Brain Development and Girls Delinquency Diana H' Fishbein Transdisciplinary Behavioral Science Progr

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Brain Development and Girls DelinquencyDiana
H. FishbeinTransdisciplinary Behavioral Science
ProgramWork Supported by OJJDP Grant (Zahn,
PI)
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Research on Girls

• Scarce most delinquency studies focus on boys
• Correlates appear to be similar
• Not clear if the risk factors affect girls
  similarly
• Or risk factors may exert a similar influence but
  occur disproportionately
• Interpersonal and familial relationships may more
  profoundly influence girls behavior
• Even less research that accounts for ethnic
  differences between sexes

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Sample Characteristics

• Adjudicated and Clinical Samples
• Concentrated with high risk girls
• Biases and differential referral processes
• Various segments of the CJS will differ due to
  system biases
• Best information for designing treatment
  strategies
• Community samples
• Indicative of general risk and protective factors
• Highlights ways in which different outcomes can
  emerge from similar influences
• Best information for designing prevention
  strategies

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Gender Sensitivity

• Lack of specificity (other than early
  menstruation)
• Differential levels of sensitivity
• underlying biological functions, psychological
  traits and social interpretations of the
  experience moderate outcomes
• Differential rates of exposure to various risk
  factors
• e.g., depression, sexual abuse, CD, ADHD
• Need to account for normative and non-normative
  physical and psychosocial development of each sex
• Need to account for how differences and
  alterations in development ultimately affects
  delinquent outcomes

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Implications of Relevant Research

• Genetic and neurobiological activities mediate
  effects of psychosocial influences on behavioral
  outcomes
• Stress increases risk for poor outcome by
  compromising brain development
• Triggers cross all social boundaries
• Substrates of early high risk behaviors are
  malleable

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Brain Development Prefrontal Cortex

• Delays or dysfunction of PFC cause ECF deficits
• Compromises ability to understand social cues
  during interpersonal interactions
• Leads to misperceptions of threat or hostility in
  conflict situations
• Permits negative affective
• states to dominate
• Leads to impulsive behavior
• Causes inattention
• Associated with insensitivity to
• penalty but heightened
• sensitivity to reward

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Brain Development Emotional Regulation

• Limbic system is regulated by prefrontal cortex
• Delays or dysfunction associated with
• Motivational difficulties
• Emotional instability
• Dysregulated response to
• stress
• Novelty seeking acting out,
• drug abuse, risky behavior

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• Disconnect in Regulatory System may Heighten Risk
  for Conduct Problems
• Regulatory neural circuitry b/t prefrontal cortex
  and limbic system vulnerable to
• Genetic defects
• Substance abuse
• Prenatal Conditions
• Puberty and developmental delays
• Injury
• Metabolic errors
• Stress/adversity

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Chronic stress primes the brain for risk
behaviors and drug abuse
Alters brain function, disengages coping
mechanisms, and compromises ability to execute
rational choices

• Increases the likelihood of psychopathology
  depression, drug abuse violence
• Genetic vulnerabilities affect particular
  behavioral outcomes of stress
• Positive attributes of individual or environment
  are protective.

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The Adolescent Brain

• Particularly vulnerable to environmental inputs,
  including stress and drug effects
• Effects are longstanding
• Prefrontal cortex not fully developed until early
  adulthood
• Unique stage of change in metabolism, pruning,
  and increased efficiency in prefrontal function
• Emotional centers (limbic) without checks and
  balances
• Greater sensitivity to rewards, less inhibition
• Seek altered states of consciousness

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Fundamental Imbalance in Puberty

• Rapid physical, endocrine, and social changes
  that create early affective motivations and
  challenges
• Gradual, later development of affect regulation
  and maturation of cognitive/self-control skills

• Cognitive Capacity
• Planning logic reasoning, inhibitory control
  problem-solving skills capacity for
  understanding long-term consequences of behavior

Emotional Capacity Pubertal drives and emotions
sensation seeking risk taking sensitivity to
rewards, low self control
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Girls Differ in Behavioral Outcomes of Stress
Effects on the Brain

• Differentially sensitive to stressors,
  particularly familial
• Greater incidence of sexual abuse, dysfunctional
  familial relationships, maltreatment and other
  stressors among antisocial females relative to
  males
• Proneness to psychological and psychiatric
  illnesses e.g., depression and anxiety
• Differences in development of amygdala and
  hippocampus heighten stress sensitivity
• Adrenal gland sensitivity negatively alters mood
• Estrogen amplifies stress responses, increasing
  mood disturbances
• Perception of greater stress than males

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Girls Advantages

• Earlier development of prefrontal cortex less
  acting out behaviors
• Advanced language and verbal skills
• Advanced social cognitive functions
• More effective processing of social and emotional
  cues
• Female hormones protect against neurocognitive
  damage from stress
• Tend and Befriend, rather than Fight and
  Flight due to hormonal differences

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ADHD and Conduct Disorders

• Developmental delays Males outnumber females by
  a 31 ratio
• Community Samples girls with ADHD less
  symptomatic and less impaired
• Clinical and JJ samples girls with ADHD more
  impaired, have lower IQ, greater inattention and
  lower self esteem
• Boys more hyperactive, girls more inattentive and
  less externalizing
• Presence of CD substantially compounds outcome
  severity and early onset more similar to boys
• Boys more prone to both in response to stress
  than girls
• ADHD more persistent in girls
• Family violence is related to ADHD in girls and
  predicts psychological and cognitive deficits

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Basic Intelligence

• Both boys and girls with lower IQs tend to be
  more delinquent
• Other factors that affect the link between IQ and
  delinquency
• Low Self esteem
• Poor School attitudes and performance
• Poor reaction of school staff towards girls
  (perceived)
• Negative family influences
• Deficits in abstract thinking interact with early
  pubertal maturation to increase risk for
  delinquency

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Cognitive and Emotional Regulatory Deficits

• Hot and Cool Cognition
• Cool strictly cognitive processing of abstract
  and decontextualizing problems
• Hot regulation of affect and motivation in
  performing a task or solving a problem
• Prefrontal-Limbic Circuitry develops in early
  adulthood
• Girls develop this circuitry later than boys due
  to female hormones
• Girls have larger and more active PFC so can
  suppress externalizing behaviors but not
  internalizing

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Early Pubertal Maturation

• Both biologically and socially challenging
• Disconnect between brain and body readiness
• Early hormone release increases neural excitation
• Stress profoundly influences early puberty
• Absence of biological father and familial
  instability
• Strongly related to disruptive behavior
  disorders, antisocial personality traits, and
  delinquency
• Affiliation with older boys
• Exposure to intimate partner violence
• More often sexually abused in the home
• Good parenting may mitigate negative effects
• Intimately interacts with psychological disorders

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Mental Health Issues

• Greater incidence of internalizing disorders
• Less related to delinquency than externalizing
  disorders
• Depression and anxiety more prevalent in JJ girls
• Also more CD, ODD and SA than in community
• Over ¾ in JJ system with one or more disorders
• Predominantly untreated
• Rates of depression similar b/t sexes until
  puberty
• Co-occurring ECF emotional regulation deficits
• Relationship with early puberty
• Triggered by stress e.g., higher rates of PTSD
• Strong familial attachments may be protective

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Remaining Research Questions

• What are the neural substrates of relevant forms
  of psychopathology in girls?
• Understanding substrates provide mechanistic
  account of how interventions mediate their
  effects
• How might manipulations of the environment
  improve brain function and development?
• How can we use their advantages to increase
  resiliency (e.g. talkative, less acting out, and
  read social cues better)?
• What are the critical stages of development
  during which psychosocial conditions (e.g.,
  stress) differentially exerts its effects on
  girls relative to boys?
• Can understanding brain-environment interactions
  help design interventions that impact at critical
  points in the developmental trajectory to alter
  risk status for girls?

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Coauthors

• Shari Miller-Johnson
• Duke University
• Donna Marie Winn
• Center for Child and Family Policy
• Gayle Dakof
• University of Miami