The ability to recognize others' emotions based on vocal emotional prosody follows a protracted developmental trajectory during adolescence. However, little is known about the neural mechanisms supporting this maturation. The current study investigated age-related differences in neural activation during a vocal emotion recognition (ER) task. Listeners aged 8 to 19 years old completed the vocal ER task while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging. The task of categorizing vocal emotional prosody elicited activation primarily in temporal and frontal areas. Age was associated with a) greater activation in regions in the superior, middle, and inferior frontal gyri, b) greater functional connectivity between the left precentral and inferior frontal gyri and regions in the bilateral insula and temporo-parietal junction, and c) greater fractional anisotropy in the superior longitudinal fasciculus, which connects frontal areas to posterior temporo-parietal regions. Many of these age-related differences in brain activation and connectivity were associated with better performance on the ER task. Increased activation in, and connectivity between, areas typically involved in language processing and social cognition may facilitate the development of vocal ER skills in adolescence.

中文翻译：

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青春期嗓音韵律处理过程中神经激活和功能连接性的年龄相关差异。

基于声音情绪韵律识别他人情绪的能力遵循青春期的长期发展轨迹。但是，关于支持这种成熟的神经机制知之甚少。当前的研究调查了在语音情感识别（ER）任务期间神经激活的年龄相关差异。8到19岁的听众在进行功能性磁共振成像的同时完成了声音ER任务。对声乐韵律进行分类的任务主要在颞叶和额叶区域引起激活。年龄与以下因素有关：a）额叶上，中和下额回中区域的活化程度更高，b）额中左前中枢和下额回之间以及双侧岛状和颞顶交界处的功能连接性增强，c）上纵筋膜中较大的分数各向异性，该各向异性将额叶区域连接到后颞顶壁区域。这些与年龄相关的大脑激活和连通性差异中的许多差异与ER任务的更好表现有关。通常在语言处理和社会认知中涉及的区域中激活程度的提高以及它们之间的连通性可能会促进青春期声音ER技能的发展。