Poster No:
579
Submission Type:
Late-Breaking Abstract Submission
Authors:
Camille Archer1, Gabrielle Reimann1, Hee Jung Jeong1, E. Leighton Durham1, Kaitlynn Ellis1, Antonia Kaczkurkin1
Institutions:
1Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN
First Author:
Co-Author(s):
Introduction:
Irritability, characterized by an increased proneness to frustration and anger, is one of the most common reasons children and adolescents are referred for treatment evaluation (Brotman et al., 2017). Irritability is a transdiagnostic risk factor associated with the emergence of internalizing and externalizing psychopathologies, including anxiety and depression (Leibenluft et al., 2024). Prior work suggests that irritability is a multifaceted construct comprising both tonic (persistent negative mood) and phasic (acute temper outburst) components (Toohey & DiGiuseppe, 2017), which may have distinct neural associations. Neuroimaging studies have implicated large-scale brain networks, particularly those involved in emotion regulation and cognitive control, in the pathophysiology of irritability (Nielsen et al., 2021). However, despite the increasing recognition of the differences between phasic and tonic irritability, the neural mechanisms differentiating these subcomponents remain poorly understood in youth. Furthermore, no studies have examined functional connectivity in relation to phasic and tonic irritability while accounting for their shared variance. The purpose of the current study was to investigate the unique relationships between phasic and tonic irritability and large-scale network connectivity in a large sample of children.
Methods:
Participants included 9- to 10-year-old children (N = 9,802) from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study (Barch et al., 2018; Garavan et al., 2018). Resting state fMRI data (20 minutes of passive viewing) was acquired with multiband echo-planar imaging and processed using standard procedures (Casey et al., 2018; Hagler et al., 2019). Functional connectivity was quantified using Fisher-transformed correlations within and between large-scale networks and subcortical regions, with rigorous quality control to minimize motion-related artifacts. Sum scores for phasic and tonic irritability were derived at baseline using previously established items from the Child Behavior Checklist (Cordova et al., 2022) and analyzed in relation to 306 connectivity network variables from the Gordon parcellation (12 within-network, 66 between-network, and 228 network-subcortical regions) (Gordon et al., 2016). Only one member from each family was included, and study site was included as a covariate in all analyses. The relationship between phasic irritability and functional connectivity was assessed while controlling for tonic irritability, and vice versa, to isolate unique associations. Multiple comparisons were accounted for using false discovery rate (FDR) correction.
Results:
After correcting for multiple comparisons and controlling for tonic irritability, phasic irritability showed significant associations with within-network connectivity of the dorsal attention network, and between-network connectivity involving the default-mode network, dorsal attention network, retrosplenial temporal network, sensorimotor hand network, and the fronto-parietal network (pfdr-values ≤ .04). No significant associations were found for tonic irritability after parsing out the variance shared with phasic irritability.
Conclusions:
These findings highlight the specific associations of phasic irritability with large-scale brain networks, particularly those involving cognitive and emotional processing. These results contribute to a better understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying irritability's tonic and phasic components and may inform future research on targeted interventions for individuals experiencing phasic irritability in particular.
Disorders of the Nervous System:
Psychiatric (eg. Depression, Anxiety, Schizophrenia) 1
Modeling and Analysis Methods:
Connectivity (eg. functional, effective, structural) 2
Keywords:
Affective Disorders
FUNCTIONAL MRI
Psychiatric Disorders
1|2Indicates the priority used for review
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Was this research conducted in the United States?
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Functional MRI
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Questionnaire data
For human MRI, what field strength scanner do you use?
3.0T
Which processing packages did you use for your study?
AFNI
FSL
Free Surfer
Provide references using APA citation style.
1. Barch, D. M. (2018). Demographic, physical and mental health assessments in the adolescent brain and cognitive development study:
Rationale and description. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 32, 55–66.
2. Brotman, M. A. (2017). Irritability in children and adolescents. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 13, 317–341.
3. Casey, B. J. (2018). The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study: Imaging acquisition across 21 sites. Developmental
Cognitive Neuroscience, 32, 43–54.
4. Cordova, M. M. (2022). ADHD: Restricted phenotypes prevalence, comorbidity, and polygenic risk sensitivity in ABCD baseline cohort.
Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 61(10), 1273.
5. Garavan, H. (2018). Recruiting the ABCD sample: Design considerations and procedures. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 32, 16–
22.
6. Gordon, E. M. (2016). Generation and evaluation of a cortical area parcellation from resting-state correlations. Cerebral Cortex, 26(1), 288–
303.
7. Hagler, D. J. (2019). Image processing and analysis methods for the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study. NeuroImage, 202,
116091.
8. Leibenluft, E. (2024). Irritability in youths: A critical integrative review. American Journal of Psychiatry, 181, 275–290.
9. Nielsen, A. N. (2021). Linking irritability and functional brain networks: A transdiagnostic case for expanding consideration of development
and environment in RDoC. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 129, 231–244.
10. Toohey, M. J. (2017). Defining and measuring irritability: Construct clarification and differentiation. Clinical Psychology Review, 53, 93–108.
No