Self-concept clarity is predicted by amygdala: Evidence from a VBM study

Abstract

Self-concept clarity (SCC) refers to the degree to which individual has clearly defined, internally consistent, and temporally stable self-concept. Given that individuals attempt to define themselves positively, SCC is also regarded as the degree of individuals seeing themselves in positive and consistent ways. According to previous studies, SCC is mainly influenced by negative daily events, such as setbacks in daily personally valued goals, social rejection and inappropriate social comparison. Because the favorable views about ourselves are questioned, contradicted, impugned, mocked, or challenged by this daily events, SCC is influenced by self-threat, which is a very important and common threat in our daily life (such as mental threat and physical threat). Thus, the brain regions which are involved in self-threat processing, such as amygdala, might predict the level of SCC. Therefore, in the present study, the predictability of amygdala to SCC was investigated by using voxel-based morphology (VBM). According to the perspective of uncertainty and anticipation in anxiety, anxious individuals have defection in threat processing, which was related to abnormal structure in amygdala. Thus, we might learn about the relationship the brain regions related to threat processing in amygdala by analyzing the relationship between anxiety and amygdala among anxious individuals, which might be helpful for us to investigate the predictability of amygdala to SCC furtherly. Trait anxiety is a stable disposition related to frequent and/or intense state anxiety. Considering that trait anxiety is very common and easy-operation, the predictability of amygdala to SCC was investigated based on analyzing the relationship between trait anxiety and amygdala. In addition, although amygdala is very important in threat processing, such as lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC), ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC), anterior insula (AI), hippocampi, para hippocampal gyrus and anterior cingulated cortex (ACC) had also been found to be involved in threat processing. Except amygdala, the relationship between trait anxiety and the brain regions motioned above were also investigated using whole-brain analysis. The result of the present research showed that trait anxiety was negatively correlated with self-concept clarity; trait anxiety was positively associated with right basolateral amygdala (BLA), which can negatively predict SCC. According to these results, we believed that the enlarged BLA might make individuals be prone to detect threats around them and form, consolidate and retrieve threatened memory. Therefore, the negative predictability of BLA to SCC might reflect that with BLA increasing, individuals might be easily influenced by self-threat which make them be more easy to develop lower SCC. In addition, according to our whole-brain analysis, trait anxiety was also positively associated with right AI, which can also negatively predict SCC. Based on the role of AI playing in processing aware visceral responses into subjective feeling states, we thought that with BLA increasing individuals might easily generate more intense subjective feeling, which also make them be prone to be influenced by self-threat and develop lower SCC.