Individual variation in neural correlates of sadness in children: A twin fMRI study

Functional neuroimaging studies show substantial individual variation in brain activation accompanying the experience of emotion, including sadness. Here we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in 104 pairs of 8‐year‐old twins (47 MZ, 57 DZ) to assess genetic‐environmental contributions to individual differences in neural activation in two prefrontal cortex (PFC) areas previously shown to be involved in sadness. No genetic effects were found for any area, individual environmental factors entirely accounting for individual variation in brain activation related to sadness. Sadness being the prevailing mood in depression, these findings may be of relevance to the etiology of childhood depressive disorders. Hum Brain Mapp 2007. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.

[1]  D C Noll,et al.  Estimating test‐retest reliability in functional MR imaging II: Application to motor and cognitive activation studies , 1997, Magnetic resonance in medicine.

[2]  Karl J. Friston,et al.  Neuroanatomical correlates of externally and internally generated human emotion. , 1997, The American journal of psychiatry.

[3]  J. Stevenson,et al.  A longitudinal twin study of temperament and behavior problems: common genetic or environmental influences? , 1997, Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

[4]  M E Meyerand,et al.  Reliability of functional MR imaging with word-generation tasks for mapping Broca's area. , 2001, AJNR. American journal of neuroradiology.

[5]  M. Boivin,et al.  Examining genetic and environmental effects on social aggression: a study of 6-year-old twins. , 2005, Child development.

[6]  Jacquie Kurland,et al.  Test-Retest Reliability of fMRI During Nonverbal Semantic Decisions in Moderate-Severe Nonfluent Aphasia Patients , 2005, Behavioural neurology.

[7]  R. Maddock,et al.  Time course of the subjective emotional response to aversive pictures: relevance to fMRI studies , 2001, Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging.

[8]  E. T. Bullmore,et al.  Genetic Contributions to Regional Variability in Human Brain Structure: Methods and Preliminary Results , 2002, NeuroImage.

[9]  K. Luan Phan,et al.  Functional Neuroanatomy of Emotion: A Meta-Analysis of Emotion Activation Studies in PET and fMRI , 2002, NeuroImage.

[10]  S. Rauch,et al.  Test-retest reliability of a functional MRI working memory paradigm in normal and schizophrenic subjects. , 2001, The American journal of psychiatry.

[11]  A. Thapar,et al.  Methodology for Genetic Studies of Twins and Families , 1993 .

[12]  M. Beauregard.  Consciousness, Emotional Self-Regulation and the Brain , 2004 .

[13]  A. Damasio,et al.  Subcortical and cortical brain activity during the feeling of self-generated emotions , 2000, Nature Neuroscience.

[14]  B. Mensour,et al.  Neural correlates of sad feelings in healthy girls , 2003, Neuroscience.

[15]  J. Gross,et al.  Emotion elicitation using films , 1995 .

[16]  R. Kahn,et al.  Volumes of brain structures in twins discordant for schizophrenia. , 2001, Archives of general psychiatry.

[17]  Richard D. Lane,et al.  Neural correlates of conscious emotional experience. , 2000 .

[18]  R. Hu.  Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) , 2003 .

[19]  M. Mesulam.  Principles of Behavioral and Cognitive Neurology , 2000 .

[20]  Guang Guo,et al.  The Mixed or Multilevel Model for Behavior Genetic Analysis , 2002, Behavior genetics.

[21]  Johanne Lévesque,et al.  Neural Basis of Conscious and Voluntary Self-Regulation of Emotion. Consciousness, Emotional Self-Regulation and the Brain , 2004 .

[22]  Fanny Eugène,et al.  The impact of individual differences on the neural circuitry underlying sadness , 2003, NeuroImage.

[23]  R. Plutchik.  The Nature of Emotions , 2001 .

[24]  Abraham Z. Snyder,et al.  The Feasibility of a Common Stereotactic Space for Children and Adults in fMRI Studies of Development , 2002, NeuroImage.

[25]  Mary Target,et al.  Society for Research in Child Development , 1997 .

[26]  Howard S. Kirsnher.  Principles of Behavioral and Cognitive Neurology, 2nd Ed. , 2002 .

[27]  Michel Boivin,et al.  Diagnosing Zygosity in Infant Twins: Physical Similarity, Genotyping, and Chorionicity , 2003, Twin Research.

[28]  Tyrone D. Cannon,et al.  Genetic influences on brain structure , 2001, Nature Neuroscience.

[29]  M. Torrens.  Co-Planar Stereotaxic Atlas of the Human Brain—3-Dimensional Proportional System: An Approach to Cerebral Imaging, J. Talairach, P. Tournoux. Georg Thieme Verlag, New York (1988), 122 pp., 130 figs. DM 268 , 1990 .