development was related to neural activation during self-evaluation. Longitudinal associations between pubertal development and development of behavioral and neural correlates of self-evaluation will be presented at the conference.

+ Elizabeth A. McNeilly, Kathryn L. Mills, Lauren E. Kahn, Ryann Crowley, Hanna R. Nadel, Jennifer H. Pfeifer, Nicholas B. Allen. Social communication in adolescence: Linguistic features of internalizing symptoms. Poster session presented at the 2020 Flux Congress

Emerging evidence suggests that linguistic markers detected in naturalistic language may indicate internalizing psychopathology. Existing research suggests that depression and anxiety symptoms are positively associated with first-person singular pronouns (Edwards & Holtzman, 2017; Sonnenschein et al., 2018), absolutist words (Al-Mosaiwi & Johnstone, 2018), and negative sentiment (Rude et al., 2004). Knowing whether these associations are present during social communication in adolescence, a developmental period characterized by significant changes in social processes (Crone & Dahl, 2012; Pfeifer et al., 2013; Somerville, 2013), would provide a novel method through which potential social cognitive links to internalizing symptoms may be explored. In this preregistered study, we propose to assess the extent to which social communication expressed through daily text messages (n=53,032 messages) differentially relates to internalizing symptoms in adolescent females (n=45; ages 11-15 years). We will analyze the linguistic features of all smartphone keyboard data entered into social media and text messaging apps over one month using the Effortless Assessment Research System (Lind et al., 2018). We hypothesize that internalizing symptoms will be positively associated with first-person singular pronouns, negative sentiment, and absolutist words. Second, in exploratory within-person analyses, we hypothesize that daily self-reported well-being will be negatively correlated with use of the linguistic features above. We will also explore the temporal order of fluctuations in daily well-being and linguistic features. Our future aim is to explore how linguistic features unique to internalizing symptoms relate to neural correlates of self-perception. The present study’s sample is from a larger longitudinal neuroimaging study that will allow us to investigate the link between naturalistic social communication, brain function, and internalizing symptoms in adolescents.