Overview: Corporal punishment increases the risk of developing anxiety and depression in adolescents, researchers report. In addition, corporal punishment alters brain activity and affects brain development.
sauce: Elsevier
Don’t slap your child. This is a conventional wisdom emerging from decades of research linking corporal punishment to worsening adolescent health and negative behavioral effects, such as an increased risk of anxiety and depression.
New research is now investigating how corporal punishment affects the nervous system and produces those negative effects.
Corporal punishment can be simply defined as “the intentional infliction of physical pain by any means for the purpose of punishment, correction, discipline, instruction, or any other reason”. This violence evokes complex emotional experiences, especially when inflicted by parents.
Researchers, led by Kreshnik Burani (MS) and collaborating with Greg Hajcak (Ph.D.) at Florida State University, wanted to understand the neural underpinnings of the experience and its downstream effects.
This research Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging.
Researchers conducted a longitudinal study of 149 boys and girls aged 11 to 14 in the Tallahassee, Florida area. Participants performed a video game-like task and a money guessing game while continuously recording electroencephalography (EEG), a noninvasive technique for measuring electroencephalographic activity from the scalp.
From the EEG data, researchers determined two scores for each participant. One reflects the neural response to error and the other to reward.
Two years later, participants and their parents completed a series of questionnaires to screen for anxiety and depression and to assess parenting styles.As expected, children who experienced corporal punishment were more likely to develop anxiety and depression. became more viable.
“Our paper first replicates the well-known negative effects of corporal punishment on children’s well-being. We found that corporal punishment was associated with increased anxiety and depressive symptoms in adolescents. However, Our research goes further and shows that corporal punishment can affect brain activity and neurodevelopment.
This was reflected in a greater neural response to error and a blunted response to reward in young people who received corporal punishment.
“Specifically, our paper links corporal punishment to increased neural sensitivity to making mistakes and decreased neural sensitivity to receiving rewards during adolescence.
In previous and ongoing research with Dr. Hajcak, an increased neural response to error is associated with anxiety and anxiety risk, whereas a decreased neural response to reward is associated with depression and depression risk. I understand that you are.
Therefore, corporal punishment alters certain neurodevelopmental pathways, making children more sensitive to their own mistakes and less responsive to rewards and other positive events in the environment, thereby increasing the risk of anxiety and depression. may increase the
Cameron Carter, MD, Editor Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging“Using electroencephalography, this study provides new insights into the mechanisms that may underlie not only the nervous systems that may be affected, but also the adverse effects of corporal punishment on children’s mental health.” increase.”
This study provides new clues about the neural underpinnings of depression and anxiety and may help guide interventions for at-risk youth.
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About this neurodevelopmental research news
author: press office
sauce: Elsevier
contact: Press Office – Elsevier
image: image is public domain
Original research: closed access.
“Corporal Punishment is Uniquely Associated with Increased Neural Responses to Mistakes and Decreased Neural Responses to Adolescent Rewards” by Kreshnik-Brani et al. Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging
Overview
Corporal Punishment is Uniquely Associated with Increased Neural Responses to Mistakes and Decreased Neural Responses to Adolescent Rewards
Background
Corporal punishment is a common form of punishment known to adversely affect health and behavior, but how such punishment affects the neurocognitive system is relatively unknown.
Method
To address this issue, 149 adolescent boys and girls between the ages of 11 and 14 (M.Silvere = 11.02, SDYear = 1.16). Corporal punishment experienced over a lifetime was assessed using the Stress and Adversity Inventory (STRAIN). In addition, participants completed a flanker task and a reward task to measure error-related negative (ERN) and reward positive (RewP), and measures of anxiety and depressive symptoms, respectively.
result
Hypothetically, participants who experienced lifelong corporal punishment reported more anxiety and depressive symptoms. Experiencing corporal punishment was also associated with greater ERN and a slowed her RewP. Importantly, corporal punishment was independently associated with greater ERN and duller RewP beyond the effects of harsh parenting and lifelong stressors.
Conclusion
Corporal punishment appears to increase the neural response to error and decrease the neural response to reward, which may increase the risk of anxiety and depressive symptoms.
