Page 122 - Like me, or else... - Michelle Achterberg

Chapter 5
Abstract
Regulating aggression in the case of negative social feedback is an important prerequisite for developing and maintaining social relations. Prior studies in adults highlighted the role of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) as a regulating mechanism for behavioral control. Despite the fact that middle-to-late childhood is an important period for both brain maturation and social relations, no prior study examined development of aggression regulation following social feedback within childhood. The current study investigated this using a longitudinal fMRI study, with 456 same-sex twins undergoing two fMRI sessions, across the transition from middle childhood (7-9 years) to late childhood (9-11 years). Aggression regulation was studied using the Social Network Aggression Task: Participants viewed pictures of peers that gave positive, neutral or negative feedback to the participant’s profile. Next, participants could blast a loud noise towards the peer as an index of aggression. Confirmatory analyses revealed that behavioral aggression after social evaluation decreased over time, whereas neural activation in anterior insula, medial PFC and DLPFC increased over time. Exploratory whole brain-behavior analyses in late childhood showed a negative association between aggression and bilateral DLPFC, with increased DLPFC activity resulting in decreased aggression. Change analyses further revealed that children who showed larger increases in DLPFC activity from middle to late childhood showed stronger decreases in aggression over time. These findings highlight the importance of the development of social emotion regulation mechanisms within childhood.
Keywords: Social evaluation processing; Social emotion regulation; Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex; development; childhood;
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