Emotion process deficits in children with ODD and their associations with different dimensions of ODD symptoms: A fNIRS study

Affective symptoms and behavioral symptoms are two important dimensions of Oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) symptoms. These two dimensions of symptoms are closely associated with emotion process deficits in children with ODD. This study utilized functional Near-infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) to investigate the brain activation during the emotion process in children with ODD and its relationship with ODD symptoms. A total of 72 participants, comprising of 35 children with ODD and 37 typically developing (TD) children were recruited to perform experiment tasks of emotion recognition (ERC) and emotion regulation (ERG). Their brain activation in the prefrontal lobes and behavioral responses were recorded and analyzed. Significant brain activation was observed in the right MFG, right SFGdor and the bilateral SFGmed for ERC, and the right SFGdor for ERG among the TD children, but not among the children with ODD. Meanwhile, no significant difference was observed in behavioral outcomes between TD and ODD. Path analysis results showed that ERC neural deficits (SFGmed) predicted affective symptoms, while ERG neural deficits (SFGdor) predicted behavioral symptoms. These findings elucidate the distinct influence pathways of different emotion process deficits. A potential dual-processing framework was proposed to understand the characteristics and role of emotion process deficits in ODD.