title: Amygdala reactivity predicts adolescent antisocial behavior but not callous-unemotional traits.
abstract: Recent neuroimaging studies have suggested divergent relationships between antisocial behavior (AB) and callous-unemotional (CU) traits and amygdala reactivity to fearful and angry facial expressions in adolescents. However, little work has examined if these findings extend to dimensional measures of behavior in ethnically diverse, non-clinical samples, or if participant sex, ethnicity, pubertal stage, and age moderate associations. We examined links between amygdala reactivity and dimensions of AB and CU traits in 220 Hispanic and non-Hispanic Caucasian adolescents (age 11-15; 49.5% female; 38.2% Hispanic), half of whom had a family history for depression and thus were at relatively elevated risk for late starting, emotionally dysregulated AB. We found that AB was significantly related to increased right amygdala reactivity to angry facial expressions independent of sex, ethnicity, pubertal stage, age, and familial risk status for depression. CU traits were not related to fear- or anger-related amygdala reactivity. The present study further demonstrates that AB is related to increased amygdala reactivity to interpersonal threat cues in adolescents, and that this relationship generalizes across sex, ethnicity, pubertal stage, age, and familial risk status for depression.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, 530 Church St, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
authors.forename: Hailey L
authors.initials: HL
authors.lastname: Dotterer
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, 530 Church St, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA; Survey Research Center of the Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, 530 Church St, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA; Center for Human Growth and Development, Survey Research Center of the Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, 530 Church St, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
authors.forename: Luke W
authors.initials: LW
authors.lastname: Hyde
authors.affiliation: Department of Human Ecology, University of California Davis, Davis, CA 95616, USA.
authors.forename: Johnna R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Swartz
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of NeuroGenetics, Duke University, Department of Psychology & Neuroscience, 417 Chapel Drive, Durham, NC 27708, USA.
authors.forename: Ahmad R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Hariri
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Duke University, 417 Chapel Drive, Durham, NC 27708, USA; Durham VA Medical Center, 508 Fulton St, Durham, NC 27705, USA.
authors.forename: Douglas E
authors.initials: DE
authors.lastname: Williamson
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000679:Amygdala / Q000503:physiopathology*; D000987:Antisocial Personality Disorder / Q000209:etiology*; D002648:Child; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male
keywords: Amygdala; Antisocial behavior; Callous-unemotional traits; Threat; fMRI