The Impact Of Care Arrangement On The Development Of White Matter And Emotional Cognition Among AIDS Orphans

AIDS orphans had experienced a variety of childhood negative events and had to face multiple survival challenges.Care arrangement is an important manifestation of the welfare of disadvantaged children in our country,and it has an important impact on the physical and mental health and social adaptation of AIDS orphans.Meanwhile,childhood and adolescence is an important stage for the development of individual brain white matter,and a critical period for the development of emotional cognitive function as well.However,the majority of existing researches on AIDS orphans in China focus on resettlement assistance,medical security,education and psychological resilience,etc.There is a lack of brain imaging research regarding the impact of care arrangement on the emotional and cognitive development of AIDS orphans.The current study used diffusion tensor imaging(DTI)technology and included scale measurement and behavioral experiments to investigate the effect of two main care arrangements(institutional centralized rearing and kinship decentralized care)on white matter development and emotional cognitive development of AIDS orphans.The research consists of two studies: from the perspective of fiber microstructure,to explore the influence of care arrangement on the integrity of white matter microstructure in AIDS orphans,as well as the correlation between white matter microstructure integrity and emotional cognition(study 1);at the large-scale brain network level,to explore the influence of care arrangement on the properties of white matter network in AIDS orphans,and the correlation between white matter network properties and emotional cognition(Study 2).The conclusions of the study are as follows:(1)The white matter micro structural integrity indicators of some projection fibers,liaison fibers and associative fibers of the AIDS orphans raised in orphanage were relatively poorer.(2)Impairment of white matter fiber integrity in AIDS orphans raised in orphanages was related to their poorer emotional cognition ability.(3)The overall integration and balance of the white matter network of the AIDS orphans in the orphanage was insufficient.Meanwhile,multiple nodes in the prefrontal joint area,the limbic joint area and the parietal-temporal-occipital joint area showed abnormal brain connection.(4)The poorer emotional cognition of orphanage-raised AIDS orphans also corresponded to the insufficient connection efficiency of some nodes in the frontal lobe,temporal lobe and limbic system.To sum up,compared with decentralized kinship care,institutional centralized rearing may lead to abnormal white matter development related to the inhibitory control of emotional information and the regulation of emotional responses,which in turn leads to worse emotional cognitive performance.