1
|
Wang Z, Nan T, Goerlich KS, Li Y, Aleman A, Luo Y, Xu P. Neurocomputational mechanisms underlying fear-biased adaptation learning in changing environments. PLoS Biol 2023; 21:e3001724. [PMID: 37126501 PMCID: PMC10174591 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3001724] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/18/2022] [Revised: 05/11/2023] [Accepted: 03/31/2023] [Indexed: 05/02/2023] Open
Abstract
Humans are able to adapt to the fast-changing world by estimating statistical regularities of the environment. Although fear can profoundly impact adaptive behaviors, the computational and neural mechanisms underlying this phenomenon remain elusive. Here, we conducted a behavioral experiment (n = 21) and a functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment (n = 37) with a novel cue-biased adaptation learning task, during which we simultaneously manipulated emotional valence (fearful/neutral expressions of the cue) and environmental volatility (frequent/infrequent reversals of reward probabilities). Across 2 experiments, computational modeling consistently revealed a higher learning rate for the environment with frequent versus infrequent reversals following neutral cues. In contrast, this flexible adjustment was absent in the environment with fearful cues, suggesting a suppressive role of fear in adaptation to environmental volatility. This suppressive effect was underpinned by activity of the ventral striatum, hippocampus, and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) as well as increased functional connectivity between the dACC and temporal-parietal junction (TPJ) for fear with environmental volatility. Dynamic causal modeling identified that the driving effect was located in the TPJ and was associated with dACC activation, suggesting that the suppression of fear on adaptive behaviors occurs at the early stage of bottom-up processing. These findings provide a neuro-computational account of how fear interferes with adaptation to volatility during dynamic environments.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Zhihao Wang
- Beijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, National Demonstration Center for Experimental Psychology Education (BNU), Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
- CNRS-Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne, Panthéon-Sorbonne University, France
| | - Tian Nan
- School of Psychology, Sichuan Center of Applied Psychology, Chengdu Medical College, Chengdu, China
| | - Katharina S Goerlich
- University of Groningen, Department of Biomedical Sciences of Cells & Systems, Section Cognitive Neuroscience, University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands
| | - Yiman Li
- Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Affective and Social Neuroscience, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Center for Brain Disorders and Cognitive Sciences, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China
| | - André Aleman
- University of Groningen, Department of Biomedical Sciences of Cells & Systems, Section Cognitive Neuroscience, University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands
| | - Yuejia Luo
- School of Psychology, Sichuan Center of Applied Psychology, Chengdu Medical College, Chengdu, China
- Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Affective and Social Neuroscience, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Center for Brain Disorders and Cognitive Sciences, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China
- The State Key Lab of Cognitive and Learning, Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
| | - Pengfei Xu
- Beijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, National Demonstration Center for Experimental Psychology Education (BNU), Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
- Center for Neuroimaging, Shenzhen Institute of Neuroscience, Shenzhen, China
| |
Collapse
|
2
|
Vicario CM, Scavone V, Lucifora C, Falzone A, Pioggia G, Gangemi S, Craparo G, Martino G. Evidence of abnormal scalar timing property in alexithymia. PLoS One 2023; 18:e0278881. [PMID: 36689490 PMCID: PMC9870170 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0278881] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/26/2022] [Accepted: 11/26/2022] [Indexed: 01/24/2023] Open
Abstract
Evidence suggests that incidental modulation of affective states affects the ability to keep track of time. Alexithymia represents an ideal condition to further address the emotion-time processing link, as it refers to a trait characterized by a deficit of affective processing. 31 healthy participants completed an online version of the TAS-20 scale, which measures alexithymia, and a time reproduction task of visual stimuli related to positive (i.e., happiness) and negative (i.e., anger) facial expressions. Results documented a positive correlation between TAS-20 score and the variability in reproducing sub-second durations of the anger expression stimuli We also found an overestimation of sub-second durations of non-affective expressions in borderline/alexithymic participants. Finally, in line with the literature, we confirmed the overall tendency to overestimate the duration of anger expression stimuli. These findings, which can be interpreted in terms of abnormal scalar timing property in alexithymia, expand previous investigations linking this personality trait with abnormal processing of negative emotions. The evidence that alexithymia predicts the reproduction variability of sub-second durations of negative affective stimuli corroborates previous neuroimaging studies documenting cerebellar deficits in these individuals.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Carmelo Mario Vicario
- Dipartimento di Scienze Cognitive, Psicologiche, Pedagogiche e degli studi culturali, Università di Messina, Messina, Italy
| | - Vito Scavone
- Dipartimento di Scienze Cognitive, Psicologiche, Pedagogiche e degli studi culturali, Università di Messina, Messina, Italy
| | | | - Alessandra Falzone
- Dipartimento di Scienze Cognitive, Psicologiche, Pedagogiche e degli studi culturali, Università di Messina, Messina, Italy
| | - Giovanni Pioggia
- Institute for Biomedical Research and Innovation (IRIB), National Research Council of Italy (CNR), Messina, Italy
| | - Sebastiano Gangemi
- Dipartimento di Medicina Clinica e Sperimentale, Università di Messina, Messina, Italy
| | - Giuseppe Craparo
- Faculty of Human and Social Sciences, Kore University of Enna, Cittadella Universitaria, Enna, Italy
| | - Gabriella Martino
- Dipartimento di Medicina Clinica e Sperimentale, Università di Messina, Messina, Italy
| |
Collapse
|
3
|
OXTR polymorphisms and parental bonding modulate alexithymia: The main effects and interaction. JOURNAL OF PACIFIC RIM PSYCHOLOGY 2023. [DOI: 10.1177/18344909231154928] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 03/17/2023] Open
Abstract
Alexithymia is a subclinical personality disorder characterized by difficulties in identifying and expressing one's own emotion. Individual differences in alexithymia are influenced by both genetic and environmental factors. However, the interplay between these factors and their influences on alexithymia are unclear. Considering that oxytocin plays important roles in emotion processing and that parental bonding influences the development of alexithymia, we explored the associations between OXTR polymorphisms and alexithymia and examined whether the potential associations are moderated by parental bonding. To this end, we genotyped the OXTR polymorphisms (rs53576 and rs1042778) and scored alexithymia and parental bonding with the Toronto Alexithymia Scale and the Parental Bonding Instrument. Results indicated that: (1) the characteristics of alexithymia were negatively associated with parental care and positively with parental overprotection; (2) the OXTR rs53576 was significantly associated with the characteristics of alexithymia, such that the AA genotype was associated with fewer difficulties in identifying feelings and describing feelings than the AG/GG genotypes; and (3) the OXTR rs1042778 interacted with parental care in alexithymia with the vantage sensitivity model: the GG genotype was related to less severity of alexithymia than the AG/GG genotypes only in individuals with higher parental care. Overall, these findings suggest that the OXTR is related to alexithymia and that the quality of parental care influences the relationship. However, considering that the evidence from this study is weak, more research is needed to understand the roles of OXTR in alexithymia.
Collapse
|
4
|
Audiovisual Emotional Congruency Modulates the Stimulus-Driven Cross-Modal Spread of Attention. Brain Sci 2022; 12:brainsci12091229. [PMID: 36138965 PMCID: PMC9497153 DOI: 10.3390/brainsci12091229] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/14/2022] [Revised: 09/04/2022] [Accepted: 09/07/2022] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
It has been reported that attending to stimuli in visual modality can spread to task-irrelevant but synchronously presented stimuli in auditory modality, a phenomenon termed the cross-modal spread of attention, which could be either stimulus-driven or representation-driven depending on whether the visual constituent of an audiovisual object is further selected based on the object representation. The stimulus-driven spread of attention occurs whenever a task-irrelevant sound synchronizes with an attended visual stimulus, regardless of the cross-modal semantic congruency. The present study recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate whether the stimulus-driven cross-modal spread of attention could be modulated by audio-visual emotional congruency in a visual oddball task where emotion (positive/negative) was task-irrelevant. The results first demonstrated a prominent stimulus-driven spread of attention regardless of audio-visual emotional congruency by showing that for all audiovisual pairs, the extracted ERPs to the auditory constituents of audiovisual stimuli within the time window of 200–300 ms were significantly larger than ERPs to the same auditory stimuli delivered alone. However, the amplitude of this stimulus-driven auditory Nd component during 200–300 ms was significantly larger for emotionally incongruent than congruent audiovisual stimuli when their visual constituents’ emotional valences were negative. Moreover, the Nd was sustained during 300–400 ms only for the incongruent audiovisual stimuli with emotionally negative visual constituents. These findings suggest that although the occurrence of the stimulus-driven cross-modal spread of attention is independent of audio-visual emotional congruency, its magnitude is nevertheless modulated even when emotion is task-irrelevant.
Collapse
|
5
|
Wang Z, S Goerlich K, Luo Y, Xu P, Aleman A. Social-Specific Impairment of Negative Emotion Perception in Alexithymia. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 2021; 17:387-397. [PMID: 34406408 PMCID: PMC8972281 DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsab099] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/23/2021] [Revised: 07/06/2021] [Accepted: 08/18/2021] [Indexed: 11/25/2022] Open
Abstract
Alexithymia has been characterized as an impaired ability of emotion processing and regulation. The definition of alexithymia does not include a social component. However, there is some evidence that social cognition may be compromised in individuals with alexithymia. Hence, emotional impairments associated with alexithymia may extend to socially relevant information. Here, we recorded electrophysiological responses of individuals meeting the clinically relevant cutoff for alexithymia (ALEX; n = 24) and individuals without alexithymia (NonALEX; n = 23) while they viewed affective scenes that varied on the dimensions of sociality and emotional valence during a rapid serial visual presentation task. We found that ALEX exhibited lower accuracy and larger N2 than NonALEX in the perception of social negative scenes. Source reconstruction revealed that the group difference in N2 was localized at the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex. Irrespective of emotional valence, ALEX showed stronger alpha power than NonALEX in social but not non-social conditions. Our findings support the hypothesis of social processing being selectively affected by alexithymia, especially for stimuli with negative valence. Electrophysiological evidence suggests altered deployment of attentional resources in the perception of social-specific emotional information in alexithymia. This work sheds light on the neuropsychopathology of alexithymia and alexithymia-related disorders.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Zhihao Wang
- Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Affective and Social Neuroscience, Center for Brain Disorders and Cognitive Sciences, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China.,Department of Biomedical Sciences of Cells & Systems, Section Cognitive Neuroscience, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
| | - Katharina S Goerlich
- Department of Biomedical Sciences of Cells & Systems, Section Cognitive Neuroscience, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
| | - Yuejia Luo
- Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Affective and Social Neuroscience, Center for Brain Disorders and Cognitive Sciences, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China.,Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.,Center for Neuroimaging, Shenzhen Institute of Neuroscience, Shenzhen, China
| | - Pengfei Xu
- Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.,Center for Neuroimaging, Shenzhen Institute of Neuroscience, Shenzhen, China.,Great Bay Neuroscience and Technology Research Institute (Hong Kong), Kwun Tong, Hong Kong
| | - André Aleman
- Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Affective and Social Neuroscience, Center for Brain Disorders and Cognitive Sciences, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China.,Department of Biomedical Sciences of Cells & Systems, Section Cognitive Neuroscience, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
| |
Collapse
|