| 其他摘要 | Cognitive neuroscience has made tremendous progress in understanding the brain mechanisms underlying human cognition, emotion, and other functions. However, one of the great challenges that remains to date is to uncover the link between mental health disorders and the brain. In contrast to other medical specialties that have been able to link physiologically based tests to patient symptoms for diagnosis and treatment, diagnostic tools for various mental health disorders (e.g., conduct disorder, depression, anxiety disorders, bipolar disorder, etc.) still rely heavily on behavior problems that occur during the course of the disorder, which greatly hinders early detection and interventions. Early studies exploring the neural mechanisms of mental health disorders, along with studies of patients with prefrontal injury, have found significant associations between mental health disorders and abnormal developmental or pathological changes in the prefrontal lobes. The prefrontal lobe is one of the most late-maturing brain regions in the developing human cerebral cortex. It is also one of the most developed and refined brain regions in the cerebral cortex, which establishes its important role in higher cognitive and emotional functions. Most of these findings, however, were based on statistics of between-group differences between clinical samples and healthy control samples. These studies are based on cross-sectional samples and ignore the continuity and variability of problem behavior development and brain development in school-aged children, thus limiting inferences about the dynamic relationship between the two changes. In addition, traditional diagnostic taxonomy studies can reveal abnormalities prevalent in patients under clinical diagnostic labels but ignore individual differences in the development of problem behaviors in children and adolescents to a large extent.
Therefore, to explore the developmental patterns of problem behaviors, individual differences, and their dynamical brain imaging mechanisms in relation to prefrontal structure and functional development, the present study focused on healthy developing school-age children, based on an accelerated longitudinal design, which included a large sample containing follow-up and cross-sectional data collected at multiple sites. The present study contains the following four parts: (1) Exploring the development of problem behaviors in school-aged children: First, the general developmental pattern of problem behaviors in school-aged children and inter-individual variability were systematically analyzed. Then, the cognitive function development of children with different trajectories of problem behavior development was explored. We found that high levels of problem behaviors are closely related to low levels of cognitive functioning in children, which profoundly clarifies the importance of paying attention to and intervening in children's problem behaviors to promote healthy and appropriate development of children. (2) Exploring the structural development of the prefrontal cortex in school-aged children. We systematically analyzed the age-related developmental patterns of morphological measures of different partitions of the prefrontal lobe in Chinese school-aged children following the template used in the Brain charts for the human lifespan. The site and gender differences were also conducted. We found that the site effects of magnetic resonance scan data were not negligible. At the same time, the gender differences in the developmental trajectories of the different measures tended to be completely different, with most of the cortical thickness indicators not showing significant gender differences, while the gender differences in the developmental trajectories of gray matter volume and cortical surface area were significant. (3) Exploring the relationship between the development of problem behaviors and the development of problems were significantly predictive of morphological measures of the right inferior frontal gyros and the right frontal pole. Internalizing problems were significantly predictive of the right inferior frontal gyros triangle, the left rostral anterior cingulate gyros, and the left medial orbitofrontal. In addition, the study also used a linear mixed model to portray the trajectory of prefrontal cortex structure development in children with different problem behavior groups. (4) On the basis of the previous study, common or specific brain areas that have predictive relationships with internalizing problems and externalizing problems were selected as regions of interest (ROI), and resting-state functional connectivity indicators were chosen to portray the developmental patterns and individual differences in functional connectivity between ROI. (5) Then, we explored the relationship between problem behavior development and prefrontal functional development. Our results found that functional connectivity between the left rostral anterior cingulate gyros (default network) and the right frontal pole (limbic network), the regional homogeneity of the right inferior frontal gyros-triangle (control network) positively predicted internalizing problems at the latter time point; The regional homogeneity of the left frontal pole (limbic network), and the right inferior frontal gyros-triangle (ventral attention network, control network) positively predict the externalizing problem at the latter time point. In addition, the study also used a linear mixed model to portray the trajectory differences in prefrontal functional development in children with different problem behavior groups.
In summary, this study explores the developmental patterns, individual differences of problem behaviors, and the brain imaging mechanisms of their dynamic associations with prefrontal structure and functional development in school-aged children, providing neurobiological reference indicators for the screening of problem behaviors in school-aged children, contributing to the early identification, positive intervention and proper guidance of individuals at risk for mental health disorders in children, preventing psychological crises and even extreme events in children and adolescents. It also provides support for individualized parenting advice at the family and school levels. |
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