Cited by 322Bipolar Disorder and TreatmentAttention Deficit Hyperactivity DisorderChild and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development

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

Open access
Brotman, Melissa A., Rich, Brendan A., Guyer, Amanda E., Lunsford, Jessica R., Horsey, Sarah E., Reising, Michelle M., Thomas, Laura A., Fromm, Stephen J. +3 more·2010·American Journal of Psychiatry

Abstract

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. METHOD: Blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) signal in the amygdala was examined in children with bipolar disorder (N=43), ADHD (N=18), and severe mood dysregulation (N=29) and healthy comparison subjects (N=37). During functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), participants attended to emotional and nonemotional aspects of neutral faces. RESULTS: While rating subjective fear of neutral faces, youths with ADHD demonstrated left amygdala hyperactivity relative to the other three groups, whereas youths with severe mood dysregulation demonstrated hypoactivity. CONCLUSIONS: These findings support the role of unique neural correlates in face-emotion processing among youths with bipolar disorder, ADHD, and severe mood dysregulation.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1176/appi.ajp.2009.09010043

Cites

55 of 55 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Recent functional neuroimaging studies suggest that anomalies within frontolimbic circuits, which are not typically associated with executive functions, may underlie emotional lability in children with ADHD.

    “These studies have consisted of relatively small samples and require replication, but nonetheless, suggest that anomalies within frontolimbic circuits, which are not typically associated with executive functions, may underlie emotional lability in children with ADHD.”

    From Using Stimulants to Treat ADHD-Related Emotional Lability (2014) · cites this paper as [22]

    The Discussion reports amygdala hyperactivity during face-emotion processing in youths with ADHD, supporting an emotion-processing neural anomaly. But the ADHD group was selected to have no significant irritability or other mood symptoms; the paper does not establish that frontolimbic anomalies underlie emotional lability in children with ADHD or contrast those circuits with executive-function circuits. (LLM, conf=0.88)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
  • Larger studies find amygdala hyperactivation in ADHD during both subliminal perception of fearful expressions and while subjects rated their fear of neutral faces, although results are mixed.

    “The larger studies find amygdala hyperactivation in ADHD, during both the subliminal perception of fearful expressions and while subjects rated their fear of neutral faces, although results are mixed (24, 29, 95-98)-Table 2 and Supplemental Material.”
  • Other work has found no significant amygdala reactivity differences between depressed people and several comparison groups, including healthy controls.

    “many other studies have found no significant differences in amygdala reactivity between depressed individuals and various other subgroups, including healthy controls [68-70].”
  • During passive viewing paradigms, patients with bipolar disorder and those with MDD demonstrate hypoactivity in the DLPFC and OFC and hyperactivity in the amygdala and anterior cingulate (subgenual and pregenual), although evidence is less consistent for subcortical regions such as the amygdala and paralimbic regions.

    “During passive viewing paradigms, patients with bipolar disorder and those with MDD demonstrate hypoactivity in the DLPFC and OFC and hyperactivity in the amygdala and anterior cingulate (subgenual and pregenual), although evidence is less consistent for subcortical regions such as the amygdala and paralimbic regions.”

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Brotman, M. A., Rich, B. A., Guyer, A. E., Lunsford, J. R., Horsey, S. E., Reising, M. M., Thomas, L. A., Fromm, S. J., Towbin, K., Pine, D. S., & Leibenluft, E.
Affiliations
National Institutes of Health (US)
Venue
American Journal of Psychiatry
Published
2010-01-01
Volume
167
Issue
1
Pages
61-69
ISSN
  • 0002-953X (ISSN-L)
  • 1535-7228
OpenAlex
W1970796985
Cited by
322
References
55
Citations by year
2026: 5 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 16 · 2022: 13 · 2021: 17 · 2020: 13 · 2019: 20 · 2018: 23 · 2017: 19 · 2016: 27 · 2015: 25 · 2014: 25 · 2013: 37 · 2012: 32
FWCI
14.18
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • American Journal of Psychiatry (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
Funders
  • National Institutes of Health
  • National Institute of Mental Health (Z01MH002778, ZIAMH002786)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Bipolar Disorder and Treatment
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
Keywords
amygdala, emotional processing, neutral faces, severe mood dysregulation, bipolar disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, children and adolescents, amygdala hyperactivity, subjective fear, face perception, hyperarousal, neural correlates of emotion
MeSH terms
Adolescent, Amygdala, Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity, Bipolar Disorder, Child, Emotions, Facial Expression, Fear, Female, Humans, Irritable Mood, Functional Laterality, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Oxygen, Pattern Recognition, Visual, Social Perception, Recognition, Psychology

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review