Mid-adolescent neurocognitive development of ignoring and attending emotional stimuli.

ABSTRACT: Appropriate reactions toward emotional stimuli depend on the distribution of prefrontal attentional resources. In mid-adolescence, prefrontal top-down control systems are less engaged, while subcortical bottom-up emotional systems are more engaged. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to follow the neural development of attentional distribution, i.e. attending versus ignoring emotional stimuli, in adolescence. 144 healthy adolescents were studied longitudinally at age 14 and 16 while performing a perceptual discrimination task. Participants viewed two pairs of stimuli--one emotional, one abstract--and reported on one pair whether the items were the same or different, while ignoring the other pair. Hence, two experimental conditions were created: "attending emotion/ignoring abstrac

SUBMITTER: Vetter NC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6989835 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature