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SOCIAL SCIENCES / BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES / PSYCHOLOGY / PSYCHOLOGY
Prefrontal and amygdala volumes are related to adolescents' affective behaviors during parent–adolescent interactions

Sarah Whittle^*,,, Marie B. H. Yap^*,, Murat Yücel^*,, Alex Fornito^,, Julian G. Simmons^*,, Anna Barrett^*,,, Lisa Sheeber, and Nicholas B. Allen^*,,¶

*ORYGEN Research Centre, Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Centre, Department of Psychiatry, and Department of Psychology, University of Melbourne, Parkville 3052, Victoria, Australia; and Oregon Research Institute, Eugene, OR 97403

Edited by Michael I. Posner, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, and approved December 31, 2007 (received for review October 16, 2007)

Adolescence is a key period for the development of brain circuits underlying affective and behavioral regulation. It remains unclear, however, whether and how adolescent brain structure influences day-to-day affective behavior. Because of significant changes in the nature of family relations that also typically occur during adolescence, parent–child interactions provide a meaningful context where affective behavior and its regulation may be assessed. In a sample of 137 early adolescents, we investigated the relationship between aspects of the adolescents' brain structure and their affective behavior as assessed during observation of parent–child interactions. We found a significant positive association between volume of the amygdala and the duration of adolescent aggressive behavior during these interactions. We also found male-specific associations between the volume of prefrontal structures and affective behavior, with decreased leftward anterior paralimbic cortex volume asymmetry associated with increased duration of aggressive behavior, and decreased leftward orbitofrontal cortex volume asymmetry associated with increased reciprocity of dysphoric behavior. These findings suggest that adolescent brain structure is associated with affective behavior and its regulation in the context of family interactions, and that there may be gender differences in the neural mechanisms underlying affective and behavioral regulation during early adolescence. Particularly as adolescence marks a period of rapid brain maturation, our findings have implications for mental health outcomes that may be revealed later along the developmental trajectory.

emotion | family interactions | neuroimaging | structural MRI | gender differences

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.

This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/0709815105/DC1.

^¶To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: nba{at}unimelb.edu.au

© 2008 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA

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