Nathan A. Jorgensen's research while affiliated with University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and other places

Addiction-like social media use (ASMU) is widely reported among adolescents and is associated with depression and other negative health outcomes. We aimed to identify developmental trajectories of neural social feedback processing that are linked to higher levels of ASMU in later adolescence. Within a longitudinal design, 103 adolescents completed a social incentive delay task during 1–3 fMRI scans (6–9th grade), and a 4th self-report assessment of ASMU and depressive symptoms ∼2 years later (10–11th grade). We assessed ASMU effects on brain responsivity to positive social feedback across puberty and relationships between brain responsivity development, ASMU symptoms, and depressive symptoms while considering gender effects. Findings demonstrate decreasing responsivity, across puberty, in the ventral media prefrontal cortex, medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, and right inferior frontal gyrus associated with higher ASMU symptoms over 2 years later. Significant moderated mediation models suggest that these pubertal decreases in brain responsivity are associated with increased ASMU symptoms which, among adolescent girls (but not boys), is in turn associated with increased depressive symptoms. Results suggest initial hyperresponsivity to positive social feedback, before puberty onset, and decreases in this response across development, may be risk factors for ASMU in later adolescence.

Social media behaviors increase during adolescence, and quantifiable feedback metrics (e.g., likes, followers) may amplify the value of social status for teens. Social media’s impact on adolescents’ daily affect may be exacerbated given the neurodevelopmental changes that increase youths’ sensitivity to socio-emotional information. This study examines whether neurobiological sensitivity to popularity moderates daily links between social media use and affect. Adolescents (N = 91, Mage=13.6 years, SDage=0.6 years) completed an fMRI task in which they viewed faces of their high (>1 SD above the mean) and low (<1 SD below the mean) popular peers based on peer-nominated sociometric ratings from their school social networks. Two years later, adolescents reported their time spent on social media and affect daily for two weeks. Neural tracking of popularity in the ventromedial and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex moderated the association between time on social media and affect. Specifically, adolescents who tracked high popular peers in the vmPFC reported more positive affect on days when they used social media more. Adolescents who tracked low popular peers in the vmPFC and dmPFC reported more negative affect on days when they used social media more. Results suggest that links between social media and affect depend on individual differences in neural sensitivity to popularity.

In the current study, we combined sociometric nominations and neuroimaging techniques to examine adolescents’ neural tracking of peers from their real-world social network that varied in social preferences and popularity. Adolescent participants from an entire school district (N = 873) completed peer sociometric nominations of their grade at school, and a subset of participants (N = 117, Mage = 13.59 years) completed a neuroimaging task in which they viewed peer faces from their social networks. We revealed two neural processes by which adolescents track social preference: (1) the fusiform face area, an important region for early visual perception and social categorization, simultaneously represented both peers high in social preference and low in social preference; (2) the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), which was differentially engaged in tracking peers high and low in social preference. No regions specifically tracked peers high in popularity and only the inferior parietal lobe, temporoparietal junction, midcingulate cortex and insula were involved in tracking unpopular peers. This is the first study to examine the neural circuits that support adolescents’ perception of peer-based social networks. These findings identify the neural processes that allow youths to spontaneously keep track of peers’ social value within their social network.

Adolescents are particularly attuned to popularity within peer groups, which impacts behaviors such as risk-taking and prosocial behavior. Neurodevelopmental changes orient adolescents toward salient social cues in their environment. We examined whether neural regions that track popularity are associated with longitudinal changes in risk-taking and prosocial behavior. During an fMRI scan, adolescents (n = 109, Mage=13.59, SD=0.59) viewed pictures of their popular and unpopular classmates based on sociometric nominations from their social networks. Neural tracking of high popularity in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex was associated with increases in risk-taking behavior, whereas tracking of low popularity in the right insula was associated with increases in prosocial behavior. Results suggest that individual differences in neural tracking of popularity relate to longitudinal changes in adolescents' social behaviors.

Background: Habenula (HB) function is implicated in substance use disorders and is involved in inhibiting dopamine release in the ventral striatum (VS). While blunted VS reward-responsivity is implicated in risk for later substance use, links between HB reinforcement processing and progression of use has not been examined among adolescents. In the present study, we longitudinally assess HB and VS responsivity to social rewards and punishments, across adolescence, and examine associations with substance use. Methods: Within a longitudinal design, 170 adolescents (53.5% female) completed 1-3 fMRI scans across 6th-9th grade and reported yearly substance use across 6th-11th grade. We examined VS and HB responsivity to social reinforcement during a social incentive delay task in which adolescents received social rewards (smiling faces) and punishments (scowling faces). Results: We observed increased VS responsivity to social rewards (vs. reward omissions) and increased VS, but decreased HB, responsivity to social punishment avoidance vs. receipt. However, contrary to hypotheses, the HB displayed increased responsivity to social rewards (vs. reward omissions). Further, adolescents reporting regular substance use displayed longitudinally declining HB responsivity to social rewards (vs. reward omissions), whereas adolescents reporting no substance use displayed longitudinally increasing HB responsivity. In contrast, whereas VS responsivity to punishment avoidance vs. receipt increased longitudinally among regular substance users, it stayed relatively stable among non-users. Conclusions: These results suggest differential HB and VS social reinforcement processing trajectories across adolescence are associated with substance use.

Background Rates of nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) increase dramatically in adolescence. Affective reactivity and adverse social experiences have been linked to NSSI, but it is less known whether these factors may separately or interactively predict NSSI, especially longitudinally. This study combined fMRI and a sociometric measure to test whether a combination of neural (e.g., amygdala) reactivity to social punishment and peer-nominated peer acceptance/rejection predicts NSSI longitudinally in adolescence. Amygdala reactivity was examined as a potential neural marker of affective reactivity to social punishment, which may heighten NSSI risk in contexts of social adversity. Methods: 125 adolescents (63 female) completed a social incentive delay task during neuroimaging and school-based peer nominations to measure peer acceptance/rejection. NSSI engagement was assessed at baseline and one-year follow-up. Results: Greater amygdala reactivity to social punishment predicted greater NSSI engagement one year later among adolescents with high peer rejection. This effect for the amygdala was specific to social punishment (vs. reward) and held when controlling for biological sex and pubertal development. Exploratory analyses found ventral striatum reactivity to social reward and punishment similarly interacted with peer rejection to predict NSSI, but that amygdala connectivity with salience network regions did not. Conclusions: Amygdala reactivity to social punishment, in combination with high peer rejection, may increase NSSI risk in adolescence, possibly via heightened affective reactivity to adverse social experiences. Objective measures of neurobiological and social risk factors may improve prediction of NSSI, while therapeutic approaches that target affective reactivity and increase prosocial skills may protect against NSSI in adolescence.

Experiences within one's social environment shape neural sensitivity to threatening and rewarding social cues. However, in racialized societies like the U.S., youth from minoritized racial/ethnic backgrounds can have different experiences and perceptions within neighborhoods that share similar characteristics. The current study examined how neighborhood disadvantage intersects with racial/ethnic background in relation to neural sensitivity to social cues. A racially diverse (59 Hispanic/Latine, 48 White, 37 Black/African-American, 15 multi-racial, 6 other) and primarily low to middle SES sample of 165 adolescents (88 female; Mage = 12.89) completed a social incentive delay task while undergoing fMRI scanning. We tested for differences in the association between neighborhood disadvantage and neural responses to social threat and reward cues across racial/ethnic groups. For threat processing, compared to White youth, neighborhood disadvantage was related to greater neural activation in regions involved in salience detection (e.g., ACC) for Black youth, and regions involved in mentalizing (e.g., TPJ) for Latine youth. For reward processing, neighborhood disadvantage was related to greater brain activation in reward, salience, and mentalizing regions for Black youth only. This study offers a novel exploration of diversity within adolescent neural development and important insights into our understanding of how social environments may "get under the skull" differentially across racial/ethnic groups.

Using Porges’ (2011) Polyvagal Theory as a backdrop, this study examined whether changes in parasympathetic functioning, as indexed by baseline measures of cardiac vagal tone at 6, 9, and 12 months of age, were linked to changes in infants’ (N = 101) dyadic co-regulation over these same time points. Mothers and infants were observed at each time point during a 15-minute unstructured free-play and co-regulated patterns of interactions were coded using the Revised Relational Coding System (Fogel et al., 2003). Analyses were carried out using multi-process growth curve modeling to examine baseline measurements (intercepts) and changes (slopes) in vagal tone, co-regulation as well as mothers’ report of infant temperament. Findings demonstrate links between infants’ vagal tone and changes in mother-infant co-regulation. Specifically, increasing levels of cardiac vagal tone was related to increases in symmetrical but decreases in unilateral patterns of co-regulation over time. These findings suggest that changes in the autonomic nervous system likely undergird infants’ improving capacity to engage in more mutually sustained patterns of co-regulation.

This longitudinal study examined the prospective association between toddler-mother attachment to adolescents' (N = 52; 34 boys; Mage = 13.22 years; 90% White) behavioral and neural responses during the evaluation of trustworthiness from unfamiliar, emotionally neutral faces. At 33 months, toddler-mother attachment status (secure versus insecure classification) was assessed using a modified Strange Situation procedure (Cassidy & Marvin, with the MacArthur Attachment Working Group, 1992). Results revealed that attachment moderated the processing of trustworthiness facial cues. As faces became less trustworthy, adolescents with a secure (versus insecure) attachment history rated the faces as correspondingly less trustworthy and showed increasing (versus overall blunted) activation in brain regions involved in trustworthiness perception (i.e., bilateral amygdala, bilateral fusiform, right anterior insula, right posterior superior temporal sulcus). Findings suggest that a secure compared with insecure child-mother attachment in toddlerhood may be associated with greater capacity for, or openness to, processing potentially negative social information at both the behavioral and neural levels during adolescence.