title: Neural response to social rejection in children with early separation experiences.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Nonhuman and human studies have documented the adverse effects of early life stress (ELS) on emotion regulation and underlying neural circuitry. Less is known about how these experiences shape social processes and neural circuitry. In this study, we thus investigated how ELS affects children's perception of, and neural response to, negative social experiences in a social exclusion paradigm (Cyberball).
  
  
  METHODS
  Twenty-five foster or adopted children with ELS (age 10.6 ± 1.8 years, 13 male and 12 female) and 26 matched nonseparated controls (age 10.38 ± 1.7 years, 12 male and 14 female) took part in a Cyberball paradigm during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
  
  
  RESULTS
  During peer rejection, children with ELS reported significantly more feelings of exclusion and frustration than nonseparated controls. On the neural level, children with ELS showed reduced activation in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), and reduced connectivity between dlPFC-dACC, areas previously implicated in affect regulation. Conversely, children with ELS showed increased neural activation in brain regions involved in memory, arousal, and threat-related processing (middle temporal gyrus, thalamus, ventral tegmental area) relative to controls during social exclusion. The number of separation experiences before entering the permanent family predicted reductions in fronto-cingulate recruitment. The relationship between early separations and self-reported exclusion was mediated by dlPFC activity.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The findings suggest that ELS leads to alterations in neural circuitry implicated in the regulation of socioemotional processes. This neural signature may underlie foster children's differential reactivity to rejection in everyday life and could increase risk for developing affective disorders.
authors.affiliation: Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London (UCL), UK, and Child Neuropsychology Section, University Hospital Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule (RWTH), Aachen, Germany.
authors.forename: Vanessa B
authors.initials: VB
authors.lastname: Puetz
authors.affiliation: University Hospital RWTH Aachen and JARA Translational Brain Medicine, Aachen and Jülich, Germany.
authors.forename: Nils
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Kohn
authors.affiliation: University Hospital RWTH Aachen.
authors.forename: Brigitte
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Dahmen
authors.affiliation: University Hospital RWTH Aachen and the Brain Imaging Facility of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Clinical Research at the RWTH Aachen University.
authors.forename: Mikhail
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zvyagintsev
authors.affiliation: Brain Imaging Facility of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Clinical Research.
authors.forename: André
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Schüppen
authors.affiliation: Center for Autism Research, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, USA.
authors.forename: Robert T
authors.initials: RT
authors.lastname: Schultz
authors.affiliation: Institute of Medical Psychology, Charité University Medicine Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Christine M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Heim
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-3), Research Centre Jülich, and University Hospital Cologne, Cologne, Germany.
authors.forename: Gereon R
authors.initials: GR
authors.lastname: Fink
authors.affiliation: University Hospital RWTH Aachen and JARA Translational Brain Medicine.
authors.forename: Beate
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Herpertz-Dahlmann
authors.affiliation: Child Neuropsychology Section, University Hospital RWTH Aachen, and JARA Translational Brain Medicine and the Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-3) Research Centre Jülich. Electronic address: kkonrad@ukaachen.de.
authors.forename: Kerstin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Konrad
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000300:Adoption / Q000523:psychology*; D054022:Cerebrum / Q000503:physiopathology*; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D005581:Foster Home Care / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D012929:Psychological Distance; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000523:psychology*
keywords: PPI; adoption; early life stress; fMRI; social exclusion