Social cognitive and affective neuroscience最新文献

Emotion regulation flexibility (ERF) refers to one's ability to respond flexibly in complex environments. Adaptiveness of ERF has been associated with cognitive flexibility, which can be improved by task-switching training. However, the impact of task-switching training on ERF and its underlying neural mechanisms remains unclear. To address this issue, we examined the effects of training on individuals' adaptiveness of ERF by assessing altered brain network patterns. Two groups of participants completed behavioral experiments and resting-state fMRI before and after training. Behavioral results showed higher adaptiveness scores and network analysis observed a higher number of connectivity edges, in the training group compared to the control group. Moreover, we found decreased connectivity strength within the default mode network (DMN) and increased connectivity strength within the frontoparietal network (FPN) in the training group. Furthermore, the task-switch training also led to decreased DMN-FPN interconnectivity, which was significantly correlated to increased adaptiveness of ERF scores. These findings suggest that the adaptiveness of ERF can be supported by altered patterns with the brain network through task-switch training, especially the increased network segregation between the DMN and FPN.

Variation in prefrontal cortex neuroanatomy has been previously associated with elevated physiological responses to anticipated aversive events. The extent to which such associations extend beyond the specific ecology of treatment-seeking youth from upper-middle socioeconomic backgrounds is unknown. The current study tests the replicability of neuroanatomical correlates of anticipatory responding and the moderating roles of age and anxiety severity in a community sample of Latina girls, a historically underrepresented group exhibiting high levels of untreated anxiety. Forty pre-adolescent Latina girls (MAge = 10.01, s.d. = 1.25, range = 8-12 years) completed a structural magnetic resonance imaging scan. Participants also completed a differential threat and safety learning paradigm, during which skin conductance and subjective fear responding were assessed. Anxiety severity was assessed via the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders. Ventromedial prefrontal cortex thickness was associated with reduced physiological responsivity to anticipated threat. Age- and anxiety-dependent associations emerged between dorsomedial prefrontal cortex thickness and individual differences in subjective fear responding to anticipated threat. This preliminary study extends work on neuroanatomical contributions to physiological threat responsivity to a community sample of Latina youth and highlights potential considerations for early identification efforts in this population when threat neurocircuitry is still developing.

Investigating the neural processing of emotion-related neural circuits underlying emotional facial processing may help in understanding mental disorders. We used two subscales of the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS) to assess the emotional cognitive of 25 healthy participants. A higher score indicates greater difficulty in emotional perception. In addition, participants completed a n-back task during functional magnetic resonance imaging. Psychophysiological interaction analysis was used to explore the functional connectivity (FC) of neural circuits. Next, we used elastic-net regression analysis for feature selection and conducted correlation analysis between the neuroimaging measures and questionnaire scores. Following a 3-fold cross-validation, five neuroimaging measures emerged as significant features. Results of correlation analysis demonstrated that participants with higher TAS scores exhibited increased FC between the amygdala and occipital face area during facial stimulus processing, but decreased connectivity during emotional processing. These findings suggested that individuals with poor emotional recognition exhibited increased connectivity among face-related brain regions during facial processing. However, during emotional processing, decreasing neural synchronization among neural circuits involved in emotional processing affects facial expression processing. These findings suggest potential neural marker related to subjective emotional perception, which may contribute to the diagnosis and treatment of emotional dysregulation in individuals with psychiatric conditions.

Adolescents' experiences with social media are complex and can impact their mental well-being differently. Our study aimed to understand how neurobiological sensitivities may moderate the association between different social media experiences and depressive symptoms. In a multiwave study, 80 adolescents (Mage = 13.06, SD = 0.58) took part in an functional magnetic resonance imaging task designed to gauge the neural responses when viewing accepted and rejected peers within their own social networks (Wave 1). We also collected self-reported measures of positive (digital social connection) and negative (digital pressure) experiences on social media and depressive symptoms (Waves 2 and 3). Our findings revealed that there were no significant associations between digital social connection, digital pressure, and depressive symptoms 1 year later. However, the association between digital social connection and depressive symptoms was moderated by neural responsivity. Specifically, for adolescents with reduced sensitivity to their rejected peers in the ventral striatum, right temporoparietal junction, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex, digital social connection was associated with reduced depressive symptoms 1 year later. These results emphasize the importance of individual differences in how adolescents' brains respond to rejected peers in shaping the impact of online experiences on their mental well-being.

Perceived control is strongly related to mental health and well-being. Specifically, lack of perceived control has been associated with learned helplessness and stress-related disorders, such as depression and anxiety. However, it is unknown whether brain activation to control and its protective effect against stress can predict changes in quality of life. To address this gap, we examined the neural underpinning of controllability in healthy females (N = 40) performing the Value of Control task in an functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner. Quality of life and perceived stress were assessed at baseline and 6-month follow-up. Increased brain activation for control was found within the putamen, insula, thalamus, mid-cingulate, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, motor cortex, and cerebellum. In contrast, increased brain activation for lack of control was found within the posterior cingulate and prefrontal cortices. In an exploratory analysis, an elastic-net algorithm was used to identify brain predictors of quality of life 6 months later. The right putamen's activation to control was selected as the best prospective predictor of improvement in life enjoyment and satisfaction and this association was mediated by changes in perceived stress. Our findings suggest that neural responsiveness to control may have utility as a potential marker of quality of life and resilience to adversity.

Mother-child closeness, a mutually trusting and affectionate bond, is an important factor in shaping positive youth development. However, little is known about the neural pathways through which mother-child closeness are related to brain organization. Utilizing a longitudinal sample primarily from low-income families (N=181; 76% African American youth and 54% female), this study investigated the associations between mother-child closeness at ages 9 and 15 and structural connectivity organization (network integration, robustness, and segregation) at age 15. The assessment of mother-child closeness included perspectives from both mother and child. The results revealed that greater mother-child closeness is linked with increased global efficiency and transitivity, but not modularity. Specifically, both the mother's and child's report of closeness at age 15 predicted network metrics but report at age 9 did not. Our findings suggest that mother-child closeness is associated with neural white matter organization, as adolescents who experienced greater mother-child closeness displayed topological properties indicative of more integrated and robust structural networks.

Despite the growing interest in the non-human animal emotionality, we currently know little about the human brain processing of non-conspecific emotional expressions. Here, we characterized the millisecond-scale temporal dynamics of human brain responses to conspecific human and non-conspecific canine emotional facial expressions. Our results revealed generally similar cortical responses to human and dog facial expressions in the occipital cortex during the first 500 ms, temporal cortex at 100-500 ms and parietal cortex at 150-350 ms from the stimulus onset. Responses to dog faces were pronounced at the latencies in temporal cortices corresponding to the time windows of early posterior negativity (EPN) and late posterior positivity (LPP), suggesting attentional engagement to emotionally salient stimuli. We also utilized support vector machine -based classifiers to discriminate between the brain responses to different images. The subject trait-level empathy correlated with the accuracy of classifying the brain responses of aggressive from happy dog faces, and happy from neutral human faces. This result likely reflects the attentional enhancement provoked by the subjective ecological salience of the stimuli.

Social Facilitation/Inhibition (SFI) refers to how others' presence influences task performance positively or negatively. Our previous study revealed that peer presence modulated saccadic eye movements, a fundamental sensorimotor activity. Pro- and anti-saccades were either facilitated or inhibited depending on trial block complexity (Tricoche et al., 2020). In the present fMRI study, we adapted our paradigm to investigate the neural basis of SFI on saccades. Considering inter- and intra-individual variabilities, we evaluated the shared and distinct neural patterns between social facilitation and inhibition. We predicted an involvement of the saccade-related and attention networks, alongside the Theory-of-Mind (ToM) network, with opposite activity changes between facilitation and inhibition. Results confirmed peer presence modulation in fronto-parietal areas related to saccades and attention, in opposite directions for facilitation and inhibition. Additionally, the ventral attention network was modulated during inhibition. Default mode regions, including ToM areas, were also modulated. Finally, pupil size, often linked to arousal, increased with peers and correlated with dorsal attention regions and anterior insula activities. These results suggest that SFI engages task-specific and domain-general networks, modulated differently based on observed social effect. Attention network seemed to play a central role at both basic (linked to arousal or vigilance) and cognitive control levels.

Pain may initially contribute to the evolution of moral decision-making as it elicits avoidance behavior. The current study aims to support this perspective by conducting a behavioral study to investigate whether pain leads to a self-oriented tendency, and an exploratory electroencephalogram (EEG) study to examine how pain affects moral decision-making. In Experiment 1, 34 participants were recruited and treated with both capsaicin (pain condition) and hand cream (control condition) in separate days. After treatment, they were asked to complete a third-party punishment task. Results showed that pain increased punishment and decreased compensation towards unfair allocations in the task. In Experiment 2, 68 participants with either pain or control treatment participated in an EEG experiment. It revealed that pain enlarged the disparity of late positive potential (LPP) between fair and unfair situations, suggesting that individuals in pain may exert more cognitive effort when facing unfair allocations. Meanwhile pain did not affect the early components P2 and the medial frontal negativity, indicating unaffected attentional or anticipatory responses towards unfairness. It demonstrates that pain can effectively modulate responses to unfairness, manifesting as a self-oriented approach with negative consequences for others. It suggests a potential evolutionary impact of pain on moral decisions.

This study investigated the association between cognitive function and facial emotion recognition (FER) in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) and mild cognitive impairment (PD-MCI). We enrolled 126 participants from Taiwan, including 63 patients with idiopathic PD and 63 matched healthy controls. The PD group was divided into two groups: those with normal cognitive function (PD-NC) and those with MCI (PD-MCI). Participants underwent a modality emotion recognition test and comprehensive cognitive assessment. Our findings reveal that patients with PD-MCI exhibit significantly impaired FER, especially in recognizing "disgust," compared with patients with PD-NC and healthy adults (P = .001). This deficit correlates with executive function, attention, memory, and visuospatial abilities. Attention mediates the relationship between executive function and "disgust" FER. The findings highlight how patients with PD-MCI are specifically challenged when recognizing "disgust" and suggest that cognitive training focusing on cognitive flexibility and attention may improve their FER abilities. This study contributes to our understanding of the nuanced relationship between cognitive dysfunction and FER in patients with PD-MCI, emphasizing the need for targeted interventions.