A. Guyer - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by A. Guyer

Research paper thumbnail of Specificity of facial expression labeling deficits in childhood psychopathology

Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 2007

Background: We examined whether face-emotion labeling deficits are illness-specific or an epiphen... more Background: We examined whether face-emotion labeling deficits are illness-specific or an epiphenomenon of generalized impairment in pediatric psychiatric disorders involving mood and behavioral dysregulation. Method: Two hundred fifty-two youths (7-18 years old) completed child and adult facial expression recognition subtests from the Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy (DANVA) instrument. Forty-two participants had bipolar disorder (BD), 39 had severe mood dysregulation (SMD; i.e., chronic irritability, hyperarousal without manic episodes), 44 had anxiety and/or major depressive disorders (ANX/MDD), 35 had attention-deficit/hyperactivity and/or conduct disorder (ADHD/CD), and 92 were controls. Dependent measures were number of errors labeling happy, angry, sad, or fearful emotions. Results: BD and SMD patients made more errors than ANX/MDD, ADHD/CD, or controls when labeling adult or child emotional expressions. BD and SMD patients did not differ in their emotion-labeling deficits. Conclusions: Face-emotion labeling deficits differentiate BD and SMD patients from patients with ANX/MDD or ADHD/CD and controls. The extent to which such deficits cause vs. result from emotional dysregulation requires further study.

Research paper thumbnail of Neural responses to peer rejection in anxious adolescents: Contributions from the amygdala-hippocampal complex

International Journal of Behavioral Development, 2012

Peer rejection powerfully predicts adolescent anxiety. While cognitive differences influence anxi... more Peer rejection powerfully predicts adolescent anxiety. While cognitive differences influence anxious responses to social feedback, little is known about neural contributions. Twelve anxious and twelve age-, gender-and IQ-matched, psychiatrically healthy adolescents received ''not interested'' and ''interested'' feedback from unknown peers during a chat room task administered in a neuroimaging scanner. No group differences emerged in subjective ratings to peer feedback, but all participants reported more negative emotion at being rejected (than accepted) by peers to whom they had assigned high-desirability ratings. Further highlighting the salience of such feedback, all adolescents, independently of anxiety levels, manifested elevated responses in the amygdala-hippocampal complex bilaterally, during the anticipation of feedback. However, anxious adolescents differed from healthy adolescents in their patterns of persistent amygdala-hippocampal activation following rejection. These data carry interesting implications for using neuroimaging data to inform psychotherapeutic approaches to social anxiety.

Research paper thumbnail of Prevalence, Clinical Correlates, and Longitudinal Course of Severe Mood Dysregulation in Children

Biological Psychiatry, 2006

Background: Controversy concerning the diagnosis of pediatric bipolar disorder (BD) has focused a... more Background: Controversy concerning the diagnosis of pediatric bipolar disorder (BD) has focused attention on children with chronic irritability and hyperarousal. This syndrome has been called the "broad BD phenotype" or severe mood dysregulation (SMD). This study examines prevalence, concurrent Axis I diagnoses, and longitudinal outcome of SMD in an epidemiologic sample. Methods: Data were drawn from the Great Smoky Mountains Study, a longitudinal epidemiological study. Items from the Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Assessment were used to generate SMD criteria. Results: Among 1420 children, the lifetime prevalence of SMD in children ages 9 -19 was 3.3%. Most (67.7%) SMD youth had an Axis I diagnosis, most commonly attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (26.9%), conduct disorder (25.9%), and/or oppositional defiant disorder (24.5%). In young adulthood (mean age , youth who met criteria for SMD in the first wave (mean age 10.6 Ϯ 1.4 years) were significantly more likely to be diagnosed with a depressive disorder (odds ratio 7.2, confidence interval 1.3-38.8, p ϭ .02) than youth who never met criteria for SMD. Conclusions: Severe mood dysregulation is relatively common in childhood and predicts risk for early adulthood depressive disorders. Research should continue to explore the course of illness in children with SMD.

Research paper thumbnail of Amygdala Activation During Emotion Processing of Neutral Faces in Children With Severe Mood Dysregulation Versus ADHD or Bipolar Disorder

American Journal of Psychiatry, 2010

Objective-To understand disorder-unique and common pathophysiology, studies in multiple patient g... more Objective-To understand disorder-unique and common pathophysiology, studies in multiple patient groups with overlapping symptoms are needed. Deficits in emotion processing and hyperarousal symptoms are prominent features of bipolar disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and severe mood dysregulation. The authors compared amygdala response during emotional and nonemotional ratings of neutral faces in youths with these disorders as well as a group of healthy comparison youths.

Research paper thumbnail of Facial Emotion Labeling Deficits in Children and Adolescents at Risk for Bipolar Disorder

American Journal of Psychiatry, 2008

Research paper thumbnail of Parental Diagnoses in Youth With Narrow Phenotype Bipolar Disorder or Severe Mood Dysregulation

American Journal of Psychiatry, 2007

Objective: Controversy exists regarding whether nonepisodic irritability and hyperarousal (severe... more Objective: Controversy exists regarding whether nonepisodic irritability and hyperarousal (severe mood dysregulation) is a phenotype of pediatric bipolar disorder. The authors compared axis I diagnoses in parents of children with narrow phenotype bipolar disorder and parents of youth with severe mood dysregulation.

Research paper thumbnail of Striatal Functional Alteration in Adolescents Characterized by Early Childhood Behavioral Inhibition

Journal of Neuroscience, 2006

The temperamental style of behavioral inhibition has been characterized by exaggerated behavioral... more The temperamental style of behavioral inhibition has been characterized by exaggerated behavioral and neural responses to cues signaling threat. Virtually no work, however, has addressed whether behavioral inhibition may also confer heightened brain activation in response to positively valenced incentives. We used event-related functional MRI (fMRI) and a monetary incentive delay task to examine whether the neural response to incentives is also greater in adolescents characterized as behaviorally inhibited early in life compared with those characterized as non-inhibited. Whereas task performance did not differ between groups, fMRI revealed greater striatal activation to incentives in behaviorally inhibited adolescents than in non-inhibited adolescents. This was regardless of whether the incentive was an anticipated gain or loss. Alteration in neural systems underlying behavior modulated by both negative and positive contingencies may represent a correlate of behavioral inhibition that also underlies vulnerability to various forms of developmental psychopathology.

Research paper thumbnail of Specificity of facial expression labeling deficits in childhood psychopathology

Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 2007

Background: We examined whether face-emotion labeling deficits are illness-specific or an epiphen... more Background: We examined whether face-emotion labeling deficits are illness-specific or an epiphenomenon of generalized impairment in pediatric psychiatric disorders involving mood and behavioral dysregulation. Method: Two hundred fifty-two youths (7-18 years old) completed child and adult facial expression recognition subtests from the Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy (DANVA) instrument. Forty-two participants had bipolar disorder (BD), 39 had severe mood dysregulation (SMD; i.e., chronic irritability, hyperarousal without manic episodes), 44 had anxiety and/or major depressive disorders (ANX/MDD), 35 had attention-deficit/hyperactivity and/or conduct disorder (ADHD/CD), and 92 were controls. Dependent measures were number of errors labeling happy, angry, sad, or fearful emotions. Results: BD and SMD patients made more errors than ANX/MDD, ADHD/CD, or controls when labeling adult or child emotional expressions. BD and SMD patients did not differ in their emotion-labeling deficits. Conclusions: Face-emotion labeling deficits differentiate BD and SMD patients from patients with ANX/MDD or ADHD/CD and controls. The extent to which such deficits cause vs. result from emotional dysregulation requires further study.

Research paper thumbnail of Neural responses to peer rejection in anxious adolescents: Contributions from the amygdala-hippocampal complex

International Journal of Behavioral Development, 2012

Peer rejection powerfully predicts adolescent anxiety. While cognitive differences influence anxi... more Peer rejection powerfully predicts adolescent anxiety. While cognitive differences influence anxious responses to social feedback, little is known about neural contributions. Twelve anxious and twelve age-, gender-and IQ-matched, psychiatrically healthy adolescents received ''not interested'' and ''interested'' feedback from unknown peers during a chat room task administered in a neuroimaging scanner. No group differences emerged in subjective ratings to peer feedback, but all participants reported more negative emotion at being rejected (than accepted) by peers to whom they had assigned high-desirability ratings. Further highlighting the salience of such feedback, all adolescents, independently of anxiety levels, manifested elevated responses in the amygdala-hippocampal complex bilaterally, during the anticipation of feedback. However, anxious adolescents differed from healthy adolescents in their patterns of persistent amygdala-hippocampal activation following rejection. These data carry interesting implications for using neuroimaging data to inform psychotherapeutic approaches to social anxiety.

Research paper thumbnail of Prevalence, Clinical Correlates, and Longitudinal Course of Severe Mood Dysregulation in Children

Biological Psychiatry, 2006

Background: Controversy concerning the diagnosis of pediatric bipolar disorder (BD) has focused a... more Background: Controversy concerning the diagnosis of pediatric bipolar disorder (BD) has focused attention on children with chronic irritability and hyperarousal. This syndrome has been called the "broad BD phenotype" or severe mood dysregulation (SMD). This study examines prevalence, concurrent Axis I diagnoses, and longitudinal outcome of SMD in an epidemiologic sample. Methods: Data were drawn from the Great Smoky Mountains Study, a longitudinal epidemiological study. Items from the Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Assessment were used to generate SMD criteria. Results: Among 1420 children, the lifetime prevalence of SMD in children ages 9 -19 was 3.3%. Most (67.7%) SMD youth had an Axis I diagnosis, most commonly attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (26.9%), conduct disorder (25.9%), and/or oppositional defiant disorder (24.5%). In young adulthood (mean age , youth who met criteria for SMD in the first wave (mean age 10.6 Ϯ 1.4 years) were significantly more likely to be diagnosed with a depressive disorder (odds ratio 7.2, confidence interval 1.3-38.8, p ϭ .02) than youth who never met criteria for SMD. Conclusions: Severe mood dysregulation is relatively common in childhood and predicts risk for early adulthood depressive disorders. Research should continue to explore the course of illness in children with SMD.

Research paper thumbnail of Amygdala Activation During Emotion Processing of Neutral Faces in Children With Severe Mood Dysregulation Versus ADHD or Bipolar Disorder

American Journal of Psychiatry, 2010

Objective-To understand disorder-unique and common pathophysiology, studies in multiple patient g... more Objective-To understand disorder-unique and common pathophysiology, studies in multiple patient groups with overlapping symptoms are needed. Deficits in emotion processing and hyperarousal symptoms are prominent features of bipolar disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and severe mood dysregulation. The authors compared amygdala response during emotional and nonemotional ratings of neutral faces in youths with these disorders as well as a group of healthy comparison youths.

Research paper thumbnail of Facial Emotion Labeling Deficits in Children and Adolescents at Risk for Bipolar Disorder

American Journal of Psychiatry, 2008

Research paper thumbnail of Parental Diagnoses in Youth With Narrow Phenotype Bipolar Disorder or Severe Mood Dysregulation

American Journal of Psychiatry, 2007

Objective: Controversy exists regarding whether nonepisodic irritability and hyperarousal (severe... more Objective: Controversy exists regarding whether nonepisodic irritability and hyperarousal (severe mood dysregulation) is a phenotype of pediatric bipolar disorder. The authors compared axis I diagnoses in parents of children with narrow phenotype bipolar disorder and parents of youth with severe mood dysregulation.

Research paper thumbnail of Striatal Functional Alteration in Adolescents Characterized by Early Childhood Behavioral Inhibition

Journal of Neuroscience, 2006

The temperamental style of behavioral inhibition has been characterized by exaggerated behavioral... more The temperamental style of behavioral inhibition has been characterized by exaggerated behavioral and neural responses to cues signaling threat. Virtually no work, however, has addressed whether behavioral inhibition may also confer heightened brain activation in response to positively valenced incentives. We used event-related functional MRI (fMRI) and a monetary incentive delay task to examine whether the neural response to incentives is also greater in adolescents characterized as behaviorally inhibited early in life compared with those characterized as non-inhibited. Whereas task performance did not differ between groups, fMRI revealed greater striatal activation to incentives in behaviorally inhibited adolescents than in non-inhibited adolescents. This was regardless of whether the incentive was an anticipated gain or loss. Alteration in neural systems underlying behavior modulated by both negative and positive contingencies may represent a correlate of behavioral inhibition that also underlies vulnerability to various forms of developmental psychopathology.