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  • Title: Newborn left amygdala volume associates with attention disengagement from fearful faces at eight months.
    Author: Tuulari JJ, Kataja EL, Leppänen JM, Lewis JD, Nolvi S, Häikiö T, Lehtola SJ, Hashempour N, Saunavaara J, Scheinin NM, Korja R, Karlsson L, Karlsson H.
    Journal: Dev Cogn Neurosci; 2020 Oct; 45():100839. PubMed ID: 32836078.
    Abstract:
    After 5 months of age, infants begin to prioritize attention to fearful over other facial expressions. One key proposition is that amygdala and related early-maturing subcortical network, is important for emergence of this attentional bias - however, empirical data to support these assertions are lacking. In this prospective longitudinal study, we measured amygdala volumes from MR images in 65 healthy neonates at 2-5 weeks of gestation corrected age and attention disengagement from fearful vs. non-fearful facial expressions at 8 months with eye tracking. Overall, infants were less likely to disengage from fearful than happy/neutral faces, demonstrating an age-typical bias for fear. Left, but not right, amygdala volume (corrected for intracranial volume) was positively associated with the likelihood of disengaging attention from fearful faces to a salient lateral distractor (r = .302, p = .014). No association was observed with the disengagement from neutral or happy faces in equivalent conditions (r = .166 and .125, p = .186 and .320, respectively). These results are the first to link the amygdala volume with the emerging perceptual vigilance for fearful faces during infancy. They suggest a link from the prenatally defined variability in the amygdala size to early postnatal emotional and social traits.
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