Neural network of cognitive emotion regulation--an ALE meta-analysis and MACM analysis

Common Functional Brain States Encode both Perceived Emotion and the Psychophysiological Response to Affective Stimuli

Multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data has critically advanced the neuroanatomical understanding of affect processing in the human brain. Central to these advancements is the brain state, a temporally-succinct fMRI-derived pattern of neural activation, which serves as a processing unit. Establishing the brain state's central role in affect processing, however, requires that it predicts multiple independent measures of affect. We employed MVPA-based regression to predict the valence and arousal properties of visual stimuli sampled from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) along with the corollary skin conductance response (SCR) for demographically diverse healthy human participants (n = 19). We found that brain states significantly predicted the normative valence and arousal scores of the stimuli as well as the attendant individual SCRs. In contrast, SCRs significantly predicted arousal only. The prediction effect size of the brain state was more than three times greater than that of SCR. Moreover, neuroanatomical analysis of the regression parameters found remarkable agreement with regions long-established by fMRI univariate analyses in the emotion processing literature. Finally, geometric analysis of these parameters also found that the neuroanatomical encodings of valence and arousal are orthogonal as originally posited by the circumplex model of dimensional emotion.

Neural networks of aggression: ALE meta-analyses on trait and elicited aggression

There is considerable evidence that emotion dysregulation and self-control impairments lead to escalated aggression in populations with psychiatric disorders. However, convergent quantitative evidence on the neural network explaining how aggression arises is still lacking. To address this gap, peak activations extracted from extant functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies were synthesized through coordinate-based meta-analyses. A systematic search in the PubMed database was conducted and 26 fMRI studies met the inclusion criteria. Three separate activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analyses were performed on (1) individual differences in trait aggression (TA) studies, (2) individual differences in TA studies examining executive functioning, and (3) elicited aggression (EA) studies across fMRI behavioral paradigms. Ensuing clusters from ALE meta-analyses were further treated as seeds for follow-up investigations on consensus connectivity networks (CCN) delineated from meta-analytic connectivity modeling (MACM) and resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) to further characterize their physiological functions. Finally, we obtained a data-driven functional characterization of the ensuing clusters and their networks. This approach offers a boarder view of the ensuing clusters using a boarder network perspective. In TA, aberrant brain activations were found only in the right precuneus. Follow-up analyses revealed that the precuneus seed was within the frontal-parietal network (FPN) associated with action inhibition, visuospatial processing and higher-level cognition. With further restricting to only experiments examining executive functioning, convergent evidence was found in the right rolandic operculum (RO), midcingulate cortex (MCC), precentral gyrus (PrG) and precuneus. Follow-up analyses suggested that RO, MCC and PrG may belong to a common cognitive control network, while the MCC seems to be the hub of this network. In EA, we only revealed a convergent region in the left postcentral gyrus. Follow-up CCN analyses and functional characterizations suggested that this region may also belong to the same cognitive control network found in the TA sub-analysis. Our results suggested that escalated aggression arises from abnormal precuneus activities within the FPN, disrupting the recruitment of other large-scale networks such as adaptive cognitive control network. Consequently, failure to recruit such a network results in an inability to generate adaptive responses, increasing the likelihood of acting aggressively.

Global connectivity of the fronto-parietal cognitive control network is related to depression symptoms in the general population

We all vary in our mental health, even among people not meeting diagnostic criteria for mental illness. Understanding this individual variability may reveal factors driving the risk for mental illness, as well as factors driving subclinical problems that still adversely affect quality of life. To better understand the large-scale brain network mechanisms underlying this variability, we examined the relationship between mental health symptoms and resting-state functional connectivity patterns in cognitive control systems. One such system is the fronto-parietal cognitive control network (FPN). Changes in FPN connectivity may impact mental health by disrupting the ability to regulate symptoms in a goal-directed manner. Here we test the hypothesis that FPN dysconnectivity relates to mental health symptoms even among individuals who do not meet formal diagnostic criteria but may exhibit meaningful symptom variation. We found that depression symptoms severity negatively correlated with between-network global connectivity (BGC) of the FPN. This suggests that decreased connectivity between the FPN and the rest of the brain is related to increased depression symptoms in the general population. These findings complement previous clinical studies to support the hypothesis that global FPN connectivity contributes to the regulation of mental health symptoms across both health and disease.

Intrinsic functional neurocircuitry associated with treatment response to transdiagnostic CBT in bipolar disorder with anxiety

BACKGROUND

Anxiety in bipolar disorder (BD) exacerbates emotion dysregulation and reduces treatment response. We recently conducted a pilot trial of transdiagnostic CBT to target anxiety and emotion dysregulation in BD adjunctive to pharmacotherapy. Reductions in depression and anxiety symptoms were significantly predicted by baseline levels of neuroticism and perceived affective control, as well as changes over time in emotion regulation skills. The present study investigates mechanism of treatment response by examining the relationship between baseline emotion regulation-related neural circuitry and trial outcomes.

METHODS

Nineteen patients completed baseline resting state fMRI scans prior to treatment randomization. Functional connectivity between the anterior insula (AI) and regions in the salience network (SN), default mode network (DMN), and executive control network (ECN) were examined as predictors of baseline and treatment-related changes in emotion regulation.

RESULTS

Greater improvements in emotion regulation were predicted by weaker right dorsal AI - right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC; SN) and stronger bilateral dorsal AI - bilateral amygdala functional connectivity. Baseline neuroticism was negatively correlated with right dorsal AI- inferior parietal lobule (ECN) functional connectivity, and baseline deficits in perceived affective control were positively associated with ventral AI - bilateral dACC (SN) connectivity.

LIMITATIONS

Small sample limits interpretability of treatment-specific effects.

CONCLUSION

Baseline functional connectivity of emotion-regulation related neural circuitry significantly predicted change in emotion regulation-related dimensions associated with anxiety and depression symptom reduction. Future studies are needed to determine if employing methods such as neuromodulation to rehabilitate relevant neural circuitry may improve ultimate treatment outcomes of transdiagnostic CBT for BD and anxiety.

Executive Functions Brain System: An Activation Likelihood Estimation Meta-analytic Study

Background and objective

To characterize commonalities and differences between two executive functions: reasoning and inhibitory control.

Methods

A total of 5,974 participants in 346 fMRI experiments of inhibition or reasoning were selected. First level analysis consisted of Analysis of Likelihood Estimation (ALE) studies performed in two pooled data groups: (a) brain areas involved in reasoning and (b) brain areas involved in inhibition. Second level analysis consisted of two contrasts: (i) brain areas involved in reasoning but not in inhibition and (ii) brain areas involved in inhibition but not in reasoning. Lateralization Indexes were calculated.

Results

Four brain areas appear as the most critical: the dorsolateral aspect of the frontal lobes, the superior parietal lobules, the mesial aspect of the premotor area (supplementary motor area), and some subcortical areas, particularly the putamen and the thalamus. ALE contrasts showed significant differentiation of the networks, with the reasoning > inhibition-contrast showing a predominantly leftward participation, and the inhibition > reasoning-contrast, a clear right advantage.

Conclusion

Executive functions are mediated by sizable brain areas including not only cortical, but also involving subcortical areas in both hemispheres. The strength of activation shows dissociation between the hemispheres for inhibition (rightward) and reasoning (leftward) functions.

Multimodal canonical correlation reveals converging neural circuitry across trauma-related disorders of affect and cognition

Trauma-related disorders of affect and cognition (TRACs) are associated with a high degree of diagnostic comorbidity, which may suggest that these disorders share a set of underlying neural mechanisms. TRACs are characterized by aberrations in functional and structural circuits subserving verbal memory and affective anticipation. Yet, it remains unknown how the neural circuitry underlying these multiple mechanisms contribute to TRACs. Here, in a sample of 47 combat Veterans, we measured affective anticipation using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), verbal memory with fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET), and grey matter volume with structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI). Using a voxel-based multimodal canonical correlation analysis (mCCA), the set of neural measures were statistically integrated, or fused, with a set of TRAC symptom measures including mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), posttraumatic stress, and depression severity. The first canonical correlation pair revealed neural convergence in clusters encompassing the middle frontal gyrus and supplemental motor area, regions implicated in top-down cognitive control and affect regulation. These results highlight the potential of leveraging multivariate neuroimaging analysis for linking neurobiological mechanisms associated with TRACs, paving the way for transdiagnostic biomarkers and targets for treatment.

Insight and emotion regulation in schizophrenia: A brain activation and functional connectivity study

Background

Insight is impaired in the majority of schizophrenia patients. The exact neural correlates of impaired insight remain unclear. We assume that the ability to regulate emotions contributes to having good clinical insight, as patients should be able to regulate their emotional state in such a way that they can adapt adequately in order to cope with impaired functioning and negative stigma associated with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. Numerous studies have shown emotional dysregulation in schizophrenia. We investigated the association between insight and brain activation and connectivity during emotion regulation.

Methods

Brain activation during emotion regulation was measured with functional MRI in 30 individuals with schizophrenia. Two emotion regulation strategies were examined: cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression. Clinical insight was measured with the Schedule for the Assessment of Insight – Expanded, and cognitive insight was measured with the Beck Cognitive Insight Scale. Whole brain random effects multiple regression analyses were conducted to assess the relation between brain activation during emotion regulation and insight. Generalized psychophysiological interaction (gPPI) was used to investigate the relation between task-related connectivity and insight.

Results

No significant associations were found between insight and neural correlates of cognitive reappraisal. For clinical insight and suppression, significant positive associations were found between symptom relabeling and activation in the left striatum, thalamus and insula, right insula and caudate, right pre- and postcentral gyrus, left superior occipital gyrus and cuneus and right middle and superior occipital gyrus and cuneus. Furthermore, reduced clinical insight was associated with more connectivity between midline medial frontal gyrus and right middle occipital gyrus. For cognitive insight and suppression, significant positive associations were found between self-reflectiveness and activation in pre- and postcentral gyrus and left middle cingulate gyrus.

Conclusions

Our results suggest an association between the capacity to relabel symptoms and activation of brain systems involved in cognitive-emotional control and visual processing of negative stimuli. Furthermore, poorer self-reflectiveness may be associated with brain systems subserving control and execution.

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We examined the association between emotion regulation and insight in schizophrenia.

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Patients with poorer insight engage different neural pathways during suppression.

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This finding was strengthened by connectivity measures of corresponding brain areas.

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No relationship between cognitive reappraisal and insight was found.

Does emotion regulation engage the same neural circuit as working memory? A meta-analytical comparison between cognitive reappraisal of negative emotion and 2-back working memory task

Research into cognitive emotion regulation (ER) extends our understanding of human cognition, which is capable of processing objective information and is crucial in maintaining subjective/internal homeostasis. Among various ER strategies, the alleviation of negative emotion via reappraisal is of particular importance for adaptation and psychological well-being. Although still debated, previous neuroimaging studies tend to infer that the reappraisal ER is mediated by the capability of working memory (WM), which has not been examined empirically. This meta-analytical study of published neuroimaging literature used activation likelihood estimation (ALE) to compare the neural circuits that regulate negative emotion (reappraisal tasks; 46 studies/1254 subjects) and execute WM (2-back tasks; 50 studies/1312 subjects), with special emphasis on the prefrontal cortex (PFC). Taking the canonical WM network as a reference, ALE results revealed that the dorsal midline PFC was partly shared by both ER and WM, whereas ER-specific PFC structures were delineated in the inferior, middle, and superior frontal cortices, as well as in the posterior brain regions. The peak coordinates of ER in the middle frontal cortex were dorsal to those of WM by 15.1 mm (left) and 21.6 mm (right). The results support specialized emotion-related neural substrates in the PFC, negating the assumption that reappraisal ER and WM rely on the same neural resources. The holistic picture of "emotional brain" may need to incorporate the emotion-related PFC circuit, together with subcortical and limbic emotion centers.

Central serotonin modulates neural responses to virtual violent actions in emotion regulation networks

Disruptions in the cortico-limbic emotion regulation networks have been linked to depression, anxiety, impulsivity, and aggression. Altered transmission of the central nervous serotonin (5-HT) contributes to dysfunctions in the cognitive control of emotions. To date, studies relating to pharmaco-fMRI challenging of the 5-HT system have focused on emotion processing for facial expressions. We investigated effects of a single-dose selective 5-HT reuptake inhibitor (escitalopram) on emotion regulation during virtual violence. For this purpose, 38 male participants played a violent video game during fMRI scanning. The SSRI reduced neural responses to violent actions in right-hemispheric inferior frontal gyrus and medial prefrontal cortex encompassing the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), but not to non-violent actions. Within the ACC, the drug effect differentiated areas with high inhibitory 5-HT1A receptor density (subgenual s25) from those with a lower density (pregenual p32, p24). This finding links functional responses during virtual violent actions with 5-HT neurotransmission in emotion regulation networks, underpinning the ecological validity of the 5-HT model in aggressive behavior. Available 5-HT receptor density data suggest that this SSRI effect is only observable when inhibitory and excitatory 5-HT receptors are balanced. The observed early functional changes may impact patient groups receiving SSRI treatment.

Parenting and Salience Network Connectivity Among African Americans: A Protective Pathway for Health-Risk Behaviors

BACKGROUND

Supportive parenting during childhood has been associated with many positive developmental outcomes for offspring in adulthood, including fewer health-risk behaviors. Little is known about the neural mechanisms underlying these associations.

METHODS

The present study followed rural African Americans (n = 91, 52% female) from late childhood (11-13 years of age) to emerging adulthood (25 years of age). Parent-child communication was assessed at 11, 12, and 13 years of age. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used at 25 years of age to measure resting-state functional connectivity of the anterior salience network (ASN). Harmful alcohol use and emotional eating were also assessed at 25 years of age. Structural equation modeling was used to test pathways from parent-child communication at 11 to 13 years of age to harmful alcohol use and emotional eating at 25 years of age via resting-state functional connectivity of the ASN.

RESULTS

Greater parent-child communication between 11 and 13 years of age forecast greater resting-state functional connectivity of the ASN at 25 years of age which, in turn, was associated with lower harmful alcohol use and emotional eating at 25 years of age. Significant indirect effects through the ASN were present for both outcomes.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings indicate the importance of parenting in late childhood for adaptive behaviors and suggest a pathway via higher ASN coherence. This network was implicated in both harmful alcohol use and emotional eating, corroborating evidence of overlap in brain regions for dysregulated substance use and eating behaviors and revealing divergent pathways. These findings support the value of prevention and intervention efforts targeting parenting skills in childhood toward fostering long-term, adaptive neurocognitive development.

Neural mapping of guilt: a quantitative meta-analysis of functional imaging studies

Guilt is a self-conscious emotion associated with the negative appraisal of one's behavior. In recent years, several neuroimaging studies have investigated the neural correlates of guilt, but no meta-analyses have yet identified the most robust activation patterns. A systematic review of literature found 16 functional magnetic resonance imaging studies with whole-brain analyses meeting the inclusion criteria, for a total of 325 participants and 135 foci of activation. A meta-analysis was then conducted using activation likelihood estimation. Additionally, Meta-Analytic Connectivity Modeling (MACM) analysis was conducted to investigate the functional connectivity of significant clusters. The analysis revealed 12 significant clusters of brain activation (voxel-based FDR-corrected p < 0.05) located in the prefrontal, temporal and parietal regions, mainly in the left hemisphere. Only the left dorsal cingulate cluster survived stringent FWE correction (voxel-based p < 0.05). Secondary analyses (voxel-based FDR-corrected p < 0.05) on the 7 studies contrasting guilt with another emotional condition showed an association with clusters in the left precuneus, the anterior cingulate, the left medial frontal gyrus, the right superior frontal gyrus and the left superior temporal gyrus. MACM demonstrated that regions associated with guilt are highly interconnected. Our analysis identified a distributed neural network of left-lateralized regions associated with guilt. While voxel-based FDR-corrected results should be considered exploratory, the dorsal cingulate was robustly associated with guilt. We speculate that this network integrates cognitive and emotional processes involved in the experience of guilt, including self-representation, theory of mind, conflict monitoring and moral values. Limitations of our meta-analyses comprise the small sample size and the heterogeneity of included studies, and concerns about naturalistic validity.

Prefrontal cortex activation during a cognitive reappraisal task is associated with real-life negative affect reactivity

The neural substrate of cognitive reappraisal has been well-mapped. Individuals who successfully downregulate negative affect (NA) by reshaping their thoughts about a potentially emotional situation show augmented activity in the prefrontal cortex (PFC), with attenuated activity in the amygdala. We performed functional neuroimaging with experience sampling to determine whether individual differences in brain activation correspond to differences in real-life NA. While being scanned, 69 female students (aged 18–25 years) were asked to perform a cognitive reappraisal task. In addition, repeated assessments (5/day, 14 days) of affect and minor events in real-life were conducted. Individual t-maps were created for an instructed downregulation contrast (downregulate negative–attend negative) and an uninstructed regulation contrast (attend negative–attend neutral). Mean beta values were extracted from a priori defined regions of interest in the bilateral amygdala and PFC and were correlated with three daily life NA measures: baseline (mean) NA, NA variability, and NA reactivity to negative events. Only one out of twelve correlations for the amygdalae was nominally significant, which did not survive correction for multiple comparisons. PFC activation in the instructed and uninstructed regulation contrasts explained approximately 10% of the variance in NA reactivity; stronger recruitment during the attend-negative condition was correlated with lower reactivity levels. The degree to which individuals spontaneously engage frontal clusters may be a critical aspect of real-life emotional reactivity. The findings of this study provide a partial external validation of the cognitive reappraisal task, suggesting that frontal brain activation during implicit task conditions may have the strongest connection with real-life behaviors.

Sex differences in the neural correlates of aggression

Although sex differences in aggression have been investigated for decades, little is known about the underlying neurobiology of this phenomenon. To address this gap, the present study implemented a social reactive aggression paradigm in 20 women and 22 men, employing a modified Taylor Aggression Task (mTAT) to provoke aggressive behavior in an fMRI setting. Subjects were provoked by money subtraction from a fake opponent and given the opportunity to retaliate likewise. In the absence of behavioral differences, male and female subjects showed differential brain activation patterns in response to provocation. Men had higher left amygdala activation during high provocation. This amygdala activation correlated with trait anger scores in men, but not in women. Also, men showed a positive association between orbitofrontal cortex, rectal gyrus and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) activity in the provocation contrast and their tendency to respond aggressively, whereas women displayed a negative association. As the rectal gyrus and OFC have been attributed a crucial role in automatic emotion regulation, this finding points toward the assumption that highly aggressive men use automatic emotion regulation to a greater extent in response to provocation compared to highly aggressive women.

Real-time fMRI amygdala neurofeedback positive emotional training normalized resting-state functional connectivity in combat veterans with and without PTSD: a connectome-wide investigation

Self-regulation of brain activation using real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging neurofeedback (rtfMRI-nf) is an emerging approach for treating mood and anxiety disorders. The effect of neurofeedback training on resting-state functional connectivity warrants investigation as changes in spontaneous brain activation could reflect the association between sustained symptom relief and brain alteration. We investigated the effect of amygdala-focused rtfMRI-nf training on resting-state functional connectivity in combat veterans with and without posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) who were trained to increase a feedback signal reflecting left amygdala activity while recalling positive autobiographical memories (Zotev et al., 2018). The analysis was performed in three stages: i) first, we investigated the connectivity in the left amygdala region; ii) next, we focused on the abnormal resting-state functional connectivity identified in our previous analysis of this data (Misaki et al., 2018); and iii) finally, we performed a novel data-driven longitudinal connectome-wide analysis. We introduced a longitudinal multivariate distance matrix regression (MDMR) analysis to comprehensively examine neurofeedback training effects beyond those associated with abnormal baseline connectivity.

These comprehensive exploratory analyses suggested that abnormal resting-state connectivity for combat veterans with PTSD was partly normalized after the training. This included hypoconnectivities between the left amygdala and the left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC) and between the supplementary motor area (SMA) and the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC). The increase of SMA-dACC connectivity was associated with PTSD symptom reduction. Longitudinal MDMR analysis found a connectivity change between the precuneus and the left superior frontal cortex. The connectivity increase was associated with a decrease in hyperarousal symptoms. The abnormal connectivity for combat veterans without PTSD - such as hypoconnectivity in the precuneus with a superior frontal region and hyperconnectivity in the posterior insula with several regions - could also be normalized after the training. These results suggested that the rtfMRI-nf training effect was not limited to a feedback target region and symptom relief could be mediated by brain modulation in several regions other than in a feedback target area. While further confirmatory research is needed, the results may provide valuable insight into treatment effects on the whole brain resting-state connectivity.

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fMRI neurofeedback training effect on resting-state connectivity was examined

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Left amygdala activity was trained to increase with positive memory

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Neurofeedback normalized altered connectivity in veterans with and without PTSD

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PTSD symptom reductions were significant but not specific to group (exp/ctrl)

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Connectivity-symptom association was seen in mPFC and precuneus

A domain-general brain network underlying emotional and cognitive interference processing: evidence from coordinate-based and functional connectivity meta-analyses

The inability to control or inhibit emotional distractors characterizes a range of psychiatric disorders. Despite the use of a variety of task paradigms to determine the mechanisms underlying the control of emotional interference, a precise characterization of the brain regions and networks that support emotional interference processing remains elusive. Here, we performed coordinate-based and functional connectivity meta-analyses to determine the brain networks underlying emotional interference. Paradigms addressing interference processing in the cognitive or emotional domain were included in the meta-analyses, particularly the Stroop, Flanker, and Simon tasks. Our results revealed a consistent involvement of the bilateral dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, anterior insula, left inferior frontal gyrus, and superior parietal lobule during emotional interference. Follow-up conjunction analyses identified correspondence in these regions between emotional and cognitive interference processing. Finally, the patterns of functional connectivity of these regions were examined using resting-state functional connectivity and meta-analytic connectivity modeling. These regions were strongly connected as a distributed system, primarily mapping onto fronto-parietal control, ventral attention, and dorsal attention networks. Together, the present findings indicate that a domain-general neural system is engaged across multiple types of interference processing and that regulating emotional and cognitive interference depends on interactions between large-scale distributed brain networks.

Thinking about the past to shape the present: neural activation during the recall of relationship episodes

Reflecting on oneself and others in relationships is an ability that is central to our social existence. Specifically, considering formative autobiographical experiences in relationships may contribute to more flexibility in perceiving, as well as in shaping present relationships. Reflecting on such experiences mobilizes different social cognitive and affective processes. We aim to explore the neural basis of these processes. With a newly developed functional magnetic imaging (fMRI) task, we investigated brain activation in 35 healthy individuals during recall of relationship episodes involving themselves or others. We found that recalling formative episodes involving themselves modulated brain activity in the right parahippocampus, left precuneus, bilateral fusiform gyrus, bilateral insula, and left presupplementary motor area. These areas are involved in memory processes, self-generated thought, and affective experience. The recall of relationship episodes involving others led to similar activation patterns. Our results underscore the close link between self-reflection, understanding others, and memory processes and emphasize the role of affective dimensions for self-relevant experiences. They contribute to a growing body of research on neural mechanisms involved in complex social cognitive processes decisive for our capacity to navigate our social environment.

Brain activation during emotion regulation in women with premenstrual dysphoric disorder

BACKGROUND

Difficulties in regulating emotions are linked to the core symptoms of premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD). We therefore investigated the neural substrates of emotion-regulation problems in women with PMDD.

METHODS

On the basis of self-evaluations over 2 months on the Daily Record of Severity of Problems, eligible participants were assigned to two groups: PMDD and control (18 per group). Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and a well-validated task were used to assess brain function during emotion regulation. Participants were tested twice, once during the follicular (asymptomatic) and once in the late luteal (symptomatic) phase of the menstrual cycle.

RESULTS

Women with PMDD gave higher ratings of negative affect in the luteal phase than in the follicular phase, and compared with healthy control participants during the luteal phase. A region-of-interest fMRI analysis indicated that during the late luteal phase, women with PMDD had hypoactivation in right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) during all conditions of the emotion-regulation task, not only in the contrast that isolated emotion regulation. An exploratory whole-brain, voxel-wise analysis showed that women with PMDD had less activation in the precentral gyrus during the luteal phase than the follicular phase, and less activation in the postcentral gyrus compared with control participants.

CONCLUSIONS

During the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle, women with PMDD experience difficulty regulating emotions. Hypoactivation in the right dlPFC may contribute to this problem, but may be related more generally to other affective symptoms of PMDD. Hypofunction in the right pre- and postcentral gyri warrants additional study.

Sex differences in brain responses to food stimuli: a meta-analysis on neuroimaging studies

The aims of the current study were to update the inclusion list of relevant neuroimaging studies, meta-analyse the neuroimaging data and thus synthesize a brain map showing locations with differential activations between men and women. Published studies to 2017 were retrieved and included into the analysis if they evaluated patients' brain responses to food or eating stimuli with functional magnetic resonance imaging or positron emission tomography and reported activation differences between the sexes in the form of brain coordinates based on whole-brain analysis. Eight studies that comprised a total of 231 participants fulfilled the inclusion criteria. Men had larger neural responses to food stimuli than women in the anterior and middle cingulate, which are related to emotion regulation. Meanwhile, women had larger neural responses to food stimuli than men in the parahippocampus, the thalamus and the precuneus, which are collectively relevant in the context of promotion of eating. The differential brain responses to food or eating stimuli between men and women may shed light on the neurobiology to help explain the sex differences in eating behaviour.

Emotion introspection and regulation in depression

Depressed patients suffer from an impairment to voluntarily influence and regulate their unpleasant emotional state. Strengthening the mental ability to interfere with dysfunctional emotion processing may be beneficial in treating depression. According to models of emotion processing this may be done by successful down-regulation of enhanced amygdala activity. We investigated short periods of intentional emotion-introspection compared with cognitive self-reflection as two domains of self-awareness in terms of effects on emotion regulation. Thirty depressed patients performed twelve second periods of emotion-introspection, self-reflection and a neutral condition during functional magnetic resonance imaging. We analyzed brain activation in the patients with depression by means of whole brain, region of interest and connectivity analyses. Amygdala activity decreased during emotion-introspection relative to self-reflection and to the neutral condition, whereby left amygdala was inversely activated relative to the left insula. Insula activity itself was correlated with medial and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) activation. In conclusion, depressed patients are able to down-regulate amygdala activity by emotion-introspection. This may be interpreted as well-working emotion regulation supposedly induced by PFC connections mediated via insula. The finding supports the application of emotion-introspection, a mindfulness-related process, in a clinical setting as an element of psychotherapy to train and improve emotion regulation.

Immediate and delayed neuroendocrine responses to social exclusion in males and females

Social exclusion is a complex phenomenon, with wide-ranging immediate and delayed effects on well-being, hormone levels, brain activation and motivational behavior. Building upon previous work, the current fMRI study investigated affective, endocrine and neural responses to social exclusion in a more naturalistic Cyberball task in 40 males and 40 females. As expected, social exclusion elicited well-documented affective and neural responses, i.e., increased anger and distress, as well as increased exclusion-related activation of the anterior insula, the posterior-medial frontal cortex and the orbitofrontal cortex. Cortisol and testosterone decreased over the course of the experiment, whereas progesterone showed no changes. Hormone levels were not correlated with subjective affect, but they were related to exclusion-induced neural responses. Exclusion-related activation in frontal areas was associated with decreases in cortisol and increases in testosterone until recovery. Given that results were largely independent of sex, the current findings have important implications regarding between-sex vs. within-sex variations and the conceptualization of state vs. trait neuroendocrine functions in social neuroscience.

Association between schizophrenia polygenic risk and neural correlates of emotion perception

The neural correlates of emotion perception have been shown to be significantly altered in schizophrenia (SCZ) patients as well as their healthy relatives, possibly reflecting genetic susceptibility to the disease. The aim of the study was to investigate the association between SCZ polygenic risk and brain activity whilst testing perception of multisensory, dynamic emotional stimuli. We created SCZ polygenic risk scores (PRS) for a sample of twenty-eight healthy individuals. The PRS was based on data from the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium and was used as a regressor score in the neuroimaging analysis. The results of a multivariate brain-behaviour analysis show that higher SCZ PRS are related to increased activity in brain regions critical for emotion during the perception of threatening (angry) emotions. These results suggest that individuals with higher SCZ PRS over-activate the neural correlates underlying emotion during perception of threat, perhaps due to an increased experience of fear or neural inefficiency in emotion-regulation areas. Moreover, over-recruitment of emotion regulation regions might function as a compensation to maintain normal emotion regulation during threat perception. If replicated in larger studies, these findings may have important implications for understanding the neurophysiological biomarkers relevant in SCZ.

Neural correlates of top-down regulation and generation of negative affect in major depressive disorder

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is characterized by biased information processing that leads to difficulties regulating negative affect, which includes difficulty decreasing negative affect as well as maladaptively increasing negative affect via cognitive processes. To examine the underlying neural correlates, we scanned depressed and never-depressed adults as they completed a cognitive reappraisal task which required decreasing negative affect while viewing a negative image (down-regulation) and increasing negative affect while viewing a neutral image (emotion generation). Compared to control participants, MDD participants had less recruitment of the dorsal anterior cingulate (dACC) and supplementary motor area (SMA) during early phases of down-regulation, the latter associated with poorer negative affect regulation. Further, MDD participants exhibited greater recruitment of the right middle temporal gyrus (MTG) during emotion generation, which was associated with lower negative affect. Dysregulated negative affect in MDD may be due to impairments in efficiently activating the dACC and SMA to meet regulation demands, and maladaptive generation of negative affect that characterizes individuals with MDD may be counteracted by compensatory activation in the MTG. Elucidating neural mechanisms that underlie the generation of negative affect in the absence of external stimuli is an important extension of previous work examining dysfunctional emotional processes in MDD.

The optimistic brain: Trait optimism mediates the influence of resting-state brain activity and connectivity on anxiety in late adolescence

As a hot research topic in the field of psychology and psychiatry, trait optimism reflects the tendency to expect positive outcomes in the future. Consistent evidence has demonstrated the role of trait optimism in reducing anxiety among different populations. However, less is known about the neural bases of trait optimism and the underlying mechanisms for how trait optimism protects against anxiety in the healthy brain. In this investigation, we examined these issues in 231 healthy adolescent students by assessing resting-state brain activity (i.e., fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations, fALFF) and connectivity (i.e., resting-state functional connectivity, RSFC). Whole-brain correlation analyses revealed that higher levels of trait optimism were linked with decreased fALFF in the right orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and increased RSFC between the right OFC and left supplementary motor cortex (SMC). Mediation analyses further showed that trait optimism mediated the influence of the right OFC activity and the OFC-SMC connectivity on anxiety. Our results remained significant even after excluding the impact of head motion, positive and negative affect and depression. Taken together, this study reveals that fALFF and RSFC are functional neural markers of trait optimism and provides a brain-personality-symptom pathway for protection against anxiety in which fALFF and RSFC affect anxiety through trait optimism.

Altered frontal-amygdala effective connectivity during effortful emotion regulation in bipolar disorder

OBJECTIVES

Sufficient prefrontal top-down control of limbic affective areas, especially the amygdala, is essential for successful effortful emotion regulation (ER). Difficulties in effortful ER have been seen in patients with bipolar disorder (BD), which could be suggestive of a disturbed prefrontal-amygdala regulation circuit. The aim of this study was to investigate whether BD patients show abnormal effective connectivity from the prefrontal areas to the amygdala during effortful ER (reappraisal).

METHODS

Forty participants (23 BD patients and 17 healthy controls [HC]) performed an ER task during functional magnetic resonance imaging. Using dynamic causal modeling, we investigated effective connectivity from the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) to the amygdala, as well as connectivity between the DLPFC and VLPFC during reappraisal.

RESULTS

Both BD patients and HC showed decreased negative affect ratings following reappraisal compared to attending negative pictures (P < .001). There were no group differences (P = .10). There was a differential modulatory effect of reappraisal on the connectivity from the DLPFC to amygdala between BD patients and HC (P = .04), with BD patients showing a weaker modulatory effect on this connectivity compared to HC. There were no other group differences.

CONCLUSION

The disturbance in BD patients in effective connectivity from the DLPFC to the amygdala while reappraising is indicative of insufficient prefrontal control. This impairment should be studied further in relation to cycling frequency and polarity of switches in BD patients.

Optical mapping of prefrontal brain connectivity and activation during emotion anticipation

Accumulated neuroimaging evidence shows that the dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) is activated during emotion anticipation. The aim of this work is to examine the brain connectivity and activation differences in dlPFC between the positive, neutral and negative emotion anticipation by using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). The hemodynamic responses were first assessed for all subjects during the performance of various emotion anticipation tasks. And then small-world analysis was performed, in which the small-world network indicators including the clustering coefficient, average path length, average node degree, and measure of small-world index were calculated for the functional brain networks associated with the positive, neutral and negative emotion anticipation, respectively. We discovered that compared to negative and neutral emotion anticipation, the positive one exhibited enhanced brain activation in the left dlPFC. Although the functional brain networks for the three emotion anticipation cases manifested the small-world properties regarding the clustering coefficient, average path length, average node degree, and measure of small-world index, the positive one showed significantly higher clustering coefficient and shorter average path length than those from the neutral and negative cases. Consequently, the small-world network indicators and brain activation in dlPPC were able to distinguish well between the positive, neutral and negative emotion anticipation.

Prefrontoparietal dysfunction during emotion regulation in anxiety disorder: a meta-analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging studies

OBJECTIVE

Impairments in emotion regulation, and more specifically in cognitive reappraisal, are thought to play a key role in the pathogenesis of anxiety disorders. However, the available evidence on such deficits is inconsistent. To further illustrate the neurobiological underpinnings of anxiety disorder, the present meta-analysis summarizes functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) findings for cognitive reappraisal tasks and investigates related brain areas.

METHODS

We performed a comprehensive series of meta-analyses of cognitive reappraisal fMRI studies contrasting patients with anxiety disorder with healthy control (HC) subjects, employing an anisotropic effect-size signed differential mapping approach. We also conducted a subgroup analysis of medication status, anxiety disorder subtype, data-processing software, and MRI field strengths. Meta-regression was used to explore the effects of demographics and clinical characteristics. Eight studies, with 11 datasets including 219 patients with anxiety disorder and 227 HC, were identified.

RESULTS

Compared with HC, patients with anxiety disorder showed relatively decreased activation of the bilateral dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC), bilateral dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), bilateral supplementary motor area (SMA), left ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), bilateral parietal cortex, and left fusiform gyrus during cognitive reappraisal. The subgroup analysis, jackknife sensitivity analysis, heterogeneity analysis, and Egger's tests further confirmed these findings.

CONCLUSIONS

Impaired cognitive reappraisal in anxiety disorder may be the consequence of hypo-activation of the prefrontoparietal network, consistent with insufficient top-down control. Our findings provide robust evidence that functional impairment in prefrontoparietal neuronal circuits may have a significant role in the pathogenesis of anxiety disorder.

Modulating Emotional Experience Using Electrical Stimulation of the Medial-Prefrontal Cortex: A Preliminary tDCS-fMRI Study

OBJECTIVES

Implicit regulation of emotions involves medial-prefrontal cortex (mPFC) regions exerting regulatory control over limbic structures. Diminished regulation relates to aberrant mPFC functionality and psychopathology. Establishing means of modulating mPFC functionality could benefit research on emotion and its dysregulation. Here, we tested the capacity of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) targeting mPFC to modulate subjective emotional states by facilitating implicit emotion regulation.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Stimulation was applied concurrently with functional magnetic resonance imaging to validate its neurobehavioral effect. Sixteen participants were each scanned twice, counterbalancing active and sham tDCS application, while undergoing negative mood induction (clips featuring negative vs. neutral contents). Effects of stimulation on emotional experience were assessed using subjective and neural measures.

RESULTS

Subjectively, active stimulation led to significant reduction in reported intensity of experienced emotions to negatively valenced (p = 0.005) clips but not to neutral clips (p > 0.99). Active stimulation further mitigated a rise in stress levels from pre- to post-induction (sham: p = 0.004; active: p = 0.15). Neurally, stimulation increased activation in mPFC regions associated with implicit emotion regulation (ventromedial-prefrontal cortex; subgenual anterior-cingulate cortex, sgACC), and in ventral striatum, a core limbic structure (all ps < 0.05). Stimulation also altered functional connectivity (assessed using whole-brain psycho-physiological interaction) between these regions, and with additional limbic regions. Stimulation-induced sgACC activation correlated with reported emotion intensity and depressive symptoms (rs > 0.64, ps < 0.018), suggesting individual differences in stimulation responsivity.

CONCLUSIONS

Results of this study indicate the potential capacity of tDCS to facilitate brain activation in mPFC regions underlying implicit regulation of emotion and accordingly modulate subjective emotional experiences.

Washing away your sins in the brain: physical cleaning and priming of cleaning recruit different brain networks after moral threat

The association between moral purity and physical cleanliness has been widely discussed recently. Studies found that moral threat initiates the need of physical cleanliness, but actual physical cleaning and priming of cleaning have inconsistent effects on subsequent attitudes and behaviors. Here, we used resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging to explore the underlying neural mechanism of actual physical cleaning and priming of cleaning. After recalling moral transgression with strong feelings of guilt and shame, participants either actually cleaned their faces with a wipe or were primed with cleanliness through viewing its pictures. Results showed that actual physical cleaning reduced the spontaneous brain activities in the right insula and MPFC, regions that involved in embodied moral emotion processing, while priming of cleaning decreased activities in the right superior frontal gyrus and middle frontal gyrus, regions that participated in executive control processing. Additionally, actual physical cleaning also changed functional connectivity between insula/MPFC and emotion related regions, whereas priming of cleaning modified connectivity within both moral and sensorimotor areas. These findings revealed that actual physical cleaning and priming of cleaning led to changes in different brain regions and networks, providing neural evidence for the inconsistent effects of cleanliness on subsequent attitudes and behaviors.

Towards a human self-regulation system: Common and distinct neural signatures of emotional and behavioural control

Self-regulation refers to controlling our emotions and actions in the pursuit of higher-order goals. Although research suggests commonalities in the cognitive control of emotion and action, evidence for a shared neural substrate is scant and largely circumstantial. Here we report on two large-scale meta-analyses of human neuroimaging studies on emotion or action control, yielding two fronto-parieto-insular networks. The networks’ overlap, however, was restricted to four brain regions: posteromedial prefrontal cortex, bilateral anterior insula, and right temporo-parietal junction. Conversely, meta-analytic contrasts revealed major between-network differences, which were independently corroborated by clustering domain-specific regions based on their intrinsic functional connectivity, as well as by functionally characterizing network sub-clusters using the BrainMap database for quantitative forward and reverse inference. Collectively, our analyses identified a core system for implementing self-control across emotion and action, beyond which, however, either regulation facet appears to rely on broadly similar yet distinct subnetworks. These insights into the neurocircuitry subserving affective and executive facets of self-control suggest both processing commonalities and differences between the two aspects of human self-regulation.

Emotion regulation and well-being in primary classrooms situated in low-socioeconomic communities

BACKGROUND

Although emotion is central to most models of children's well-being, few studies have looked at how well-being is related to the ways in which children regulate their emotions.

AIMS

The aim of this study was to examine the associations among children's emotion regulation strategy choice and their emotional expression, behaviour, and well-being. The study also investigated whether contextual factors influenced the emotion regulation strategies children chose to use.

SAMPLE

Participants (N = 33) were selected from four Year 5/6 composite classrooms situated in low-socioeconomic urban communities in New Zealand.

METHOD

Questionnaires were used to measure children's well-being and teacher-reported emotional and behavioural problems. Emotional expression and emotion regulation strategies were measured through video-recorded observations in the classroom. A total of 1,184 instances of emotion regulation strategy use were coded using a framework based on Gross' process model of emotion regulation.

RESULTS

The findings highlight the complexity of the relations among emotion regulation, emotion expression, and well-being. Some strategies, such as Cognitive Reappraisal, were effective at upregulating negative emotion in the short term, yet not strongly associated with well-being. Others, such as Situation Modification: Physical, were positively associated with well-being, yet not with an immediate change in a child's emotional experience. The findings also suggest children flexibly use different strategies in relation to different contextual demands.

CONCLUSION

These findings may be used to guide future intervention efforts which target emotion regulation strategy use as well as those which focus on teachers' support of children during emotionally challenging situations.

Critical role of the right VLPFC in emotional regulation of social exclusion: a tDCS study

There is abundant evidence suggesting that the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (rVLPFC) plays an important role in down-regulating the emotional response to social exclusion. However, a causal relationship between rVLPFC function and explicit emotional regulation is not clear in the context of social exclusion. This study employed anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to activate rVLPFC while participants used emotional regulation to reappraise pictures of social exclusion. Forty-four participants were randomly assigned to an active tDCS group or a sham group. Both groups viewed social exclusion images under two conditions: in the no-reappraisal condition, participants were instructed to passively view social exclusion images; in the reappraisal condition, they reappraised the images to down-regulate negative emotional responses. Compared to sham stimulation, anodal tDCS over the rVLPFC resulted in less negative emotion ratings, and produced significantly smaller pupil diameter in the reappraisal, compared to no-reappraisal block. The tDCS also led to longer fixation durations to rejectees and shorter fixation durations to rejecters. Taken together, these findings suggest a causal role for rVLPFC in down-regulation of negative emotions produced by social exclusion. This study has implications for clinical interventions targeting emotional regulation deficits.

Putting Feelings Into Words: Affect Labeling as Implicit Emotion Regulation

Putting feelings into words, or “affect labeling,” can attenuate our emotional experiences. However, unlike explicit emotion regulation techniques, affect labeling may not even feel like a regulatory process as it occurs. Nevertheless, research investigating affect labeling has found it produces a pattern of effects like those seen during explicit emotion regulation, suggesting affect labeling is a form of implicit emotion regulation. In this review, we will outline research on affect labeling, comparing it to reappraisal, a form of explicit emotion regulation, along four major domains of effects—experiential, autonomic, neural, and behavioral—that establish it as a form of implicit emotion regulation. This review will then speculate on possible mechanisms driving affect labeling effects and other remaining unanswered questions.

Prefrontal Cortical Response to Negative Social Words Links Social Risk to Depressive Symptoms in Adolescence

Research suggests that altered emotion processing may be one important pathway linking social risk factors and depressive symptoms. We examined the extent to which neural response to negatively valenced social information might help to account for the relationship between social risk and depressive symptoms in youth. Forty-nine youth were scanned while identifying the emotional valence of words that connoted social status. They also completed questionnaires assessing self-reported social risk factors and depressive symptoms. Mediation analysis revealed that reduced dorsolateral prefrontal cortex activity in response to negative social status words explained the positive association between social risk and depressive symptoms. These findings suggest that social risk factors present during adolescence may contribute to depressive symptoms by influencing the neural substrates of emotion processing.

Dissociable meta-analytic brain networks contribute to coordinated emotional processing

Meta-analytic techniques for mining the neuroimaging literature continue to exert an impact on our conceptualization of functional brain networks contributing to human emotion and cognition. Traditional theories regarding the neurobiological substrates contributing to affective processing are shifting from regional- towards more network-based heuristic frameworks. To elucidate differential brain network involvement linked to distinct aspects of emotion processing, we applied an emergent meta-analytic clustering approach to the extensive body of affective neuroimaging results archived in the BrainMap database. Specifically, we performed hierarchical clustering on the modeled activation maps from 1,747 experiments in the affective processing domain, resulting in five meta-analytic groupings of experiments demonstrating whole-brain recruitment. Behavioral inference analyses conducted for each of these groupings suggested dissociable networks supporting: (1) visual perception within primary and associative visual cortices, (2) auditory perception within primary auditory cortices, (3) attention to emotionally salient information within insular, anterior cingulate, and subcortical regions, (4) appraisal and prediction of emotional events within medial prefrontal and posterior cingulate cortices, and (5) induction of emotional responses within amygdala and fusiform gyri. These meta-analytic outcomes are consistent with a contemporary psychological model of affective processing in which emotionally salient information from perceived stimuli are integrated with previous experiences to engender a subjective affective response. This study highlights the utility of using emergent meta-analytic methods to inform and extend psychological theories and suggests that emotions are manifest as the eventual consequence of interactions between large-scale brain networks.

The capacity for generating cognitive reappraisals is reflected in asymmetric activation of frontal brain regions

Encouraging patients to use cognitive reappraisal constitutes the core of modern psychotherapeutic approaches. However, evidence for specific neural correlates of the capacity for cognitive reappraisal, which is a necessary prerequisite for the effective implementation of cognitive reappraisal in everyday life, has been sparse to date. In the present study, the capacity for cognitive reappraisal was studied in terms of the participants’ inventiveness in generating alternative appraisals of anger-evoking events, and was correlated with frontal EEG alpha asymmetry recorded while the participants were generating reappraisals as well as during a common creative idea generation task. During cognitive reappraisal efforts, individuals higher on the capacity for generating cognitive reappraisals showed more left-lateralized activity in lateral prefrontal cortex, specifically in ventrolateral prefrontal cortex extending toward the frontal pole. This effect was observed independently from the activation during novel idea generation without emotional component, indicating that specific demands are implicated in the generation of reappraisals of emotional events. Taken together, the results indicate that individuals higher on the capacity for cognitive reappraisal are more capable or more prone to recruit appropriate brain regions when the situation demands coming up with alternative appraisals of stressful events. The findings may stimulate the development of more individually targeted interventions.

Convergence of BOLD and ERP measures of neural reactivity to emotional faces in children and adolescents with and without anxiety disorders

The neural bases of emotion are commonly measured using blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) signal and the late positive potential (LPP) event-related potential (ERP) component, but rarely together in the same individuals. Despite evidence of developmental changes in processing socio-emotional signals (e.g., faces) as reflected by both BOLD and LPP indices of brain maturation, the literature on the correspondence between these measures is limited to healthy adults, leaving questions regarding such correspondence across development and in clinical populations unaddressed. We examined the relationship between BOLD and LPP during an emotional face processing task in a large sample of youth (N = 70; age 7-19 years) with and without anxiety disorders, and tested whether BOLD signal in regions corresponding to LPP may account for age-related decreases in LPP. Greater activation in bilateral inferior frontal gyrus (IFG)/orbitofrontal gyrus (OFG), left supplementary motor area, right superior parietal lobule, and bilateral amygdala correlated with enhanced LPP to emotional faces in both anxious and healthy youth. Older youth exhibited reduced activation in bilateral IFG/OFG and bilateral amygdala, as well as reduced LPP. Decreased right IFG/OFG activation mediated the association between age and LPP. These findings support correspondence between these measures and need for multi-method approaches and indicate that age-related decreases in LPP may be driven, in part, by decreased IFG/OFG activation.

Distinct neural engagement during implicit and explicit regulation of negative stimuli

Neuroimaging research has characterized underlying neural mechanisms of attentional control and cognitive reappraisal, common implicit and explicit forms of emotion regulation, respectively. This research suggests attentional control and reappraisal may engage similar midline and lateral areas in the prefrontal cortex (PFC); however, findings are largely based on separate studies. Therefore, the extent to which mechanisms of implicit versus explicit regulation are independent or overlapping is not clear. In the current study, 49 healthy participants completed well-validated implicit and explicit regulation tasks in the form of attentional control and cognitive reappraisal during functional magnetic resonance imaging. During implicit regulation, participants identified a target letter in a string of letters superimposed on threatening faces. To manipulate attentional control, the letter string either consisted of all targets ('Threat Low' perceptual load), or was embedded among non-target letters ('Threat High' perceptual load). During cognitive reappraisal, participants were shown aversive images and instructed to use a cognitive approach to down-regulate negative affect ('Reappraise') or to naturally experience emotions without altering them ('Look-Negative'). Order of administration of tasks was counterbalanced across participants. Whole-brain results regarding frontal activity showed ventromedial PFC/rostral anterior cingulate cortex was recruited during Threat Low > Threat High. In contrast, Reappraise > Look-Negative resulted in engagement of the dorsolateral PFC, ventrolateral PFC and dorsomedial PFC. In addition, results showed no relationship between accuracy during attentional control and self-reported negative affect during cognitive reappraisal. Results indicate attentional control in the context of threat distractors and the reappraisal of negative images are supported by discrete, non-overlapping neurocircuitries.

Abnormal of inter-hemispheric functional connectivity in elderly subjects with overweight/obesity

BACKGROUND

There is a growing literature documenting a variety of brain abnormalities associated with obesity. However, little is known about the effects of obesity on inter-hemispheric connectivity in aging people.

METHODS

Participants included 61 cognitively intact elderly (including people with obesity, overweight, and lean controls) who underwent structural MRI, resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI) and standard neuropsychological batteries. Techniques including FreeSurfer and Voxel-mirrored Homotopic Connectivity (VMHC) were employed to evaluate inter-hemispheric structural and functional connectivity respectively.

RESULTS

There were no differences of cognitive abilities and vascular risks among groups. When compared to lean controls, obese group had greater VMHC in fusiform gyrus (FG); while overweight group had greater VMHC in FG, calcarine gyrus, inferior temporal gyrus (ITG), and postcentral gyrus (PCG). Moreover, the obesity group had lower VMHC in calcarine gyrus and PCG than overweight group (p<0.05, corrected).

CONCLUSIONS

The present study suggested, increased inter-hemispheric information transmission in networks supporting visual and sensorimotor function may lead to gain in weight, by possibly mediating diet behaviours of individuals.

Neural and behavioral correlates of negative self-focused thought associated with depression

A central feature of major depression (MDD) is heightened negative self-focused thought (negative-SFT). Neuroscientific research has identified abnormalities in a network of brain regions in MDD, including brain areas associated with SFT such as medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). To our knowledge no studies have investigated the behavioral and neural correlates of negative-SFT using a sentence completion task in a sample of individuals with varying depression histories and severities. We test the following hypotheses: (1) negative-SFT will be associated with depression; and (2) depression and negative-SFT will be related to resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) for brain regions implicated in SFT. Seventy-nine women with varying depression histories and severities completed a sentence completion task and underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI). Standard seed-based voxelwise rsFC was conducted for self-network regions of interest: dorsomedial PFC (dmPFC) and pregenual ACC (pgACC). We performed linear regression analyses to examine the relationships among depression, negative-SFT, and rsFC for the dmPFC and pgACC. Greater negative-SFT was associated with depression history and severity. Greater negative-SFT predicted increased rsFC between dmPFC and pgACC seeds and dorsolateral prefrontal (dlPFC) and parietal regions; depression group was also associated with increased pgACC-dlPFC connectivity. These findings are consistent with previous literature reporting elevated negative-SFT thought in MDD. Our rs-fMRI results provide novel support linking negative-SFT with increased rsFC between self-network and frontoparietal network regions across different levels of depression. Broadly, these findings highlight a dimension of social-affective functioning that may underlie MDD and other psychiatric conditions.

Neural Correlates of Facial Mimicry: Simultaneous Measurements of EMG and BOLD Responses during Perception of Dynamic Compared to Static Facial Expressions

Facial mimicry (FM) is an automatic response to imitate the facial expressions of others. However, neural correlates of the phenomenon are as yet not well established. We investigated this issue using simultaneously recorded EMG and BOLD signals during perception of dynamic and static emotional facial expressions of happiness and anger. During display presentations, BOLD signals and zygomaticus major (ZM), corrugator supercilii (CS) and orbicularis oculi (OO) EMG responses were recorded simultaneously from 46 healthy individuals. Subjects reacted spontaneously to happy facial expressions with increased EMG activity in ZM and OO muscles and decreased CS activity, which was interpreted as FM. Facial muscle responses correlated with BOLD activity in regions associated with motor simulation of facial expressions [i.e., inferior frontal gyrus, a classical Mirror Neuron System (MNS)]. Further, we also found correlations for regions associated with emotional processing (i.e., insula, part of the extended MNS). It is concluded that FM involves both motor and emotional brain structures, especially during perception of natural emotional expressions.

Speech Disfluency-dependent Amygdala Activity in Adults Who Stutter: Neuroimaging of Interpersonal Communication in MRI Scanner Environment

Affective states, such as anticipatory anxiety, critically influence speech communication behavior in adults who stutter. However, there is currently little evidence regarding the involvement of the limbic system in speech disfluency during interpersonal communication. We designed this neuroimaging study and experimental procedure to sample neural activity during interpersonal communication between human participants, and to investigate the relationship between the amygdala activity and speech disfluency. Participants were required to engage in live communication with a stranger of the opposite sex in the MRI scanner environment. In the gaze condition, the stranger gazed at the participant without speaking, while in the live conversation condition, the stranger asked questions that the participant was required to answer. The stranger continued to gaze silently at the participant while the participant answered. Adults who stutter reported significantly higher discomfort than fluent controls during the experiment. Activity in the right amygdala, a key anatomical region in the limbic system involved in emotion, was significantly correlated with stuttering occurrences in adults who stutter. Right amygdala activity from pooled data of all participants also showed a significant correlation with discomfort level during the experiment. Activity in the prefrontal cortex, which forms emotion regulation neural circuitry with the amygdala, was decreased in adults who stutter than in fluent controls. This is the first study to demonstrate that amygdala activity during interpersonal communication is involved in disfluent speech in adults who stutter.

Functional connectivity changes following interpersonal reactivity

Attachment experiences substantially influence emotional and cognitive development. Narratives comprising attachment-dependent content were proposed to modulate activation of cognitive-emotional schemata in listeners. We studied the effects after listening to prototypical attachment narratives on wellbeing and countertransference-reactions in 149 healthy participants. Neural correlates of these cognitive-emotional schema activations were investigated in a 7 Tesla rest-task-rest fMRI-study (23 healthy males) using functional connectivity (FC) analysis of the social approach network (seed regions: left and right Caudate Nucleus, CN). Reduced FC between left CN and bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) represented a general effect of prior auditory stimulation. After presentation of the insecure-dismissing narrative, FC between left CN and bilateral temporo-parietal junction, and right dorsal posterior Cingulum was reduced, compared to baseline. Post-narrative FC-patterns of insecure-dismissing and insecure-preoccupied narratives differed in strength between left CN and right DLPFC. Neural correlates of the moderating effect of individual attachment anxiety were represented in a reduced CN-DLPFC FC as a function of individual neediness-levels. These findings suggest specific neural processing of prolonged mood-changes and schema activation induced by attachment-specific speech patterns. Individual desire for interpersonal proximity was predicted by attachment anxiety and furthermore modulated FC of the social approach network in those exposed to such narratives.

Neuroimaging Correlates of Frontotemporal Dementia Associated with SQSTM1 Mutations

BACKGROUND

Frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) is a progressive dementia characterized by focal atrophy of frontal and/or temporal lobes caused by mutations in the gene coding for sequestosome 1 (SQSTM1), among other genes. Rare SQSTM1 gene mutations have been associated with Paget's disease of bone, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and, more recently, frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD).

OBJECTIVE

The aim of the study was to determine whether a characteristic pattern of grey and white matter loss is associated with SQSTM1 dysfunction.

METHODS

We performed a voxel-based morphometry (VBM) study in FTD subjects carrying SQSTM1 pathogenic variants (FTD/SQSTM1 mutation carriers; n = 10), compared with FTD subjects not carrying SQSTM1 mutations (Sporadic FTD; n = 20) and healthy controls with no SQSTM1 mutations (HC/SQSTM1 noncarriers; n = 20). The groups were matched according to current age, disease duration, and gender.

RESULTS

After comparing FTD/SQSTM1 carriers with Sporadic FTD, a predominantly right cortical atrophy pattern was localized in the inferior frontal, medial orbitofrontal, precentral gyri, and the anterior insula. White matter atrophy was found in both medial and inferior frontal gyri, pallidum, and putamen. FTD/SQSTM1 carriers compared with HC/SQSTM1 noncarriers showed atrophy at frontal, temporal, and parietal lobes of both hemispheres whereas the MRI pattern found in Sporadic FTD compared with controls was frontal and left temporal lobe atrophy, extending toward parietal and occipital lobes of both hemispheres.

CONCLUSIONS

These results suggest that fronto-orbito-insular regions including corticospinal projections as described in ALS are probably more susceptible to the damaging effect of SQSTM1 mutations delineatinga specific gene-linked atrophy pattern.

Brain Activity and Network Interactions Linked to Valence-Related Differences in the Impact of Emotional Distraction

Previous investigations showed that the impact of negative distraction on cognitive processing is linked to increased activation in a ventral affective system (VAS) and simultaneous deactivation in a dorsal executive system (DES). However, less is known about the influences of positive valence and different arousal levels on these effects. FMRI data were recorded while participants performed a working memory (WM) task, with positive and negative pictures presented as distracters during the delay between the memoranda and probes. First, positive distraction had reduced impact on WM performance, compared with negative distraction. Second, fMRI results identified valence-specific effects in DES regions and overlapping arousal and valence effects in VAS regions, suggesting increased impact of negative distraction and enhanced engagement of coping mechanisms for positive distraction. Third, a valence-related rostro-caudal dissociation was identified in medial frontal regions associated with the default-mode network (DMN). Finally, these DMN regions showed increased functional connectivity with DES regions for negative compared with positive distraction. Overall, these findings suggest that, while both positive and negative distraction engage partly similar arousal-dependent mechanisms, their differential impact on WM performance is linked to dissociations in the engagement of, and coupling between, regions associated with emotion processing and higher lever cognitive control.

Effective amygdala-prefrontal connectivity predicts individual differences in successful emotion regulation

The ability to voluntarily regulate our emotional response to threatening and highly arousing stimuli by using cognitive reappraisal strategies is essential for our mental and physical well-being. This might be achieved by prefrontal brain regions (e.g. inferior frontal gyrus, IFG) down-regulating activity in the amygdala. It is unknown, to which degree effective connectivity within the emotion-regulation network is linked to individual differences in reappraisal skills. Using psychophysiological interaction analyses of functional magnetic resonance imaging data, we examined changes in inter-regional connectivity between the amygdala and IFG with other brain regions during reappraisal of emotional responses and used emotion regulation success as an explicit regressor. During down-regulation of emotion, reappraisal success correlated with effective connectivity between IFG with dorsolateral, dorsomedial and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (PFC). During up-regulation of emotion, effective coupling between IFG with anterior cingulate cortex, dorsomedial and ventromedial PFC as well as the amygdala correlated with reappraisal success. Activity in the amygdala covaried with activity in lateral and medial prefrontal regions during the up-regulation of emotion and correlated with reappraisal success. These results suggest that successful reappraisal is linked to changes in effective connectivity between two systems, prefrontal cognitive control regions and regions crucially involved in emotional evaluation.

Modulation of amygdala response to task-irrelevant emotion

It has been shown that as cognitive demands of a non-emotional task increase, amygdala response to task-irrelevant emotional stimuli is reduced. However, it remains unclear whether effects are due to altered task demands, or altered perceptual input associated with task demands. Here, we present fMRI data from 20 adult males during a novel cognitive conflict task in which the requirement to scan emotional information was necessary for task performance and held constant across levels of cognitive conflict. Response to fearful facial expressions was attenuated under high (vs low) conflict conditions, as indexed by both slower reaction times and reduced right amygdala response. Psychophysiological interaction analysis showed that increased amygdala response to fear in the low conflict condition was accompanied by increased functional coupling with middle frontal gyrus, a prefrontal region previously associated with emotion regulation during cognitive task performance. These data suggest that amygdala response to emotion is modulated as a function of task demands, even when perceptual inputs are closely matched across load conditions. PPI data also show that, in particular emotional contexts, increased functional coupling of amygdala with prefrontal cortex can paradoxically occur when executive demands are lower.