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Eye Movements and White Matter are Associated with Emotional Control in Children Treated for Brain Tumors

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 May 2020

Iska Moxon-Emre Open the ORCID record for Iska Moxon-Emre [Opens in a new window] ,
Margot J. Taylor ,
Norman A. S. Farb ,
Adeoye A. Oyefiade ,
Michael D. Taylor ,
Eric Bouffet ,
Suzanne Laughlin ,
Jovanka Skocic ,
Cynthia B. de Medeiros  and
Donald J. Mabbott
Iska Moxon-Emre
Affiliation:
The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, M5G 1X8, Canada University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, M5S 3G3, Canada Pediatric Oncology Group of Ontario, Toronto, ON, M5G 1V2, Canada
Margot J. Taylor
Affiliation:
The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, M5G 1X8, Canada University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, M5S 3G3, Canada
Norman A. S. Farb
Affiliation:
University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, M5S 3G3, Canada
Adeoye A. Oyefiade
Affiliation:
The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, M5G 1X8, Canada University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, M5S 3G3, Canada
Michael D. Taylor
Affiliation:
The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, M5G 1X8, Canada University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, M5S 3G3, Canada
Eric Bouffet
Affiliation:
The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, M5G 1X8, Canada University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, M5S 3G3, Canada
Suzanne Laughlin
Affiliation:
The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, M5G 1X8, Canada University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, M5S 3G3, Canada
Jovanka Skocic
Affiliation:
The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, M5G 1X8, Canada
Cynthia B. de Medeiros
Affiliation:
The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, M5G 1X8, Canada
Donald J. Mabbott*
Affiliation:
The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, M5G 1X8, Canada University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, M5S 3G3, Canada
*
*Correspondence and reprint requests to: Donald J. Mabbott, The Hospital for Sick Children – PGCRL, 686 Bay Street - 8th floor, Toronto, Ontario, M5G 0A4, Canada. Email: donald.mabbott@sickkids.ca
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Abstract

Objective:

Children treated for brain tumors often experience social and emotional difficulties, including challenges with emotion regulation; our goal was to investigate the attention-related component processes of emotion regulation, using a novel eye-tracking measure, and to evaluate its relations with emotional functioning and white matter (WM) organization.

Method:

Fifty-four children participated in this study; 36 children treated for posterior fossa tumors, and 18 typically developing children. Participants completed two versions of an emotion regulation eye-tracking task, designed to differentiate between implicit (i.e., automatic) and explicit (i.e., voluntary) subprocesses. The Emotional Control scale from the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function was used to evaluate emotional control in daily life, and WM organization was assessed with diffusion tensor imaging.

Results:

We found that emotional faces captured attention across all groups (F(1,51) = 32.18, p < .001, η2p = .39). However, unlike typically developing children, patients were unable to override the attentional capture of emotional faces when instructed to (emotional face-by-group interaction: F(2,51) = 5.58, p = .006, η2p = .18). Across all children, our eye-tracking measure of emotion regulation was modestly associated with the parent-report emotional control score (r = .29, p = .045), and in patients it was associated with WM microstructure in the body and splenium of the corpus callosum (all t > 3.03, all p < .05).

Conclusions:

Our findings suggest that an attention-related component process of emotion regulation is disrupted in children treated for brain tumors, and that it may relate to their emotional difficulties and WM organization. This work provides a foundation for future theoretical and mechanistic investigations of emotional difficulties in brain tumor survivors.

Keywords

EmotionEye movementsDiffusion tensor imagingPosterior fossa tumorsAttentionFaces
Type
Regular Research
Information
Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society , Volume 26 , Issue 10 , November 2020 , pp. 978 - 992
Copyright
Copyright © INS. Published by Cambridge University Press, 2020

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