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Abstract
Children with high resistance to peer influences differ from their low-resistance counterparts in the degree of functional connectivity in fronto-parietal and prefrontal cortical networks. Here we explored the possibility that the degree of morphological similarities across the same cortical regions also varies as a function of this behavioral trait. Using structural magnetic-resonance (MR) images, we measured cortical thickness in a total of 295 adolescents (12 to 18 years of age). We found that inter-regional correlations in cortical thickness increased with the resistance to peer influence (RPI); this was especially the case, in female adolescents, in the premotor and prefrontal networks. We also observed significant differences between the adolescents with high and low RPI scores in their general intelligence and the scores of positive youth development. We suggest that these morphological findings might reflect differences, between adolescents with high vs. low resistance to peer influences, in a repeated and concurrent engagement of these networks in social context.
Acknowledgements
The Saguenay Youth Study project is funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (TP, ZP), Heart and Stroke Foundation of Quebec (ZP), and the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (ZP).
We thank the following individuals for their contributions in designing the protocol, acquiring and analyzing the data: MR team (Dr Michel Bérubé, Sylvie Masson, Suzanne Castonguay, Julien Grandisson, Marie-Josée Morin), cardio nurses (Jessica Blackburn, Mélanie Gagné, Jeannine Landry, Catherine Lavoie, Lisa Pageau, Réjean Savard, France Tremblay, Jacynthe Tremblay), psychometricians (Chantale Belleau, Mélanie Drolet, Catherine Harvey, Stéphane Jean, Hélène Simard, Mélanie Tremblay), ÉCOBES team (Nadine Arbour, Julie Auclair, Marie-Ève Blackburn, Marie-Ève Bouchard, Annie Houde, Catherine Lavoie, Dr Luc Laberge), nutritionists (Caroline Benoit and Henriette Langlais), laboratory technicians (Denise Morin and Nadia Mior), Julie Bérubé, Celine Bourdon, Rosanne Aleong, Dr Jennifer Barrett, Candice Cartier, Dale Einarson, Helena Jelicic, Valerie Legge, and Dr Jean Mathieu.
