Considering anger from a cognitive neuroscience perspective

The goal of this paper is to consider anger from a cognitive neuroscience perspective. Five main claims are made: first, reactive aggression is the ultimate behavioral expression of anger and thus we can begin to understand anger by understanding reactive aggression. Second, neural systems implicated in reactive aggression (amygdala, hypothalamus, and periaqueductal gray; the basic threat system) are critically implicated in anger. Factors such as exposure to extreme threat that increase the responsiveness of these systems, should be (and are in the context of posttraumatic stress disorder), associated with increased anger. Third, regions of frontal cortex implicated in regulating the basic threat system, when dysfunctional (e.g., in the context of lesions) should be associated with increased anger. Fourth, frustration occurs when an individual continues to do an action in the expectation of a reward but does not actually receive that reward, and is associated with anger. Individuals who show impairment in the ability to alter behavioral responding when actions no longer receive their expected rewards should be (and are in the context of psychopathy) associated with increased anger. Fifth, someone not doing what another person wants them to do (particularly if this thwarts the person's goal) is frustrating and consequently anger inducing. The response to such a frustrating social event relies on the neural architecture implicated in changing behavioral responses in nonsocial frustrating situations. WIREs Cogn Sci 2012, 3:65-74. doi: 10.1002/wcs.154 This article is categorized under: Psychology > Brain Function and Dysfunction.

The pathology of social phobia is independent of developmental changes in face processing

OBJECTIVE

While social phobia in adolescence predicts the illness in adulthood, no study has directly compared the neural responses in social phobia in adults and adolescents. The authors examined neural responses to facial expressions in adults and adolescents with social phobia to determine whether the neural correlates of adult social phobia during face processing also manifest in adolescent social phobia.

METHOD

Blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) responses were compared in 39 medication-free participants with social phobia (25 adults and 14 adolescents) and 39 healthy comparison subjects (23 adults and 16 adolescents) matched on age, IQ, and gender. During fMRI scans, participants saw angry, fearful, and neutral expression stimuli while making a gender judgment.

RESULTS

Significant diagnosis-by-emotion interactions were observed within the amygdala and the rostral anterior cingulate cortex, as has previously been hypothesized. In these regions, both the adolescent and adult social phobia patients showed significantly increased BOLD responses relative to their respective age-matched comparison subjects, and there was no evidence of age-related modulation of between-group differences. These enhanced responses occurred specifically when viewing angry (rostral anterior cingulate cortex) and fearful (amygdala and rostral anterior cingulate cortex) expressions but not when viewing neutral expressions. In addition, the severity of social phobia was significantly correlated with the enhanced rostral anterior cingulate cortex response in the adults.

CONCLUSIONS

The neural correlates of adult social phobia during face processing also manifest in adolescents. Neural correlates that are observed in adult social phobia may represent the persistence of profiles established earlier in life rather than adaptive responses to such earlier perturbations or maturational changes. These cross-sectional observations might encourage longitudinal fMRI studies of adolescent social phobia.

Neural correlates of reversal learning in severe mood dysregulation and pediatric bipolar disorder

OBJECTIVE

Outcome and family history data differentiate children with severe mood dysregulation (SMD), a syndrome characterized by chronic irritability, from children with "classic" episodic bipolar disorder (BD). Nevertheless, the presence of cognitive inflexibility in SMD and BD highlights the need to delineate neurophysiologic similarities and differences between the two patient groups. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to examine neural correlates of cognitive flexibility deficits in patients with SMD and BD versus healthy volunteers (HV).

METHOD

During functional magnetic resonance imaging, subjects completed a response reversal task that assessed cognitive flexibility (n = 22 with SMD, 26 with BD, 34 HV). Task effects were examined in four regions of interest: caudate, cingulate gyrus, inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), and ventromedial prefrontal cortex.

RESULTS

Diagnosis-by-accuracy interactions emerged in the caudate and IFG. In these regions, the difference in activation was calculated between incorrect and correct trials. In the caudate, this value was smaller in subjects with SMD and with BD than in HV. In the IFG, however, this value was smaller in subjects with SMD than in those with BD and in HV. Post hoc analyses indicated that comorbid attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in patients may influence the caudate findings. Exploratory whole-brain analysis confirmed the caudate and IFG findings. In addition, other regions differentiating SMD from BD were identified (e.g., superior parietal lobule/precuneus and inferior temporal gyrus).

CONCLUSIONS

In response to errors, similar perturbations occur in the caudate for youth with SMD and BD compared with HV youth. IFG deficits, in contrast, manifest in youth with SMD, but not with BD.

Serotonin transporter genotype (5-HTTLPR) predicts utilitarian moral judgments

Background

The psychological and neurobiological processes underlying moral judgment have been the focus of extensive recent research. Here we show that serotonin transporter (5-HTTLPR) genotype predicts responses to moral dilemmas featuring foreseen harm to an innocent.

Methodology/Principal Findings

Participants in this study judged the acceptability of actions that would unintentionally or intentionally harm an innocent victim in order to save others' lives. An analysis of variance revealed a genotype × scenario interaction, F(2, 63) = 4.52, p = .02. Results showed that, relative to long allele homozygotes (LL), carriers of the short (S) allele showed particular reluctance to endorse utilitarian actions resulting in foreseen harm to an innocent individual. LL genotype participants rated perpetrating unintentional harm as more acceptable (M = 4.98, SEM = 0.20) than did SL genotype participants (M = 4.65, SEM = 0.20) or SS genotype participants (M = 4.29, SEM = 0.30). No group differences in moral judgments were observed in response to scenarios featuring intentional harm.

Conclusions/Significance

The results indicate that inherited variants in a genetic polymorphism that influences serotonin neurotransmission influence utilitarian moral judgments as well. This finding is interpreted in light of evidence that the S allele is associated with elevated emotional responsiveness.

Unpacking the association: Individual differences in the relation of prenatal exposure to cigarettes and disruptive behavior phenotypes

Prenatal exposure to cigarettes has been robustly associated with disruptive behavior in diverse samples and across developmental periods. In this paper we aim to elucidate exposure related behavioral phenotypes and developmental pathways by testing: (a) differential associations of exposure and four disruptive behavior dimensional phenotypes: Aggression, Noncompliance, Temper Loss and Low Concern for Others; and (b) moderation of these pathways including sex differences and moderation by parental responsive engagement. Participants were 211 teens and their parents from the East Boston Family Study (EBFS), an adolescent follow-up of a pregnancy cohort over-sampled for exposure. A best estimate serum cotinine corrected score was used to characterize exposure. In multivariate models controlling for parental antisocial behavior, family adversity and secondhand exposure, exposure uniquely predicted Aggression and Noncompliance. Paternal responsiveness moderated exposure effects on disruptive behavior. There were no sex differences in these patterns. Phenotypic findings suggest the possibility of specific neural mechanisms. In conjunction with prior research, protective effects of parental responsiveness occurring as late as adolescence point to the potential benefit of parenting-based prevention efforts to reduce risk to exposed offspring.

Disrupted reinforcement signaling in the orbitofrontal cortex and caudate in youths with conduct disorder or oppositional defiant disorder and a high level of psychopathic traits

OBJECTIVE

Dysfunction in the amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex has been reported in youths and adults with psychopathic traits. The specific nature of the functional irregularities within these structures remains poorly understood. The authors used a passive avoidance task to examine the responsiveness of these systems to early stimulus-reinforcement exposure, when prediction errors are greatest and learning maximized, and to reward in youths with psychopathic traits and comparison youths.

METHOD

While performing the passive avoidance learning task, 15 youths with conduct disorder or oppositional defiant disorder plus a high level of psychopathic traits and 15 healthy subjects completed a 3.0-T fMRI scan.

RESULTS

Relative to the comparison youths, the youths with a disruptive behavior disorder plus psychopathic traits showed less orbitofrontal responsiveness both to early stimulus-reinforcement exposure and to rewards, as well as less caudate response to early stimulus-reinforcement exposure. There were no group differences in amygdala responsiveness to these two task measures, but amygdala responsiveness throughout the task was lower in the youths with psychopathic traits.

CONCLUSIONS

Compromised sensitivity to early reinforcement information in the orbitofrontal cortex and caudate and to reward outcome information in the orbitofrontal cortex of youths with conduct disorder or oppositional defiant disorder plus psychopathic traits suggests that the integrated functioning of the amygdala, caudate, and orbitofrontal cortex may be disrupted. This provides a functional neural basis for why such youths are more likely to repeat disadvantageous decisions. New treatment possibilities are raised, as pharmacologic modulations of serotonin and dopamine can affect this form of learning.

The neural substrates of action identification

Mentalization is the process by which an observer views a target as possessing higher cognitive faculties such as goals, intentions and desires. Mentalization can be assessed using action identification paradigms, in which observers choose mentalistic (goals-focused) or mechanistic (action-focused) descriptions of targets' actions. Neural structures that play key roles in inferring goals and intentions from others' observed or imagined actions include temporo-parietal junction, ventral premotor cortex and extrastriate body area. We hypothesized that these regions play a role in action identification as well. Data collected using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) confirmed our predictions that activity in ventral premotor cortex and middle temporal gyrus near the extrastriate body area varies both as a function of the valence of the target and the extent to which actions are identified as goal-directed. In addition, the inferior parietal lobule is preferentially engaged when participants identify the actions of mentalized targets. Functional connectivity analyses suggest support from other regions, including the medial prefrontal cortex and amygdala, during mentalization. We found correlations between action identification and Autism Quotient scores, suggesting that understanding the neural correlates of action identification may enhance our understanding of the underpinnings of essential social cognitive processes.

Author response - Reactive aggression and functional, not neural, specificity

This article is an author response to Harenski and Kiehl's (2010) commentary on Blair (2010).

Deficits in attention to emotional stimuli distinguish youth with severe mood dysregulation from youth with bipolar disorder

Studying attention in the context of emotional stimuli may aid in differentiating pediatric bipolar disorder (BD) from severe mood dysregulation (SMD). SMD is characterized by chronic irritability, arousal, and hyper-reactivity; SMD youth frequently receive a BD diagnosis although they do not meet DSM-IV criteria for BD because they lack manic episodes. We compared 57 BD (14.4 +/- 2.9 years old, 56% male), 41 SMD (12.6 +/- 2.6 years old, 66% male), and 33 control subjects (13.7 +/- 2.5 years old, 52% male) using the Emotional Interrupt task, which examines how attention is impacted by positive, negative, or neutral distracters. We compared reaction time (RT) and accuracy and calculated attention interference scores by subtracting performance on neutral trials from emotional trials. Between-group analyses indicated that SMD subjects had significantly reduced attention interference from emotional distracters relative to BD and control subjects. Thus, attention in SMD youth was not modulated by emotional stimuli. This blunted response in SMD youth may contribute to their affective and behavioral dysregulation.

Larger than life: humans' nonverbal status cues alter perceived size

BACKGROUND

Social dominance and physical size are closely linked. Nonverbal dominance displays in many non-human species are known to increase the displayer's apparent size. Humans also employ a variety of nonverbal cues that increase apparent status, but it is not yet known whether these cues function via a similar mechanism: by increasing the displayer's apparent size.

METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDING

We generated stimuli in which actors displayed high status, neutral, or low status cues that were drawn from the findings of a recent meta-analysis. We then conducted four studies that indicated that nonverbal cues that increase apparent status do so by increasing the perceived size of the displayer. Experiment 1 demonstrated that nonverbal status cues affect perceivers' judgments of physical size. The results of Experiment 2 showed that altering simple perceptual cues can affect judgments of both size and perceived status. Experiment 3 used objective measurements to demonstrate that status cues change targets' apparent size in the two-dimensional plane visible to a perceiver, and Experiment 4 showed that changes in perceived size mediate changes in perceived status, and that the cue most associated with this phenomenon is postural openness.

CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE

We conclude that nonverbal cues associated with social dominance also affect the perceived size of the displayer. This suggests that certain nonverbal dominance cues in humans may function as they do in other species: by creating the appearance of changes in physical size.

Dominance and submission: the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and responses to status cues

Status hierarchies constitute a fundamental organizing principle of human society. However, little is known about the neural systems that process nonverbal cues that indicate status. Preliminary neuropsychological work has suggested a role for the ventrolateral and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VLPFC/VMPFC) and the superior temporal cortex (STC). We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to delineate the nature of these roles. Analyses revealed signal changes in the right VLPFC in connection with two primary functions attributed to status cues. Status cues moderate behavior and the right VLPFC showed increased signal for high-status relative to neutral and low-status cues. The VLPFC also showed increased signal for high-status cues displayed by individuals of the opposite gender to the perceiver; this may be relevant to the role status cues play in moderating mate choice behavior. Connectivity results indicated significant positive connectivity between the VLPFC and both the VMPFC and the STC. We suggest that the VLPFC retrieves information from these regions when processing hierarchy cues to facilitate socially adaptive behavior.

Psychopathy, attention and emotion

Psychopathy is a developmental disorder marked by emotional hypo-responsiveness and an increased risk for antisocial behavior. Influential attention-based accounts of psychopathy have long been made; however, these accounts have made relatively little reference to general models of attention in healthy individuals. This review has three aims: (1) to summarize current cognitive neuroscience data on differing attentional systems; (2) to examine the functional integrity of these attentional systems in individuals with psychopathy; and (3) to consider the implications of these data for attention and emotion dysfunction accounts of psychopathy.

Amygdala and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex function during anticipated peer evaluation in pediatric social anxiety

CONTEXT

Amygdala and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC) dysfunction manifests in adolescents with anxiety disorders when they view negatively valenced stimuli in threatening contexts. Such fear-circuitry dysfunction may also manifest when anticipated social evaluation leads socially anxious adolescents to misperceive peers as threatening.

OBJECTIVE

To determine whether photographs of negatively evaluated smiling peers viewed during anticipated social evaluation engage the amygdala and vlPFC differentially in adolescents with and without social anxiety.

DESIGN

Case-control study.

SETTING

Government clinical research institute.

PARTICIPANTS

Fourteen adolescents with anxiety disorders associated with marked concerns of social evaluation and 14 adolescents without a psychiatric diagnosis matched on sex, age, intelligence quotient, and socioeconomic status.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

Blood oxygenation level-dependent signal measured with event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging. Before and during neuroimaging scans, participants anticipating social evaluation completed peer- and self-appraisals. Event-related analyses were tailored to participants' ratings of specific peers.

RESULTS

Participants classified 40 pictures of same-age peers as ones with whom they did or did not want to engage in a social interaction. Anxious adolescents showed greater amygdala activation than healthy adolescents when anticipating evaluation from peers previously rated as undesired for an interaction. Psychophysiological interaction connectivity analyses also revealed a significant positive association between amygdala and vlPFC activation in anxious vs healthy adolescents in response to these stimuli.

CONCLUSIONS

Anticipating social evaluation from negatively perceived peers modulates amygdala and vlPFC engagement differentially in anxious and healthy adolescents. Amygdala and vlPFC dysfunction manifests in adolescent anxiety disorders in specific contexts of anticipated peer evaluation.

Neural response to self- and other referential praise and criticism in generalized social phobia

CONTEXT

Generalized social phobia (GSP) is characterized by fear/avoidance of social situations. Previous studies have examined the neural responses in GSP to one class of social stimuli, facial expressions. However, studies have not examined the neural response in GSP to another equally important class of social stimuli, the communication of praise or criticism.

OBJECTIVE

To examine the neural response to receipt of praise or criticism in GSP; specifically, to determine whether patients with GSP show an increased response to the receipt of both praise and criticism and whether self-relevance modulates this relationship.

DESIGN

Case-control study.

SETTING

Government clinical research institute.

PARTICIPANTS

Unmedicated individuals with GSP (n = 17) and age-, IQ-, and sex-matched healthy comparison individuals (n = 17).

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE

Blood oxygenation level-dependent signal, as measured via functional magnetic resonance imaging. During functional magnetic resonance imaging scans, individuals read positive (eg, You are beautiful), negative (eg, You are ugly), and neutral (eg, You are human) comments that could be either about the self or about somebody else (eg, He is beautiful).

RESULTS

Hypothesized significant group x valence x referent interactions were observed within regions of the medial prefrontal cortex and bilateral amygdala. In these regions, the patients with GSP showed significantly increased blood oxygenation level-dependent responses, relative to comparison individuals, to negative comments (criticism) referring to themselves. However, in contrast, there were no significant group differences with respect to negative comments referring to others or neutral or positive comments referring to self or others.

CONCLUSIONS

These results implicate the medial prefrontal cortex, involved in the representation of the self, together with the amygdala, in the pathophysiology of GSP. Further, findings demonstrate a meaningful effect of psychological context on neural-circuitry hyperactivity in GSP.

The amygdala and ventromedial prefrontal cortex: functional contributions and dysfunction in psychopathy

The current paper examines the functional contributions of the amygdala and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and the evidence that the functioning of these systems is compromised in individuals with psychopathy. The amygdala is critical for the formation of stimulus-reinforcement associations, both punishment and reward based, and the processing of emotional expressions. vmPFC is critical for the representation of reinforcement expectancies and, owing to this, decision making. Neuropsychological and neuroimaging data from individuals with psychopathy are examined. It is concluded that these critical functions of the amygdala and vmPFC, and their interaction, are compromised in individuals with the disorder. It is argued that these impairments lead to the development of psychopathy.

Dissociable Systems for Empathy

Empathy is a lay term that is becoming increasingly used in the field of cognitive neuroscience. In this paper, it is argued that empathy is a loose collection of partially dissociable neurocognitive systems. Two forms of 'emotional' empathy were considered: First, responding to emotional expressions, particularly angry expressions, leading to response reversal. Secondly, responding to emotional expressions, particularly fearful and sad expressions, leading to stimulus-reinforcement learning. The implications of these forms of empathy for understanding specific psychiatric conditions are briefly considered.

Neural substrates of reward magnitude, probability, and risk during a wheel of fortune decision-making task

Economic decision-making involves the weighting of magnitude and probability of potential gains/losses. While previous work has examined the neural systems involved in decision-making, there is a need to understand how the parameters associated with decision-making (e.g., magnitude of expected reward, probability of expected reward and risk) modulate activation within these neural systems. In the current fMRI study, we modified the monetary wheel of fortune (WOF) task [Ernst, M., Nelson, E.E., McClure, E.B., Monk, C.S., Munson, S., Eshel, N., et al. (2004). Choice selection and reward anticipation: an fMRI study. Neuropsychologia 42(12), 1585-1597.] to examine in 25 healthy young adults the neural responses to selections of different reward magnitudes, probabilities, or risks. Selection of high, relative to low, reward magnitude increased activity in insula, amygdala, middle and posterior cingulate cortex, and basal ganglia. Selection of low-probability, as opposed to high-probability reward, increased activity in anterior cingulate cortex, as did selection of risky, relative to safe reward. In summary, decision-making that did not involve conflict, as in the magnitude contrast, recruited structures known to support the coding of reward values, and those that integrate motivational and perceptual information for behavioral responses. In contrast, decision-making under conflict, as in the probability and risk contrasts, engaged the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex whose role in conflict monitoring is well established. However, decision-making under conflict failed to activate the structures that track reward values per se. Thus, the presence of conflict in decision-making seemed to significantly alter the pattern of neural responses to simple rewards. In addition, this paradigm further clarifies the functional specialization of the cingulate cortex in processes of decision-making.

Reduced amygdala response to fearful expressions in children and adolescents with callous-unemotional traits and disruptive behavior disorders

OBJECTIVE

Extensive work implicates abnormal amygdala activation in emotional facial expression processing in adults with callous-unemotional traits. However, no research has examined amygdala response to emotional facial expressions in adolescents with disruptive behavior and callous-unemotional traits. Moreover, despite high comorbidity of callous-unemotional traits and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), no research has attempted to distinguish neural correlates of pediatric callous-unemotional traits and ADHD.

METHOD

Participants were 36 children and adolescents (ages 10-17 years); 12 had callous-unemotional traits and either conduct disorder or oppositional defiant disorder, 12 had ADHD, and 12 were healthy comparison subjects. Functional MRI was used to assess amygdala activation patterns during processing of fearful facial expressions. Patterns in the callous-unemotional traits group were compared with those in the ADHD and comparison groups.

RESULTS

In youths with callous-unemotional traits, amygdala activation was reduced relative to healthy comparison subjects and youths with ADHD while processing fearful expressions, but not neutral or angry expressions. Functional connectivity analyses demonstrated greater correlations between the amygdala and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex in comparison subjects and youths with ADHD relative to those with callous-unemotional traits. Symptom severity in the callous-unemotional traits groups was negatively correlated with connectivity between amygdala and ventromedial prefrontal cortex.

CONCLUSIONS

This is the first study to demonstrate reduced amygdala responsiveness in youths with callous-unemotional traits. These findings support the contention that callous and unemotional personality traits are associated with reduced amygdala response to distress-based social cues.

Fine cuts of empathy and the amygdala: dissociable deficits in psychopathy and autism

In the current paper, the "fine cuts" approach advocated by Uta Frith is applied to our understanding of empathy and amygdala dysfunction in two disorders, psychopathy and autism. A fine cut is made between cognitive (i.e., Theory of Mind) and emotional empathy. The literature with respect to psychopathy and autism and these two functions is then considered. A fine cut is also made between the amygdala's role in stimulus-reinforcement association and specific aspects of social cognition. Again the literature with respect to psychopathy and autism and these two functions of the amygdala is considered. It is concluded that while both conditions can be considered disorders of social cognition, fine cuts can be made dissociating the impairments associated with each.

Biased emotional attention in post-traumatic stress disorder: a help as well as a hindrance?

BACKGROUND

From a cognitive neuroscience perspective, the emotional attentional bias in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) could be conceptualized either as emotional hyper-responsiveness or as reduced priming of task-relevant representations due to dysfunction in 'top-down' regulatory systems. We investigated these possibilities both with respect to threatening and positive stimuli among traumatized individuals with and without PTSD.

METHOD

Twenty-two patients with PTSD, 21 trauma controls and 20 non-traumatized healthy participants were evaluated on two tasks. For one of these tasks, the affective Stroop task (aST), the emotional stimuli act as distracters and interfere with task performance. For the other, the emotional lexical decision task (eLDT), emotional information facilitates task performance.

RESULTS

Compared to trauma controls and healthy participants, patients with PTSD showed increased interference for negative but not positive distracters on the aST and increased emotional facilitation for negative words on the eLDT.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings document that hyper-responsiveness to threat but not to positive stimuli is specific for patients with PTSD.