The physical maturation of a child’s brain can predict later emotional coping strategies, revealing new ways in which early development shapes mental health. The researchers found that while having a structurally older brain in late childhood was associated with a habit of hiding emotions in early adolescence, symptoms of generalized hyperactivity did not predict this particular behavior. The results of this study were recently published in the journal translational psychiatry.
Human emotional regulation has developed over many years and relies on a combination of lived experience and physical brain growth. Adaptive coping strategies are consistently associated with improved resilience and overall mental health. In contrast, maladaptive strategies, such as constant suppression of outward emotional expression, are often associated with mood disorders and social difficulties.
The ability to regulate emotions is controlled by specific neural networks. Areas associated with emotional control, such as the prefrontal cortex, mature slowly from childhood to adolescence. As these higher-order regions develop, they gain greater control over deep regions of the brain that trigger immediate emotional responses, such as the amygdala.
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is highly heterogeneous and looks different from person to person. However, many people with this condition experience emotional difficulties in addition to the core symptoms of inattention and impulsivity. Some imaging studies suggest that this disorder is characterized by a delay in overall brain maturation.
It has been difficult to establish exactly how physical brain differences map to specific emotional habits over time. First author Kristof Agrez, a researcher at the Hun Len Natural Sciences Research Center in Hungary, and his colleagues wanted to investigate this relationship. They set out to determine whether the gap between a child’s actual chronological age and the apparent physical age of their brain could predict future emotional regulation.
To test this, the researchers used a metric known as brain-predicted age differences. They applied an artificial intelligence program to structural magnetic resonance imaging scans. This particular machine learning program was trained on over 50,000 brain scans to recognize typical age-related patterns in brain structure.
The algorithm reviews new scans and estimates a person’s age based purely on physical brain characteristics. The researchers then subtract the participant’s actual chronological age from the algorithm’s estimated age. A positive number indicates that the brain appears structurally older than the person’s biological age.
The research team analyzed data from the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development Study, a national project in the United States. The final sample included 2,711 children who underwent brain scans and behavioral assessments. Children were 9 or 10 years old at the beginning of data collection.
Three years after the first scan, the children completed a self-report questionnaire assessing their emotion regulation habits. The researchers focused on two different coping strategies. One strategy is cognitive reappraisal, which involves changing the way you think about a stressful situation and reducing its emotional impact. The other is the suppression of expression. This means deliberately hiding the outward manifestations of emotions after they have already flared up.
The results showed that the age difference predicted by the brain accurately predicted subsequent suppression. Specifically, children whose brains looked older than their chronological age at baseline reported higher levels of emotional suppression three years later in early adolescence. However, the physical appearance of the brain did not predict the use of cognitive reappraisal.
In the adult population, an older-looking brain is most often a sign of atypical degeneration and is often associated with cognitive decline and memory disorders. In children and teenagers, the interpretation of brain age is slightly different, as it is heavily influenced by the onset of puberty. Still, an abnormally accelerated developmental trajectory may pose a risk for later mental health problems. This explains why a brain that appears physically mature may be responding to maladaptive rather than healthy coping habits.
This split finding is consistent with physical mechanisms in the brain. Silencing relies on relatively simple neural processes to block outward responses. Cognitive reappraisal requires much more cognitive effort and significantly engages the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex to actively reconstruct the story.
The researchers also examined whether parent-reported symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder predicted these emotional habits. They wanted to know whether behavioral diagnostics offered predictive power beyond physical brain scans. They found that baseline hyperactivity and attention problems did not predict expressive suppression.
In the context of the broader statistical model, behavioral symptoms did not simply track with eventual emotion suppression use. There was no statistically significant relationship between behavioral disorder symptoms and subsequent emotional suppression. This suggests that precocious physical maturation of the brain is a better indicator of this particular coping mechanism.
To ensure the accuracy of the results, the team considered a variety of alternative explanations. They adjusted the mathematical model for variables such as intelligence, behavioral inhibition, pubertal maturation, race, and gender assigned at birth. They also took into account whether the children were taking psychiatric medications, since many common prescription drugs directly alter emotion regulation circuits.
Even after making these adjustments, physical age of the brain remained a consistent predictor of emotional suppression. Chronological age and psychiatric medication use also consistently predicted emotional suppression across different statistical models. Researchers point out that chronological age essentially acts as a proxy for social experience, which greatly influences emotional development.
This study has some limitations regarding sample and tools. To obtain high-quality magnetic resonance imaging scans, participants must lie still. Children who tended to move around frequently during scanning were excluded because movement would blur the final image.
This exclusion of highly mobile children means that the last group may be slightly less representative of children with severe hyperactivity. Additionally, the machine learning tools used to calculate brain age were trained primarily on scans from adults and older adults. Future artificial intelligence models specifically tailored to pediatric populations may yield even more customized results.
Despite these limitations, the study highlights a clear link between childhood brain development and teenage coping skills. Emotional suppression is associated with disorders such as anxiety and depression, so understanding its physical origins may help detect risk early. This project will ultimately validate the concept of calculated brain age as a practical tool in developmental neuroscience.
The study, “Assessing the association between ADHD and brain maturation in late childhood and emotional regulation in early adolescence,” was authored by Kristof Agrez, Pal Vakri, Bela Weiss, Zoltan Vidnjanski, and Nora Bamford.
