BACKGROUND Anxiety and stress reactivity are risk factors for the development of affective disorders. However, the behavioral and neurocircuit mechanisms that potentiate maladaptive emotion regulation are poorly understood. Neuroimaging studies have implicated the amygdala and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) in emotion regulation, but how anxiety and stress alter their context-specific causal circuit interactions is not known. Here, we use computational modeling to inform affective pathophysiology, etiology, and neurocircuit targets for early intervention. METHODS Forty-five children (10-11 years of age; 25 boys) reappraised aversive stimuli during functional magnetic resonance imaging scanning. Clinical measures of anxiety and stress were acquired for each child. Drift-diffusion modeling of behavioral data and causal circuit analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging data, with a National Institute of Mental Health Research Domain Criteria approach, were used to characterize latent behavioral and neurocircuit decision-making dynamics driving emotion regulation. RESULTS Children successfully reappraised negative responses to aversive stimuli. Drift-diffusion modeling revealed that emotion regulation was characterized by increased initial bias toward positive reactivity during viewing of aversive stimuli and increased drift rate, which captured evidence accumulation during emotion evaluation. Crucially, anxiety and stress reactivity impaired latent behavioral dynamics associated with reappraisal and decision making. Anxiety and stress increased dynamic casual influences from the right amygdala to DLPFC. In contrast, DLPFC, but not amygdala, reactivity was correlated with evidence accumulation and decision making during emotion reappraisal. CONCLUSIONS Our findings provide new insights into how anxiety and stress in children impact decision making and amygdala-DLPFC signaling during emotion regulation, and uncover latent behavioral and neurocircuit mechanisms of early risk for psychopathology.

中文翻译：

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焦虑和压力改变儿童情绪调节过程中的决策动态和因果杏仁核 - 背外侧前额叶皮层回路

背景焦虑和应激反应是情感障碍发展的危险因素。然而，人们对促进适应不良情绪调节的行为和神经回路机制知之甚少。神经影像学研究表明杏仁核和背外侧前额叶皮层 (DLPFC) 参与情绪调节，但焦虑和压力如何改变它们特定于上下文的因果回路相互作用尚不清楚。在这里，我们使用计算模型来为早期干预提供情感病理生理学、病因学和神经回路目标。方法 45 名儿童（10-11 岁；25 名男孩）在功能磁共振成像扫描期间重新评估了厌恶刺激。每个孩子都获得了焦虑和压力的临床测量。行为数据的漂移扩散模型和功能性磁共振成像数据的因果电路分析，采用美国国家心理健康研究所领域标准方法，用于表征潜在的行为和神经电路决策动态驱动情绪调节。结果 儿童成功地重新评估了对厌恶刺激的负面反应。漂移-扩散模型显示，情绪调节的特征是在查看厌恶刺激时对积极反应的初始偏向增加和漂移率增加，这在情绪评估期间捕获了证据积累。至关重要的是，焦虑和压力反应会损害与重新评估和决策相关的潜在行为动态。焦虑和压力增加了从右侧杏仁核到 DLPFC 的动态休闲影响。相比之下，DLPFC（而非杏仁核）的反应性与情绪重新评估期间的证据积累和决策相关。结论我们的研究结果为儿童焦虑和压力如何影响情绪调节过程中的决策和杏仁核-DLPFC 信号提供了新的见解，并揭示了早期精神病理学风险的潜在行为和神经回路机制。