Social cognitive and affective neuroscience最新文献

Health messages are core building blocks of public health efforts. Neuroscientific measures offer insights into how target audiences receive health messages. To move towards real-world applications, however, challenges regarding costs, lab restraints, and slow data acquisition need to be addressed. Using portable electroencephalography (EEG) and inter-subject correlation (ISC) analysis as measure of message strength, we ask whether these challenges can be met. Portable EEG was recorded while participants viewed strong and weak video health messages against risky alcohol use. Participants viewed the messages either individually or in a focus group-like setting with six participants simultaneously. For both viewing conditions, three correlated components were extracted. The topographies of these components showed a high spatial correlation with previous high-density EEG results. Moreover, ISC was strongly enhanced when viewing strong as compared to weak health messages in both the group and individual viewing conditions. The findings suggest that ISC analysis shows sensitivity to message strength, even in a group setting using low-density portable EEG. Measuring brain responses to messages in group settings is more efficient and scalable beyond the laboratory. Overall, these results support a translational perspective for the use of neuroscientific measures in health message development.

Theory of mind (ToM), the ability to interpret others' behaviors in terms of mental states, has been extensively studied through the False-Belief Task (FBT). However, limited research exists regarding the distinction between different phases of FBT, suggesting that they are subserved by separate neural mechanisms. Further inquiry into this matter seems crucial for deepening our knowledge of the neurocognitive basis of mental-state processing. Therefore, we employed functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to examine neural responses and functional connectivity within the core network for ToM across phases of the FBT, which was administered to 61 healthy adults during scanning. The region-of-interest analysis revealed heightened responses of the temporoparietal junction (TPJ) during and increased activation of medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) during the outcome phase. Negative connectivity between these regions was observed during belief-formation. Unlike the TPJ, mPFC responded similarly to conditions that require belief reasoning and to control conditions that do not entail tracking mental states. Our results indicate a functional dissociation within the core network for ToM. While the TPJ is possibly engaged in coding beliefs, the mPFC shows no such specificity. These findings advance our understanding of the unique roles of the TPJ and mPFC in mental-state processing.

Research on the neuropathological mechanisms underlying minor depression (MD), particularly in individuals with a history of recurrent minor depressive episodes, is very limited. This study focuses on the abnormality in processing real-life emotional stimuli among individuals with MD. Thirty-two individuals with MD and 31 normal controls (NC) were recruited and underwent comprehensive clinical interview, cognitive assessment, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans. During functional MRI scanning, subjects watched positive, negative, and neutral emotional movie clips. We used the inter-subject correlation and inter-subject functional connectivity analysis to investigate the neural differentiation between MD and NC during film viewing. The relationships between neural differentiation, symptom severity, and psychological resilience were analysed. We found that neural differentiations between individuals with MD and NC in the post cingulate cortex (PCC) and precuneus (PCUN) were consistent across three emotional conditions. Notably, the similarity of neural responses in the PCC and PCUN with NC but not MD was negatively correlated with depressive symptoms. Furthermore, this neural similarity mediated the relationship between psychological resilience and depression severity. Our findings support that the PCC and PCUN, two core areas of the default mode network, play a critical role in MD's emotion processing deficit.

Joint actions are defined as coordinated interactions of two or more agents toward a shared goal, often requiring different and complementary individual contributions. However, how humans can successfully act together without the interfering effects of observing incongruent movements is still largely unknown. It has been proposed that interpersonal predictive processes are at play to allow the formation of a Dyadic Motor Plan, encompassing both agents' shares. Yet, direct empirical support for such an integrated motor plan is still limited. In this study, we aimed at testing the properties of these anticipated representations. We collected electroencephalography data while human participants (N = 36; 27 females) drew shapes simultaneously to a virtual partner, in two social contexts: either they had to synchronize and act jointly or they performed the movements alongside, but independently. We adopted a multivariate approach to show that the social context influenced how the upcoming action of the partner is anticipated during the interval preceding the movement. We found evidence that acting jointly induces an encoding of the partner's action that is strongly intertwined with the participant's action, supporting the hypothesis of an integrative motor plan in joint but not in parallel actions.

Parental emotion expression has been linked to adolescent emotional and psychopathology development. However, neural responses to parental emotion are not well characterized. The present study examined associations between adolescents' neural responses to parent emotion and adolescents' emotion regulation (ER) difficulties, depressive and anxiety symptoms, and substance use (SU). One hundred seventy-five 12- to 14-year-olds and their parent(s) participated in the study. In a lab session, families completed a parent-adolescent interaction task. In an MRI session, adolescents viewed videos of their own parents and unfamiliar parents expressing positive, negative, and neutral emotions from the interaction task. Higher salience region responses to own parent negative emotion (versus neutral) in ventral anterior cingulate cortex (vACC), anterior insula (AI), and nucleus accumbens (NAc) were associated with adolescent ER difficulties and depressive and anxiety symptoms. Higher vACC and AI responses to parent positive emotion (versus neutral) were associated with anxiety symptoms only. Higher salience region responses to own parent negative emotion (versus other parent negative) were associated with ER difficulties. Responses to own parent positive emotion (versus other parent positive) were associated with ER and anxiety symptoms for boys. Findings suggest that adolescents' salience system sensitivity to parental emotion may be important in the development of ER and internalizing symptoms.

Maladaptive forms of guilt, such as excessive self-blame, are common characteristics of anxiety and depressive disorders. The underlying network consists of multiple associative areas, including the superior anterior temporal lobe (sATL), underlying the conceptual representations of social meaning, and fronto-subcortical areas involved in the affective dimension of guilt. Nevertheless, despite understanding the circuitry's anatomy, network-level changes related to subclinical anxiety and self-blaming behaviour have not been depicted. To fill this gap, we used graph theory analyses on a resting-state functional and diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging dataset of 78 healthy adults (20 females, 20-35 years old). Within the guilt network, we found increased functional contributions of the left sATL for individuals with higher self-blaming, while functional isolation of the left pars opercularis and insula was related to higher trait anxiety. Trait anxiety was also linked to the structural network's mean clustering coefficient, with the circuitry's architecture favouring increased local information processing in individuals with increased anxiety levels, however, only when a highly specific subset of connections was considered. Previous research suggests that aberrant interactions between conceptual (sATL) and affective (fronto-limbic) regions underlie maladaptive guilt, and the current results align and expand on this theory by detailing network changes associated with self-blame and trait anxiety.

Precommitment shows promise in reducing decision-making impulsivity; however, it may be invalidated, leading to self-control failures. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the effectiveness of revocable precommitment in promoting commitment and reducing decision-making impulsivity through two studies. Experiment 1 used event-related potentials to explore whether revocable precommitment was beneficial to make individuals more inclined to commit. Experiment 2 explored the effectiveness of revocable precommitment in reducing decision-making impulsivity. The results showed that (i) compared with the precommitment condition, there is a higher proportion of precommitment selection under the revocable precommitment condition. Besides, in short delay time condition, the proportion of individuals choosing precommitment is higher than that of the other two conditions. Additionally, the average amplitudes of N1 and P300 in the revocable precommitment condition are significantly lower than those in the precommitment condition. (ii) There is a higher proportion of choosing larger-later (LL) options in the revocable precommitment condition compared with the other conditions. Moreover, the proportion of choosing LL options in short-term conditions is higher than that in medium-term conditions, which is higher than that in long-term conditions. Our findings indicated the efficiency of revocable precommitment in reducing decision-making impulsivity.

Prior research has established that testosterone is an important modulator of social decision-making. However, evidence on the relationship between basal testosterone levels, commonly measured in saliva or blood, and social behavior has been inconsistent due to methodological shortcomings. Additionally, it has been suggested that cortisol might moderate the association between basal testosterone and social behavior. The present study examined how individual differences in cumulative hair testosterone map onto social decision-making under consideration of a potential modulating role of hair cortisol in a large community sample of young adults (N = 1002). We observed a negative association between hair testosterone and trust behavior (odds ratio = 0.84) and a positive association with self-reported aggressive behavior (β = 0.08). The effects were small and became nonsignificant after controlling for key covariates of steroid hormones in hair (e.g. hair color, contraceptives, and use of psychoactive substances). Hair testosterone levels were not significantly associated with any other social behavior examined, and no modulating effects of hair cortisol were found. Overall, these findings provide no evidence for a role of basal testosterone hair concentrations in human social decision-making and do not indicate that hair cortisol moderates hair testosterone's effects on social behavior.

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 remain 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.

Facial expressions convey important social information and can initiate behavioral change through the processing and understanding of emotions. However, while this ability is known to evolve throughout development, it remains unclear whether this ability differs between girls and boys or how other variables such as level of anxiety can modulate it. Furthermore, understanding the underlying neural mechanisms of facial expression processing and how they are linked by sex and anxiety during development is essential, as alterations in this processing have been associated with psychiatric disorders. Herein, 191 typically developing youth (6- to 15-years old) completed an implicit face processing task involving three facial expressions (angry, happy, and neutral) during functional magnetic resonance imaging. We conducted linear models on the fMRI data to investigate the impact sex and anxiety on brain responses to emotional faces, accounting for age. Our findings indicated a significant anxiety-by-sex interaction in a posterior network covering bilateral visual and medial temporal cortices during the happy > neutral contrast. Specifically, girls with higher anxiety showed weaker activation while boys showed the opposite pattern. These findings suggest that the inter-subject variability reported in typically developing individuals in response to facial emotions may be related to many factors, including sex and anxiety level.