Abstract
Rumination is a trait that includes two subcomponents, namely brooding and reflective pondering, respectively construed as maladaptive and adaptive response styles to negative experiences. Existing evidence indicates that rumination in general is associated with structural and functional differences in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and the dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). However, conclusive evidence on the specific neural structural basis of each of the two subcomponents is lacking. In this voxel-based morphometry study, we investigated the independent and specific neural structural basis of brooding and reflective pondering in 30 healthy young adults, who belonged to high or low brooding or reflective pondering groups. Consistent with past research, modest but significant positive correlation was found between brooding and reflective pondering. When controlling for reflective pondering, high-brooding group showed increased gray matter volumes in the left DLPFC and ACC. Further analysis on extracted gray matter values showed that gray matter of the same DLPFC and ACC regions also showed significant negative effects of reflective pondering. Taken together, our findings indicate that the two subcomponents of rumination might share some common processes yet also have distinct neural basis. In view of the significant roles of the left DLPFC and ACC in attention and self-related emotional processing/regulation, our findings provide insight into how the potentially shared and distinct cognitive, affective and neural processes of brooding and reflective pondering can be extended to clinical populations to further elucidate the neurobehavioral relationships between rumination and prefrontal abnormality.
Highlights
Rumination refers to a person indulging in passive and repetitive thinking on symptoms of distress and the possible causes and consequences of those symptoms (Nolen-Hoeksema and Morrow, 1993)
Neither Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS)-D nor HADS-A scores correlated with reflective pondering scores after controlling for brooding scores (|r| < 0.11, ps > 0.58)
The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) cluster remained significant in the multiple regression analyses in which both brooding and reflective pondering scores were entered as continuous variables, while the dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) cluster no longer survived cluster-based FWE correction
Summary
Rumination refers to a person indulging in passive and repetitive thinking on symptoms of distress and the possible causes and consequences of those symptoms (Nolen-Hoeksema and Morrow, 1993). Brooding is positively and moderately associated with depression both concurrently and longitudinally, while reflective pondering is only associated with depression concurrently (Treynor et al, 2003). They may have some overlapping in initial processing of negative events but differ markedly in the characteristics of subsequent cognitive-affective processes. Brooding refers to the tendency to reflect on the (potential) negative impact of a current situation without devising a constructive solution (Treynor et al, 2003). Brooding and reflective pondering were suggested to have different clinical implications, with brooding being considered a maladaptive form of coping strategy, while reflective pondering was suggested to be adaptive (Treynor et al, 2003)
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