Developmental studies have identified differences in prefrontal and subcortical affective structures between children and adults, which correspond with observed cognitive and behavioral maturations from relatively simplistic emotional experiences and expressions to more nuanced, complex ones. However, developmental changes in the neural representation of emotions have not yet been well explored. It stands to reason that adults and children may demonstrate observable differences in the representation of affect within key neurological structures implicated in affective cognition. Forty-five participants (25 children; 20 adults) passively viewed positive, negative, and neutral clips from popular films while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Using representational similarity analysis (RSA) to measure variability in neural pattern similarity, we found developmental differences between children and adults in the amygdala, nucleus accumbens (NAcc), and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), such that children generated less pattern similarity within subcortical structures relative to the vmPFC; a phenomenon not replicated among their older counterparts. Furthermore, children generated valence-specific differences in representational patterns across regions; these valence-specific patterns were not found in adults. These results may suggest that affective representations grow increasingly dissimilar over development as individuals mature from visceral affective responses to more evaluative analyses.

中文翻译：

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前额叶和皮质下结构之间情感表征的发育差异


发展研究已经确定了儿童和成人之间前额叶和皮质下情感结构的差异，这与观察到的认知和行为成熟相对应，从相对简单的情感体验和表达到更细致、复杂的情感体验和表达。然而，情绪神经表征的发育变化尚未得到很好的探索。按理说，成人和儿童在与情感认知有关的关键神经结构中的情感表征可能表现出明显的差异。 45 名参与者（25 名儿童；20 名成人）在接受功能性磁共振成像 (fMRI) 时被动观看流行电影中的正面、负面和中性片段。使用表征相似性分析（RSA）来测量神经模式相似性的变异性，我们发现儿童和成人之间的杏仁核、伏隔核（NAcc）和腹内侧前额叶皮层（vmPFC）存在发育差异，因此儿童在皮层下产生的模式相似性较少与 vmPFC 相关的结构；这种现象在年长的同行中并未出现。此外，儿童在不同地区的表征模式中产生了特定价的差异。这些价态特异性模式在成人中没有发现。这些结果可能表明，随着个体从本能情感反应成熟到更具评价性的分析，情感表征在发展过程中变得越来越不相似。