Youth with behavior challenges may have trouble moving between different brain states, according to a new study from Yale Child Study Center (YCSC). Their brains appear to get stuck in states with disrupted connections in regions of the brain important for attention, flexibility in thinking, and regulating emotions.
The findings, published in Biological Psychiatry: Global Open Science, point to a new brain process that could inform treatment approaches for childhood disruptive behavior disorders, researchers say. The study was the first to use advanced computational methods to track moment-to-moment changes in brain connectivity in children with behavioral problems and was led by Karim Ibrahim, PsyD, an assistant professor at YCSC.
"This study suggests that youth with disruptive behavior problems may show difficulty transitioning across brain states efficiently, which could influence cognitive processes including executive functioning and emotion regulation,” says Ibrahim.
These findings may enhance understanding of how exposure to psychological stress affects brain development and contributes to later behavioral vulnerabilities. Ibrahim adds, “These dynamic, time-varying properties of brain connections may represent an exciting and novel treatment target that could help guide the development of more precise interventions that aim to mitigate difficulties in emotion regulation for youth with disruptive behavior problems and other psychiatric disorders.”
Using fMRI brain scans from 877 children ages 9–10 from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study, Ibrahim and his team identified 12 distinct brain states representing recurring patterns of connectivity across brain networks that children cycle through at rest during brain scans. Children in the study with disruptive behavior spent more time in brain states with altered connections in networks for executive functioning, attention, and emotion control.
This suggests they have trouble switching between brain states needed for higher thinking skills, and this may make it harder for children to control their emotions and behavior in difficult situations. Similar patterns were found for children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)-related behaviors, which often co-occur with disruptive behavior problems. Spending more time in disconnected brain states was linked to worse attention problems.
The computational methods used in the study were developed by Heather Shappell, PhD, an assistant professor at Wake Forest University who was the lead author of the published findings. “Dynamic approaches offer a new and exciting account of brain networks involved in disruptive behavior. These dynamic models complement prior neuroscience approaches and could help us develop more tailored clinical interventions,” says Shappell. The computational approach offers a new account of when and how alterations in brain networks are linked to disruptive behavior problems in youth.
“Understanding when disruptions in brain connectivity occur has potential to provide valuable information for developing brain biomarkers of child mental health disorders,” says Ibrahim. His translational neuroscience research focuses on the impact of early life stress and environmental factors on child brain development and brain networks linked to emotion regulation impairments in childhood-onset psychiatric disorders.
The research team confirmed and validated their findings using additional brain scan data from the same participants. They also considered other common childhood symptoms such as attention problems and anxiety, using a statistical method to control for these variables and ensure that the patterns they found were specifically linked to disruptive behaviors.
“From decades of research, we know that childhood disruptive behavior such as anger outbursts, irritability, and aggression are leading reasons for referrals to child mental health services,” says Denis Sukhodolsky, PhD, Harris Professor at YCSC and co-author of the study. “This study discovered reduced coordination of connections across networks of executive functioning and emotion regulation, which will inform development of treatments based on better understanding of brain biomarkers of childhood psychopathology."