Tag: Tyson Barker

Observing Responsive Caregiving and Action Monitoring (ORCA)

Presenter(s): Nisha Sridhar

Co Presenter(s): Camille Sullivan

Faculty Mentor(s): Tyson Barker

Poster 114

Session: Social Sciences & Humanities

Although parenting is a naturally rewarding activity, excess stressors such as food and housing insecurity impact a caregiver’s interactions with their children. Existing literature suggests that a caregiver’s reaction to their child’s social-communicative signals — known as responsive caregiving — is a strong predictor of positive child outcomes; however, the degree to which each parent engages in this practice varies greatly. Thus, to maximize responsive caregiving and consequently support child development, it is important to identify the mechanisms by which stress impacts parenting. Our goal is to determine the presence of a neurobiological indicator of caregiver reward that can provide insight on how stress impacts responsive caregiving, which would provide a quantitative way to measure the effectiveness of parenting interventions.

To examine these mechanisms, we recruited mothers with children ages 3-6 to observe their children complete simple computer tasks. During the tasks, the mother and child wear electroencephalogram (EEG) caps, which monitors the brain’s electrical activity, measuring observational reward positivity (observational RP) — the extent to which the mother responds positively when the computer rewards her child. While other studies have examined neurobiological components of caregiving via fMRI, the EEG can be operated in a social setting that mimics real-life caregiver-child interactions.

The expected outcome includes the identification of a proposed neurological mechanism that demonstrates the reduction of responsive caregiving as a result of parental stress. With the collected EEG data, survey information, and coded observed interactions, we intend to analyze the extent of the correlation between caregiving reward and observational RP. We additionally intend to examine the correlation between responsive caregiving and observational RP.

Effects of Feedback-Related Negativity on Excecutive Function and Development in Preschoolers

Presenter(s): Dakota Paulus—Biology, Biochemistry Minor

Co-Presenter(s): Nisha Sridhar, Katia Pramono

Faculty Mentor(s): Tyson Barker, Leticia Hayes

Session 5: The Wonders of the Brain

Executive function (EF) is a set of higher-order cognitive skills that support early learning and development . EF is highly influenced by environmental factors such as exposure to stress and social interaction . The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is one of the primary neural regions underlying EF . As the PFC develops during early childhood, the brain begins to lay the groundwork for more complex processing . One neural component that supports EF, feedback-related negativity (FRN), is measurable using electroencephalography (EEG), a device that measures the brain’s electrical activity . FRN is observed following both positive and negative feedback and is generated by the PFC . Although FRN is theorized to represent EF, little is known about the FRN development in early childhood: a period of critical EF development .

We predict that children’s FRN will be positively related to a behavioral measure of EF, which was collected during a previous study . Thus, we propose that FRN will reflect an early neural indicator
of EF . Previous research has used tasks without intermittent reinforcement making it difficult to maintain children’s attention . We will be using the Doors Game, which is a novel feedback-based task providing intermittent random reinforcement to children upon their selection between two doors . This task presents the reward immediately alongside feedback, thus it is more age-appropriate due to its ability to sustain their motivation . As feedback processing serves an important role in early childhood development and may serve as a novel indicator of EF, it is a promising area for research .

Parental Stress Correlate Children’s Cognitive Ability

Presenter(s): Jingjie Lu—Psychology

Faculty Mentor(s): Leticia Hayes, Tyson Barker

Session 6: Cerebal Matters

Early childhood is a critical time period for cognitive development, and children exposed to adverse familial stress may impair child cognitive development . Therefore, my hypothesis is parents with a greater stress index will be correlated to higher levels of oxidative stress biomarker-F2 Isoprostane, and lower levels of executive function and language development in their biological children . The tests administered to assess children’s cognitive ability mainly focus on the domains of executive function and language development . We also collected parent-child urine samples to assess parent- child oxidative stress biomarker (F2 Isoprostane) levels, and administered psychological stress questionnaires to the parent . For this research, parent stress will be analyzed from responses on the Parent Stress Index-IV questionnaire . All scores will be compared between the child participants aged three to six on executive function and language measures (N=103) .