Interaction: Cognitive/Emotional Systems

Weill Medical College Of Cornell Univ, New York NY

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Abstract

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The proposed research project examines how developing cognitive systems interact with simultaneously developing emotional systems in guiding behavior. Determining the mechanisms of interaction between cognitive control and emotional processes may aid in our understanding of why adolescence is a developmental period of increased impulsive and risky behavior exemplified by the high incidence of drug abuse, suicide, and violence. Furthermore, examination of developmental changes in emotion and cognition might help us to understand why affective disorders often begin during adolescence. Aim 1: To examine the effect of emotional content on cognitive control when approaching or avoiding a stimulus in children, adolescents, and adults. Aim 2: To dissociate frontoamygdala and frontostriatal contributions to emotion regulation when approaching or avoiding negative and positive information in an emotional go/nogo task with fMRI in children, adolescents, and adults. Brain activity will be detected in children, adolescents, and adults using fMRI while performing an emotional go/nogo task with detection of happy and fearful faces relative to a baseline. [unreadable] [unreadable]