Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2024 Jan 23;14(1):54.
doi: 10.1038/s41398-023-02723-9.

Neural correlates of automatic emotion regulation and their association with suicidal ideation in adolescents during the first 90-days of residential care

Matthew Dobbertin  1 , Karina S Blair  2 , Joseph Aloi  3 , Sahil Bajaj  4 , Johannah Bashford-Largo  5 , Avantika Mathur  6 , Ru Zhang  7 , Erin Carollo  8 , Amanda Schwartz  9 , Jaimie Elowsky  10 , J L Ringle  11 , Patrick Tyler  11 , R James Blair  12
Affiliations

Neural correlates of automatic emotion regulation and their association with suicidal ideation in adolescents during the first 90-days of residential care

Matthew Dobbertin et al. Transl Psychiatry. .

Erratum in

Abstract

Background: Suicide is the second leading cause of death for adolescents in the United States. However, relatively little is known about the forms of atypical neuro-cognitive function that are correlates of suicidal ideation (SI). One form of cognitive/affective function that, when dysfunctional, is associated with SI is emotion regulation. However, very little work has investigated the neural correlates of emotion dysregulation in adolescents with SI.

Methods: Participants (N = 111 aged 12-18, 32 females, 31 [27.9%] reporting SI) were recruited shortly after their arrival at a residential care facility where they had been referred for behavioral and mental health problems. Daily reports of SI were collected during the participants' first 90-days in residential care. Participants were presented with a task-fMRI measure of emotion regulation - the Affective Number Stroop task shortly after recruitment. Participants were divided into two groups matched for age, sex and IQ based on whether they demonstrated SI.

Results: Participants who demonstrated SI showed increased recruitment of regions including dorsomedial prefrontal cortex/supplemental motor area and parietal cortex during task (congruent and incongruent) relative to view trials in the context of emotional relative to neutral distracters.

Conclusions: Participants with SI showed increased recruitment of regions implicated in executive control during the performance of a task indexing automatic emotion regulation. Such data might suggest a relative inefficiency in the recruitment of these regions in individuals with SI.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1. Group-by-condition-by-valence interactions.
Adolescents with SI showed significant increases in activity during task relative to view trials in the context of emotional relative to neutral distracters (except for negative incongruent) within: a right dmPFC (x, y, z = 2, -1, 59); and b right IFG/OFC (x, y, z = 23, 38,-7). Key to Fig. 1: w/o & w=without and with, SI=Suicidal ideation, (NI-NV)vs(NI-NeutV)=(Negative Incongruent – Negative View)-(Neutral Incongruent – Neutral View), (NC-NV)vs(NeutC-NeutV)=(Negative Congruent – Negative View)-(Neutral Congruent – Neutral View), (PI-PV)vs(NeutI-NeutV)=(Positive Incongruent – Positive View)-(Neutral Incongruent – Neutral View), (PC-PV)vs(NeutC-NeutV)=(Positive Congruent – Positive View)-(Neutral Congruent – Neutral View).
Fig. 2
Fig. 2. Group-by-condition interactions.
Adolescents with SI showed significant increases in activity during task relative to view trials within: a right fusiform gyrus (x, y, z = 29, -71, -10); and b right cuneus (x, y, z = 14, -88, 11). Key to Fig. 1: w/o & w=without and with, SI=Suicidal ideation, Inc-View=Incongruent – View, Cong- Congruent – View.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

References

    1. Curtin S, Warner M and Hedegaard H (2016). Increase in suicide in the United States, 1999–2014. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics: NCHS Data Brief. - PubMed
    1. Grinshteyn E, Hemenway D. Violent death rates: the US compared with other high-income OECD countries, 2010. Am J Med. 2016;129:266–73. doi: 10.1016/j.amjmed.2015.10.025. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Nock MK, Green JG, Hwang I, McLaughlin KA, Sampson NA, Zaslavsky AM, et al. Prevalence, correlates, and treatment of lifetime suicidal behavior among adolescents: results from the National Comorbidity Survey Replication Adolescent Supplement. JAMA Psychiatry. 2013;70:300–10. doi: 10.1001/2013.jamapsychiatry.55. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Chen VCH, Chou YS, Tsai YH, Huang YC, McIntyre RS, Weng JC. Resting-state functional connectivity and brain network abnormalities in depressive patients with suicidal ideation. Brain Topogr. 2021;34:234–44. doi: 10.1007/s10548-020-00817-x. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Ho TC, Walker JC, Teresi GI, Kulla A, Kirshenbaum JS, Gifuni AJ, et al. Default mode and salience network alterations in suicidal and non-suicidal self-injurious thoughts and behaviors in adolescents with depression. Transl Psychiatry. 2021;11:38. doi: 10.1038/s41398-020-01103-x. - DOI - PMC - PubMed