Burnett, S.; Bird, G.; Moll, J.; Frith, C.D.; Blakemore, S.-J.; (2009) Development during adolescence of the neural processing of social emotion. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience , 21 (9) pp. 1736-1750. 10.1162/jocn.2009.21121.

Preview

PDF 19963.pdf Download (417kB)

Abstract

In this fMRI study, we investigated the development between adolescence and adulthood of the neural processing of social emotions. Unlike basic emotions (such as disgust and fear), social emotions (such as guilt and embarrassment) require the representation of another's mental states. Nineteen adolescents (10–18 years) and 10 adults (22–32 years) were scanned while thinking about scenarios featuring either social or basic emotions. In both age groups, the anterior rostral medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) was activated during social versus basic emotion. However, adolescents activated a lateral part of the MPFC for social versus basic emotions, whereas adults did not. Relative to adolescents, adults showed higher activity in the left temporal pole for social versus basic emotions. These results show that, although the MPFC is activated during social emotion in both adults and adolescents, adolescents recruit anterior (MPFC) regions more than do adults, and adults recruit posterior (temporal) regions more than do adolescents.

Download activity - last month

Export as CSVXMLJSON

Download activity - last 12 months

Export as CSVJSONXML

Downloads by country - last 12 months

Export as CSVXMLJSON

Archive Staff Only

View Item