title: Violence: heightened brain attentional network response is selectively muted in Down syndrome.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The ability to recognize and respond appropriately to threat is critical to survival, and the neural substrates subserving attention to threat may be probed using depictions of media violence. Whether neural responses to potential threat differ in Down syndrome is not known.
  
  
  METHODS
  We performed functional MRI scans of 15 adolescent and adult Down syndrome and 14 typically developing individuals, group matched by age and gender, during 50 min of passive cartoon viewing. Brain activation to auditory and visual features, violence, and presence of the protagonist and antagonist were compared across cartoon segments. fMRI signal from the brain's dorsal attention network was compared to thematic and violent events within the cartoons between Down syndrome and control samples.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We found that in typical development, the brain's dorsal attention network was most active during violent scenes in the cartoons and that this was significantly and specifically reduced in Down syndrome. When the antagonist was on screen, there was significantly less activation in the left medial temporal lobe of individuals with Down syndrome. As scenes represented greater relative threat, the disparity between attentional brain activation in Down syndrome and control individuals increased. There was a reduction in the temporal autocorrelation of the dorsal attention network, consistent with a shortened attention span in Down syndrome. Individuals with Down syndrome exhibited significantly reduced activation in primary sensory cortices, and such perceptual impairments may constrain their ability to respond to more complex social cues such as violence.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These findings may indicate a relative deficit in emotive perception of violence in Down syndrome, possibly mediated by impaired sensory perception and hypoactivation of medial temporal structures in response to threats, with relative preservation of activity in pro-social brain regions. These findings indicate that specific genetic differences associated with Down syndrome can modulate the brain's response to violence and other complex emotive ideas.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, 1A71 School of Medicine, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84132 USA ; Interdepartmental Program in Neuroscience, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA ; The Brain Institute at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA ; Department of Bioengineering, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA.
authors.forename: Jeffrey S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Anderson
authors.affiliation: The Brain Institute at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA.
authors.forename: Scott M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Treiman
authors.affiliation: Department of Bioengineering, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA.
authors.forename: Michael A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Ferguson
authors.affiliation: Interdepartmental Program in Neuroscience, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA.
authors.forename: Jared A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Nielsen
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Arizona, Tucson, USA.
authors.forename: Jamie O
authors.initials: JO
authors.lastname: Edgin
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA.
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Dai
authors.affiliation: The Brain Institute at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA ; Department of Bioengineering, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA ; Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA.
authors.forename: Guido
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Gerig
authors.affiliation: Interdepartmental Program in Neuroscience, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA ; The Brain Institute at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA ; Department of Pediatrics, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA.
authors.forename: Julie R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Korenberg
keywords: Attention; Down syndrome; Violence; fMRI