Biology subjects

Han, Z. R.

Publications and source records attributed to Han, Z. R..

2 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2022

Growth mindset promotes children's working memory performance through cortico-striatal interaction and fronto-parietal activation

Growth mindset--the belief that abilities are malleable through effort--drives motivation, action and achievement. Yet, the underlying mechanisms remain elusive, necessitating a unified framework that integrates cognitive, neural, and developmental processes. Leveraging longitudinal neuroimaging and computational modeling to reveal moment-to-moment decision responses and brain state dynamics during working memory (WM), we show that growth mindset enhances WM development from middle childhood to adolescence via nuanced cortico-striatal network dynamics that balance between brain state flexibility and stability. Behaviorally, children with higher growth mindset exhibited better WM performance both cross-sectionally and longitudinally, attributed to faster evidence accumulation during moment-to-moment information updating, especially under high task demands. Neurally, a higher growth mindset was associated with greater activation of the dorsal striatum, cingulo-opercular (action-mode), and fronto-parietal networks during WM, which further accounted for longitudinal WM improvement and latent evidence accumulation. Such cortico-striatal activation covaried with neurochemical mediators critical for motivation and executive functioning. Analyzing non-stationary network dynamics revealed that growth mindset optimized dynamical organization of cortico-striatal networks, with an activated state highly flexible to support moment-to-moment information updating and a deactivated state remaining stable across blocks to suppress irrelevant information. This suggests a balanced allocation of resources for accumulating evidence while suppressing noise during WM. Together, our findings support a neurocognitive framework in which growth mindset enhances WM development via nuanced orchestration of cortico-striatal networks to enable efficient dynamic computations and foster far-reaching cognitive development.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2022

Medial prefrontal-hippocampal concordance in child-parent dyads underlies children's psychological wellbeing

Family emotional climate is fundamental to childs emotional wellbeing and mental health. Negative family emotional climate may lead to heightened psychopathological symptoms via dysfunctional child-parent interactions. Single-brain paradigms have uncovered changes in brain systems and networks related to negative family environments, but how neurobiological reciprocity between child and parent brains is associated with childrens psychopathological symptoms remains unknown. In study1, we investigated the relationship between family emotional climate and childrens psychopathological symptoms in 395 child-parent dyads. In study2, using a naturalistic movie-watching functional magnetic imaging technique in a subsample of 100 children and parents, we investigate the neurobiological underpinnings of how family emotional climate is associated with childrens psychopathological symptoms through child-parent neural synchrony. Children from negative family emotional climate experienced more severe psychopathological symptoms. We revealed significantly higher inter-subject correlations in the dorsal and ventral portions of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), and greater concordance of activity with widespread brain regions critical for socioemotional skills in child-parent than child-stranger dyads. Critically, negative family emotional climate was associated with decreased inter-subject functional correlation between the ventral mPFC and the hippocampus in child-parent dyads, which further accounted for higher childrens internalizing symptoms especially for anxious and depressed aspects. Family emotional climate might transmit into the brain of parent-child dyads, which may associate with child development outcomes. The present study identified that child-parent vmPFC-hippocampal circuitry is linked to childrens psychopathological symptoms. Our findings suggest a neurobiological mechanism of how negative family emotional climate affects childrens psychopathological symptoms through altered child-parent neural synchrony.

neuroscience↗