Midlife in the United States (MIDUS 3): Neuroscience Project, 2017-2022

From 2004-2009, an initial follow-up of the original Midlife Development in the United States samples (MIDUS 2) was
conducted with expansion of the protocol to include Neuroscience Project data
collection and a sample of Black Americans from Milwaukee, WI. The MIDUS
Neuroscience Project performed a second follow-up from 2017-2022 of the MIDUS
Main and Milwaukee samples (MIDUS 3) on a subsample of those who completed the
MIDUS 3 Survey and Biomarker Projects.
The goal was to examine indices of brain aging, function, and structure
with a focus on the brain circuitry associated with individual differences in
affective style, and to characterize the peripheral consequences of these
central profiles for biological systems that may be relevant to health. The
primary aims were to: (1) characterize individual differences in emotional
reactivity, recovery, and sustaining processes using corrugator and zygomatic
electromyography and eyeblink startle magnitude, (2) characterize individual
differences in brain morphology and connectivity using structural magnetic
resonance imaging (MRI) and diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) (3) characterize
individual differences in functional activity within the neural circuitry of
emotion using task and resting state fMRI, (4) calculate brain age, and (5)
test the ability of these indices to predict the comprehensive array of health,
wellbeing, cognitive, psychological, social, and life challenge factors
assessed in other MIDUS projects. To probe individual differences in emotional
processes, psychophysiological and fMRI measures of emotional responses to the
presentation of negative, positive, and neutral pictures, and these same
measures during a post-picture period were examined.
Emotion-influenced memory
was assessed at both the psychophysiological and imaging sessions: (1) Free
recall of the presented affective pictures at the end of the
psychophysiological session. (2) Memory and likeability ratings for neutral
faces paired with the affective pictures in the imaging task. Finally, selected
tasks from the CANTAB assessed affective biases and cognitive processes important for emotion
regulation.