Early Adolescent Social Predictors of Neural Responses to Social Exclusion in Young Adulthood

1. Joanna M. Chango, Lane Beckes, Joseph P. Allen, & James Coan University of Virginia This study was made possible by funding from the National Institute of Mental Health (R01 MH080725) awarded to James Coan, Principal Investigator, and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the National Institute of Mental Health (9R01 HD058305-11A1 & R01-MH58066) awarded to Joseph P. Allen. Copies available online at: www.teenresearch.org or request a copy by emailing joanna.chango@gmail.com Introduction • Romantic Appeal (Age 13-15). Assessed using self-reports on the romantic appeal subscale of the Harter Self-Perception Profile for Adolescents (Harter, 1988). The format for this measure asks participants to choose between two contrasting descriptors and then rate the extent to which their choice is sort of true or really true. Sample item: “Some people do go out with people they really want to go out with/some people don’t go out with people they would really want to go out with.” Scores for ages 13-15 were averaged and the combined scale showed excellent internal consistency (α = .81). • Neural responses to social exclusion (Age 25). Participants completed a pre-set virtual ball tossing game called Cyberball in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner, in which they were led to believe that they were excluded from playing a virtual game of catch with two other “players.” • fMRI image acquisition and modeling of contrasts • Using FMRIB Software Library (FSL), the collected data was preprocessed and analyzed. • The Cyberball task was modeled using a block design with each round of Cyberball modeled as a run. A contrast of activation to social exclusion minus activation to social inclusion was used. The portion of the second Cyberball run during which the participants were included in the ball tossing game comprised the first block (inclusion), and the portion of the second run in which the participants no longer received ball tosses comprised the second block (exclusion). Figure 1: Peer rejection negatively predicts vmPFC activity during exclusion Age 13-15 Age 25 vmPFC -.10 • Previous research suggests that early negative social experiences might contribute to later emotional difficulties. • Socially rejected children tend to be report and/or exhibit higher levels of negative affect and various other indicators of emotion dysregulation (e.g., Gazelle & Druhan, 2009; Rubin et al., 1995). • In adolescence, lack of support from a close friend has been related to increased stress (Hauser & Bowlds, 1990). Similarly, conflictual adolescent friendships have been associated with the experience of greater negative affect (Bagwell et al., 2005). • Recent neuroimaging work has demonstrated that brain regions implicated in heightened stress reactivity and emotion regulation, such as the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), right insula, ventro-medial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), and right ventro-lateral prefrontal cortex (rvlPFC) are activated in response to social exclusion (e.g., Eisenberger et al., 2003; Masten et al., 2009) • However, no research to date has investigated the contributions of early adolescent social difficulties on neural responses to the experience of social exclusion. Gender Early Adolescent Social Predictors of Neural Responses to Social Exclusion in Young Adulthood .12 Income -.23* Peer Rejection Figure 2: Romantic appeal positively predicts vmPFC activity during exclusion Age 13-15 Age 25 vmPFC -.08 Gender .08 Income .26** Hypotheses Romantic Appeal Results Early adolescents who experience more social difficulties will show: a) a heightened reactivity to social exclusion, as evidenced by increased in dACCand right insula activation, and b) an inability to regulate rejection-related distress, as evidenced by lower levels of vmPFC and rvlPFCactivation. Figure 3: Romantic appeal negatively predicts right insula activity during exclusion • Preliminary regions of interest (ROI) analyses • Multi-subject ROIs were identified via cluster-wise tests using the FSL standard Z-threshold of 2.3 and cluster p threshold of .05. • ROIs were further defined anatomically using FSLView’s Harvard-Oxford Cortical and Subcortical atlases. Voxels falling into the location where the functional ROI overlapped with the atlas-derived brain structure were masked. Mean parameter estimates were then extracted from each ROI in each condition for each subject using FEATQuery, and converted to mean percent-signal change (PSC) values for each ROI Age 25 Age 13-15 -.18 Insula Gender .02 Income Method -.24* Romantic Appeal • Participants • Longitudinal, multi-method data were obtained for 75 target participants (41 male, 34 female), their close friends, and two peripheral peers • Median family income of target participants was in the $30,000-39,999 range • The sample is 52% European-American, 33% African-American, 15% mixed/other race • Measures • Peer Rejection (Age 13-15). Assessed using a nomination-based sociometric procedure. Each participant, their closest friend, and two peripheral peers named by the participant nominated up to 10 peers in their grade with whom they would ‘‘least like to spend time on a Saturday night.’’ The raw number of dislike nominations was standardized within grade level before being added to the main data set as the primary measure of rejection (Coie et al., 1982). Ratings were summed and then averaged across ages 13-15. Rejection ratings were highly correlated across years (mean r = .63). Table 1: ROIs active during social exclusion Discussion • Hypotheses were partially supported. High levels of sociometric peer rejection and low levels of self-reported romantic appeal in early adolescence predicted lower levels of vmPFC activity during social exclusion in young adulthood. The vmPFC has been implicated in the automatic regulation of emotion, suggesting that adolescents with negative social experiences may have a diminished ability to automatically regulate rejection-related distress. • Low levels of self-reported romantic appeal in early adolescence predicted higher levels of insula activity during exclusion in young adulthood, suggesting that these adolescents may show a heightened sensitivity to social exclusion. • Future research should consider investigating mediational pathways linking early social difficulties and neural correlates of social exclusion. Primary analyses A series of hierarchical linear regressions were performed using FIML procedures in Mplus to examine predictions to neural correlates of social exclusion: Step 1. Gender and family income; Step 2. Early adolescent social difficulty variable of interest