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Mai Uchida

Possible papers associated with this exact author name in Arrow. This page groups case-insensitive exact name matches and is not a full identity disambiguation profile.

2 papers

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YNICL Journal 2020 Journal Article

Cingulum-Callosal white-matter microstructure associated with emotional dysregulation in children: A diffusion tensor imaging study

Yuwen Hung
Mai Uchida
Schuyler L. Gaillard
Hilary Woodworth
Caroline Kelberman
James Capella
Kelly Kadlec
Mathias Goncalves

Emotional dysregulation symptoms in youth frequently predispose individuals to increased risk for mood disorders and other mental health difficulties. These symptoms are also known as a behavioral risk marker in predicting pediatric mood disorders. The underlying neural mechanism of emotional dysregulation, however, remains unclear. This study used the diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) technique to identify anatomically specific variation in white-matter microstructure that is associated with pediatric emotional dysregulation severity. Thirty-two children (mean age 9.53 years) with varying levels of emotional dysregulation symptoms were recruited by the Massachusetts General Hospital and underwent the DTI scans at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Emotional dysregulation severity was measured by the empirically-derived Child Behavior Checklist Emotional Dysregulation Profile that includes the Attention, Aggression, and Anxiety/Depression subscales. Whole-brain voxel-wise regression tests revealed significantly increased radial diffusivity (RD) and decreased fractional anisotropy (FA) in the cingulum-callosal regions linked to greater emotional dysregulation in the children. The results suggest that microstructural differences in cingulum-callosal white-matter pathways may manifest as a neurodevelopmental vulnerability for pediatric mood disorders as implicated in the clinical phenotype of pediatric emotional dysregulation. These findings may offer clinically and biologically relevant neural targets for early identification and prevention efforts for pediatric mood disorders.

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YNICL Journal 2015 Journal Article

Functional and structural brain correlates of risk for major depression in children with familial depression

Xiaoqian J. Chai
Dina Hirshfeld-Becker
Joseph Biederman
Mai Uchida
Oliver Doehrmann
Julia A. Leonard
John Salvatore
Tara Kenworthy

Despite growing evidence for atypical amygdala function and structure in major depression, it remains uncertain as to whether these brain differences reflect the clinical state of depression or neurobiological traits that predispose individuals to major depression. We examined function and structure of the amygdala and associated areas in a group of unaffected children of depressed parents (at-risk group) and a group of children of parents without a history of major depression (control group). Compared to the control group, the at-risk group showed increased activation to fearful relative to neutral facial expressions in the amygdala and multiple cortical regions, and decreased activation to happy relative to neutral facial expressions in the anterior cingulate cortex and supramarginal gyrus. At-risk children also exhibited reduced amygdala volume. The extensive hyperactivation to negative facial expressions and hypoactivation to positive facial expressions in at-risk children are consistent with behavioral evidence that risk for major depression involves a bias to attend to negative information. These functional and structural brain differences between at-risk children and controls suggest that there are trait neurobiological underpinnings of risk for major depression.

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