FV6. Intention attribution and neural processing of laughter in female and male adolescents with conduct disorder

Abstract

Introduction Children and adolescents with aggressive behavior tendencies show difficulties in correctly determining the social intention of others, tending to interpret the behavior of others as being intentionally hostile. Previously, we have shown distinct neural correlates of attributing hostile intent with increasing aggression scores within a community sample of adolescents. The aim of the current study was to investigate these neural processes among adolescents with a diagnosis of conduct disorder (CD) compared to a healthy control group (CG), while considering gender by diagnosis interactions. Methods 47 adolescents with CD (M 14.2, SD 2.01) and 65 adolescents without any psychiatric diagnoses (M 15.1, SD 2.41) rated 1.5 s audiovisual laugh sequences in a 3T MRI scanner. 20 friendly, 20 tickling and 20 taunting sequences were rated as friendly or taunting on a four-point scale. Rating differences were calculated with a 2 (gender) × 2 (group: CD vs CG) × 3 (laughter type) mixed model ANOVA. Neural responses were calculated in SPM8 in a whole brain analysis of the BOLD response to each laughter type and the correlation with hostile ratings of laughter intention. Results Overall, CD rated laughter as more hostile than CG (F(2, 107) = 5.940, p . 05 ), yet a significant laughter type × group interaction (F(2, 107) = 5.944, p . 001 ) showed this to be driven by friendly laughter. In neural response, CD > CG showed increased activation in the right inferior parietal lobe (IPL; x = 57, y = −51, z = 42; k = 313; Tpeak = 4.97; pFWE females showed increased activation in medial prefrontal (mPFC), extending into dorsal anterior cingulate cortices (dACC) (x = −6, y = 54, z = 9; k = 317; Tpeak = 4.59; pFWE Conclusions The current findings show deviant processing of social signals among adolescents with conduct disorder. CD participants showed heightened activation in early auditory processing regions (MTG) as well as more hostile ratings of friendly laughter. These results partially replicate previous findings in a population-based sample, emphasizing the importance of early sensory processing during social intention attribution in aggressive participants. Males showed increased activation of the areas implicated in both the mentalizing and social pain networks, mPFC and dACC, during intention attribution of taunting laughter. This unexpected result speaks for heightened emotional processing in males in response to signals of social exclusion.