Irritability is impairing and prevalent across pediatric psychiatric disorders and typical development, yet its neural mechanisms are largely unknown. This study evaluated the relation between adolescent irritability and reward-related brain function as a candidate neural mechanism. Adolescents from intervention-seeking families in the community (N = 52; mean age = 13.80, SD = 1.94) completed a monetary incentive delay task to assess reward anticipation and feedback (reward receipt and omission) during fMRI acquisition. Whole-brain analyses, controlling for age, examined brain activation and striatal and amygdala connectivity in relation to irritability. Irritability was measured using the parent- and youth-reported Affective Reactivity Index. Irritability was associated with altered reward processing-related activation and connectivity in multiple networks during reward anticipation and feedback, including increased striatal activation and altered ventral striatum connectivity with prefrontal areas. Our findings suggest that irritability is associated with altered neural patterns during reward processing and that aberrant prefrontal cortex-mediated top-down control may be related to irritability. These findings inform our understanding of the etiology of youth irritability and the development of mechanism-based interventions.

中文翻译：

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青少年易激惹奖赏处理的神经机制

易激惹在儿科精神疾病和典型发育过程中受到损害并普遍存在，但其神经机制在很大程度上是未知的。本研究评估了青少年易怒与奖励相关脑功能之间的关系，作为候选神经机制。来自社区寻求干预家庭的青少年（N  = 52；平均年龄 = 13.80，SD = 1.94) 完成了一项货币激励延迟任务，以评估 fMRI 采集期间的奖励预期和反馈（奖励接收和遗漏）。全脑分析，控制年龄，检查大脑激活以及纹状体和杏仁核与易怒相关的连通性。使用父母和青少年报告的情感反应指数来衡量易怒性。易怒与奖励预期和反馈期间多个网络中奖励处理相关激活和连接的改变有关，包括纹状体激活增加和腹侧纹状体与前额叶区域的连接改变。我们的研究结果表明，易怒与奖励处理过程中神经模式的改变有关，异常的前额叶皮层介导的自上而下控制可能与易怒有关。