Cory Burghy - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Cory Burghy

doi: 10.3389/fnins.2012.00166 Robust automated amygdala segmentation via multi-atlas diffeomorphi... more doi: 10.3389/fnins.2012.00166 Robust automated amygdala segmentation via multi-atlas diffeomorphic registration

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ynimg Evidence for coordinated functional activity with... more journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ynimg Evidence for coordinated functional activity within the extended amygdala of

Scientific Reports, 2019

Mindfulness training has been shown to improve attention and change the underlying brain substrat... more Mindfulness training has been shown to improve attention and change the underlying brain substrates in adults. Most mindfulness training programs involve a myriad of techniques, and it is difficult to attribute changes to any particular aspect of the program. Here, we created a video game, Tenacity, which models a specific mindfulness technique – focused attention on one’s breathing – and assessed its potential to train an attentional network in adolescents. A combined analysis of resting state functional connectivity (rs-FC) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) yielded convergent results – change in communication within the left fronto-parietal network after two weeks of playing Tenacity compared to a control game. Rs-FC analysis showed greater connectivity between left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) and left inferior parietal cortex (IPC) in the Tenacity group. Importantly, changes in left dlPFC – IPC rs-FC and changes in structural connectivity of the white matter tract tha...

JAMA pediatrics, Jan 27, 2018

Maternal depression and anxiety can have deleterious and lifelong consequences on child developme... more Maternal depression and anxiety can have deleterious and lifelong consequences on child development. However, many aspects of the association of early brain development with maternal symptoms remain unclear. Understanding the timing of potential neurobiological alterations holds inherent value for the development and evaluation of future therapies and interventions. To examine the association between exposure to prenatal maternal depression and anxiety symptoms and offspring white matter microstructure at 1 month of age. This cohort study of 101 mother-infant dyads used a composite of depression and anxiety symptoms measured in mothers during the third trimester of pregnancy and measures of white matter microstructure characterized in the mothers' 1-month offspring using diffusion tensor imaging and neurite orientation dispersion and density imaging performed from October 1, 2014, to November 30, 2016. Magnetic resonance imaging was performed at an academic research facility dur...

Scientific reports, Nov 22, 2016

Stress and emotion involve diverse developmental and individual differences. Partially attributed... more Stress and emotion involve diverse developmental and individual differences. Partially attributed to the development of the prefrontal cortex (PFC), the amygdala, and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, the precise genetic and experiential contributions remain unknown. In previous work, childhood basal cortisol function predicted adolescent resting-state functional connectivity (rs-FC) and psychopathology. To parse experience-driven (non-genetic) contributions, we investigated these relations with a monozygotic (MZ) twin design. Specifically, we examined whether intrapair differences in childhood afternoon cortisol levels predicted cotwin differences in adolescent brain function and coping. As expected, intrapair differences in childhood cortisol forecast amygdala-perigenual PFC rs-FC (R(2) = 0.84, FWE-corrected p = 0.01), and amygdala recovery following unpleasant images (R(2) = 0.40, FWE-corrected p < 0.05), such that the cotwin with higher childhood cortisol evinced relativel...

Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, 2016

BACKGROUND: Much research has focused on the deleterious neurobiological effects of childhood adv... more BACKGROUND: Much research has focused on the deleterious neurobiological effects of childhood adversity that may underlie internalizing disorders. Although most youth show emotional adaptation following adversity, the corresponding neural mechanisms remain poorly understood. METHODS: In this longitudinal community study, we examined the associations among childhood family adversity, adolescent internalizing symptoms, and their interaction on regional brain activation and amygdala/hippocampus functional connectivity during emotion processing in 132 adolescents. RESULTS: Consistent with prior work, childhood adversity predicted heightened amygdala reactivity to negative, but not positive, images in adolescence. However, amygdala reactivity was not related to internalizing symptoms. Furthermore, childhood adversity predicted increased prefrontal-amygdala connectivity to negative, but not positive, images, yet only in lower internalizing adolescents. Childhood adversity also predicted increased prefrontal-hippocampus connectivity to negative images but was not moderated by internalizing. These findings were unrelated to adolescent adversity or externalizing symptoms, suggesting specificity to childhood adversity and adolescent internalizing. CONCLUSIONS: Together, these findings suggest that adaptation to childhood adversity is associated with augmentation of prefrontal-subcortical circuits specifically for negative emotional stimuli. Conversely, insufficient enhancement of prefrontal-amygdala connectivity, with increasing amygdala reactivity, may represent a neural signature of vulnerability for internalizing by late adolescence. These findings implicate early childhood as a critical period in determining the brain's adaptation to adversity and suggest that even normative adverse experiences can have a significant impact on neurodevelopment and functioning. These results offer potential neural mechanisms of adaptation and vulnerability that could be used in the prediction of risk for psychopathology following childhood adversity.

Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 2012

An individuals affective style is influenced by many things, including the manner in which an ind... more An individuals affective style is influenced by many things, including the manner in which an individual responds to an emotional challenge. Emotional response is composed of a number of factors, two of which are the initial reactivity to an emotional stimulus and the subsequent recovery once the stimulus terminates or ceases to be relevant. However, most neuroimaging studies examining emotional processing in humans focus on the magnitude of initial reactivity to a stimulus rather than the prolonged response. In this study, we use functional magnetic resonance imaging to study the time course of amygdala activity in healthy adults in response to presentation of negative images. We split the amygdala time course into an initial reactivity period and a recovery period beginning after the offset of the stimulus. We find that initial reactivity in the amygdala does not predict trait measures of affective style. Conversely, amygdala recovery shows predictive power such that slower amygdala recovery from negative images predicts greater trait neuroticism, in addition to lower levels of likability of a set of social stimuli (neutral faces). These data underscore the importance of taking into account temporal dynamics when studying affective processing using neuroimaging.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2013

Significance Childhood maltreatment is a major risk factor for internalizing disorders including ... more Significance Childhood maltreatment is a major risk factor for internalizing disorders including depression and anxiety, which cause significant disability. Altered connectivity of the brain’s fear circuitry represents an important candidate mechanism linking maltreatment and these disorders, but this relationship has not been directly explored. Using resting-state functional brain connectivity in adolescents, we show that maltreatment predicts lower prefrontal–hippocampal connectivity in females and males but lower prefrontal–amygdala connectivity only in females. Altered connectivity, in turn, mediated the development of internalizing symptoms. These results highlight the importance of fronto–hippocampal connectivity for both sexes in internalizing symptoms following maltreatment. The additional impact on fronto–amygdala connectivity in females may help explain their higher risk for anxiety and depression.

Nature Neuroscience, 2012

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 2007

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we examined whether individual differences in amygda... more Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we examined whether individual differences in amygdala activation in response to negative relative to neutral information are related to differences in the speed with which such information is evaluated, the extent to which such differences are associated with medial prefrontal cortex function, and their relationship with measures of trait anxiety and psychological well-being (PWB). Results indicated that faster judgments of negative relative to neutral information were associated with increased left and right amygdala activation. In the prefrontal cortex, faster judgment time was associated with relative decreased activation in a cluster in the ventral anterior cingulate cortex (ACC, BA 24). Furthermore, people who were slower to evaluate negative versus neutral information reported higher PWB. Importantly, higher PWB was strongly associated with increased activation in the ventral ACC for negative relative to neutral information. Indivi...

Frontiers in Neuroscience, 2012

Clinical Neurophysiology, 2004

Biological Psychiatry, 2006

Evolutionary fitness dictates that threat must be detected quickly (1, 2). Efficient identificati... more Evolutionary fitness dictates that threat must be detected quickly (1, 2). Efficient identification of sources of potential harm requires an ability to detect threat-related stimuli based on relatively simple stimulus features and at any position in the perceptual field, thus resulting in a ...

Biological Psychology, 2015

The relation between empathy subtypes and prosocial behavior was investigated in a sample of heal... more The relation between empathy subtypes and prosocial behavior was investigated in a sample of healthy adults. "Empathic concern" and "empathic happiness", defined as negative and positive vicarious emotion (respectively) combined with an other-oriented feeling of "goodwill" (i.e. a thought to do good to others/see others happy), were elicited in 68 adult participants who watched video clips extracted from the television show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Prosocial behavior was quantified via performance on a non-monetary altruistic decision-making task involving book selection and donation. Empathic concern and empathic happiness were measured via self-report (immediately following each video clip) and via facial electromyography recorded from corrugator (active during frowning) and zygomatic (active during smiling) facial regions. Facial electromyographic signs of (a) empathic concern (i.e. frowning) during sad video clips, and (b) empathic happiness (i.e. smiling) during happy video clips, predicted increased prosocial behavior in the form of increased goodwill-themed book selection/donation.