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Violence exposure and neural systems underlying working memory for emotional stimuli in youth

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 November 2017

Jessica L. Jenness Open the ORCID record for Jessica L. Jenness [Opens in a new window] ,
Maya L. Rosen ,
Kelly A. Sambrook ,
Meg J. Dennison ,
Hilary K. Lambert ,
Margaret A. Sheridan  and
Katie A. McLaughlin Open the ORCID record for Katie A. McLaughlin [Opens in a new window]
Jessica L. Jenness
Affiliation:
University of Washington
Maya L. Rosen
Affiliation:
University of Washington
Kelly A. Sambrook
Affiliation:
University of Washington
Meg J. Dennison
Affiliation:
University of Melbourne
Hilary K. Lambert
Affiliation:
University of Washington
Margaret A. Sheridan
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Katie A. McLaughlin*
Affiliation:
University of Washington
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Katie McLaughlin, Department of Psychology, University of Washington, Box 351525, Seattle, WA 98195; E-mail: mclaughk@uw.edu.
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Abstract

Violence exposure during childhood is common and associated with poor cognitive and academic functioning. However, little is known about how violence exposure influences cognitive processes that might contribute to these disparities, such as working memory, or their neural underpinnings, particularly for cognitive processes that occur in emotionally salient contexts. We address this gap in a sample of 54 participants aged 8 to 19 years (50% female), half with exposure to interpersonal violence. Participants completed a delayed match to sample task for emotional faces while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging scanning. Violence-exposed youth performed worse than controls on happy and neutral, but not angry, trials. In whole-brain analysis, violence-exposed youth had reduced activation in the left middle frontal gyrus and right intraparietal sulcus during encoding and the left superior temporal sulcus and temporal–parietal junction during retrieval compared to control youth. Reduced activation in the left middle frontal gyrus during encoding and the left superior temporal sulcus during retrieval mediated the association between violence exposure and task performance. Violence exposure influences the frontoparietal network that supports working memory as well as regions involved in facial processing during working memory for emotional stimuli. Reduced neural recruitment in these regions may explain atypical patterns of cognitive processing seen among violence-exposed youth, particularly within emotional contexts.

Type
Regular Articles
Information
Development and Psychopathology , Volume 30 , Issue 4 , October 2018 , pp. 1517 - 1528
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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Footnotes

This research was supported by National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Grant T32-HD057822 and National Institute of Mental Health Grants K01-MH092526, R01-MH103291, and R01-MH106482.

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