Amygdala-medial prefrontal cortex connectivity relates to stress and mental health in early childhood

Early life stress has been associated with disrupted functional connectivity between the amygdala and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), but it is unknown how early in development stress-related differences in amygdala-mPFC connectivity emerge. In a resting-state functional connectivity (rs-FC) analys...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Park, Anne T (Author), Leonard, Julia Anne (Author), Saxler, Patricia Kasak (Author), Cyr, Abigail B. (Author), Gabrieli, John D. E. (Author), Mackey, Allyson P (Author)
Other Authors: McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT (Contributor), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences (Contributor)
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Oxford University Press (OUP), 2020-07-29T21:39:08Z.
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Online Access:Get fulltext
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100 1 0 |a Park, Anne T  |e author 
100 1 0 |a McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT  |e contributor 
100 1 0 |a Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences  |e contributor 
700 1 0 |a Leonard, Julia Anne  |e author 
700 1 0 |a Saxler, Patricia Kasak  |e author 
700 1 0 |a Cyr, Abigail B.  |e author 
700 1 0 |a Gabrieli, John D. E.  |e author 
700 1 0 |a Mackey, Allyson P  |e author 
245 0 0 |a Amygdala-medial prefrontal cortex connectivity relates to stress and mental health in early childhood 
260 |b Oxford University Press (OUP),   |c 2020-07-29T21:39:08Z. 
856 |z Get fulltext  |u https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/126433 
520 |a Early life stress has been associated with disrupted functional connectivity between the amygdala and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), but it is unknown how early in development stress-related differences in amygdala-mPFC connectivity emerge. In a resting-state functional connectivity (rs-FC) analysis with 79 four- to seven-year-old children, we found a significant correlation between more adverse experiences and weaker amygdala-mPFC rs-FC. We also found that weaker amygdala-mPFC rs-FC was associated with higher levels of aggressive behavior and attention problems. These findings suggest that the impact of stress on emotional circuitry is detectable in early childhood and that this impact is associated with mental health difficulties. Connectivity in this circuit may be useful as a marker for mental health risk and for tracking the efficacy of early interventions. 
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655 7 |a Article 
773 |t Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience