Neural correlates of face familiarity in institutionally reared children with distinctive, atypical social behavior

Although the impact of early adverse experience on neural processing of face familiarity has been studied, research has not taken into account disordered child behavior. This work compared the neural processing of familiar versus strangers' faces in 47 institutionalized children with a mean age of 54 months to determine the effects of (a) the presence versus absence of atypical social behavior and (b) inhibited versus indiscriminant atypical behavior. Results revealed a pattern of cortical hypoactivation in institutionalized children manifesting atypical social behavior and that inhibited children displayed larger neural response to a caregiver's face than to the stranger's, while indiscriminant children did not discriminate between stimuli. These findings suggest that neural correlates of face familiarity are associated with social functioning in institutionalized children.
This research was supported by funding from Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia Grants PTDC/PSI-PCL/101506/2008 and PTDC/PSI-PCL/116897/2010 as well as from Fellowship to PhD SFRH/BD/69840/2010 and SFRH/BD/75985/2011 and Post-doc SFRH/BPD/91440/2012. We would like to acknowledge Santiago Galdo-Alvarez for his helpful work designing the ERP paradigm as well as to Rocio Martinez, Lisandra Fernandes, and Ana Osorio for their support on data analysis. We are very grateful to the students who helped us in data collection and coding. Special thanks go to the children, caregivers, and other institutional staff who participated in the study.