Processing Of Negative Stimuli Research Articles

Persistence of amygdala hyperactivity to subliminal negative emotion processing in the long-term course of depression

Biased emotion processing has been suggested to underlie the etiology and maintenance of depression. Neuroimaging studies have shown mood-congruent alterations in amygdala activity in patients with acute depression, even during early, automatic stages of emotion processing. However, due to a lack of prospective studies over periods longer than 8 weeks, it is unclear whether these neurofunctional abnormalities represent a persistent correlate of depression even in remission. In this prospective case-control study, we aimed to examine brain functional correlates of automatic emotion processing in the long-term course of depression. In a naturalistic design, n = 57 patients with acute major depressive disorder (MDD) and n = 37 healthy controls (HC) were assessed with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) at baseline and after 2 years. Patients were divided into two subgroups according to their course of illness during the study period (n = 37 relapse, n = 20 no-relapse). During fMRI, participants underwent an affective priming task that assessed emotion processing of subliminally presented sad and happy compared to neutral face stimuli. A group × time × condition (3 × 2 × 2) ANOVA was performed for the amygdala as region-of-interest (ROI). At baseline, there was a significant group × condition interaction, resulting from amygdala hyperactivity to sad primes in patients with MDD compared to HC, whereas no difference between groups emerged for happy primes. In both patient subgroups, amygdala hyperactivity to sad primes persisted after 2 years, regardless of relapse or remission at follow-up. The results suggest that amygdala hyperactivity during automatic processing of negative stimuli persists during remission and represents a trait rather than a state marker of depression. Enduring neurofunctional abnormalities may reflect a consequence of or a vulnerability to depression.

On truth and polarity in negation processing: language-specific effects in non-linguistic contexts.

This study examines how negation is processed in a nonverbal context (e.g., when assessing ▲ ≠ ▲) by speakers of a truth-based system like Mandarin and a polarity-based system like English. In a truth-based system, negation may take longer to process because it is typically attached to the negation as a whole (it is not true that triangle does not equal triangle), whereas in polarity-based systems, negation is processed relatively faster because it is attached to just the equation symbol (triangle does not equal triangle), which is processed relatively faster. Our hypothesis was that negation processing routines previously observed for verbal contexts, namely that speakers of Mandarin get slowed down more when processing negative stimuli than positive stimuli compared to speakers of English, also extend to contexts when language use is not obligatory. To test this, we asked participants to agree/disagree with equations comprising simple shapes and positive '=' or negative '≠' equation symbols. English speakers showed a response-time advantage over Mandarin speakers in negation conditions. In a separate experiment, we also tested the contribution of equation symbols '≠'/'=' to the cognitive demands by asking participants to judge shape sameness in symbol-free trials, such as ▲ ■. This comparison allowed us to test whether crosslinguistic differences arise not because of shape congruence judgement but arguably due to negation attachment. The effect of the '≠' symbol on shape congruence was language-specific, speeding up English speakers but slowing down Mandarin speakers when the two shapes differed. These findings suggest language-specific processing of negation in negative equations, interpreted as novel support for linguistic relativity.

How do bipolar disease states affect positive and negative emotion processing? Insights from a meta-analysis on the neural fingerprints of emotional processing.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging studies on emotion processing in patients with bipolar disorder (BD) show hyperactivity of limbic-striatal brain areas and hypoactivity in inferior frontal areas compared to healthy participants. However, heterogeneous results in patients with different disease states and different valences of emotional stimuli have been identified. To integrate previous results and elucidate the impact of disease state and stimulus valence, we conducted a systematic literature search for journal articles in the Web of Science Core Collection including MEDLINE databases and employed a coordinate-based-meta-analysis of functional-MRI studies comparing emotion processing in BD-patients with healthy participantsusing seed-based d mapping (SDM) to test for between-subjects-effects. We included 31 studies published before 11/2022 with a total of N = 766 BD-patients and N = 836 controls. Patients with BD showed hyperactivated regions involved in salience processing of emotional stimuli (e.g., the bilateral insula) and hypoactivation of regions associated with emotion regulation (e.g., inferior frontal gyrus) during emotion processing, compared to healthy participants. A more detailed descriptive analysis revealed a hypoactive (anterior) insula in manic BD-patients specifically for negative in comparison to positive emotion processing. This meta-analysis corroborates the overall tenor of existing literature that patients with BD show an increased emotional reactivity (hyperactivity of salience-processing regions) together with a lower (cognitive) control (hypoactivity of brain areas associated with emotion regulation) over emotional states. Our analysis suggests reduced interoceptive processing of negative stimuli in mania, pointing out the need for longitudinal within-subject analyses of emotion processing.

Current and lasting effects of affect labeling on late positive potential (LPP) amplitudes elicited by negative events.

Labeling the emotional aspect of self-unrelated stimuli (i.e., affect labeling) is a crucial strategy for implicit emotion regulation. However, it is uncertain whether affect labeling influences event-related potential (ERP) responses (e.g., the late positive potential, LPP) to negative stimuli in comparison with control conditions in which attention is shifted to the emotional content of the stimuli (e.g., affect matching). Additionally, it is unknown whether affect labeling has a lasting effect on the processing of negative stimuli. Participants were required to label the emotion (negative or neutral) of target pictures with two words, to match the emotion with alternative pictures or to merely view the target pictures. Target pictures were presented again immediately after the regulation task. After all the target pictures had been labeled, matched and viewed, the pictures were re-exposed for the third time. The results showed that negative pictures elicited larger late LPP responses during the affect labeling task than during other tasks. However, the LPP responses were smaller for negative pictures in the affect labeling condition than in the other conditions when target pictures were re-exposed immediately after the task. When target pictures were re-presented again long after the regulation tasks, the LPP responses were smaller for negative stimuli with a history of affect labeling than viewing, whereas this effect did not differ between the affect labeling and matching conditions. The current findings suggest that affect labeling has current effects and, to some extent, has lasting effects on negative stimulus processing.

Is the most really the best: a review for the most selective SSRI concept three decades later

IntroductionPharmaceutical slogans presuming a particular antidepressant molecule being the best solely based on a core concept could be proved “not accurate” especially following patients’ actual exposure to the antidepressant for longer than the usual six or twelve weeks’ trialsObjectivesReviewing the current situations of SSRI induced anhedonia recognition and its management. Distinguishing anhedonia as a core symptoms of depression from SSRI induced anhedonia and the combination of both.MethodsReview of literatures including theses related to the same topicResultsResearch suggests that, SSRIs might be more effective at treating some symptoms than others. More specifically, it has been suggested that, SSRIs might be more effective at improving symptoms such as low mood and anxiety but not anhedonia (Argyropoulos et al. psych.pharmaology, 2013; 27(10), 869-877). It has been proposed that, catecholaminergic antidepressants might be more effective treatments for anhedonia and emotional blunting in MDD than SSRIs (McCabe et al. Biological psychiatry, 2010; 67(5), 439–445. The primary effect of SSRIs is reduced processing of negative stimuli rather than increased positive stimuli. Emotional blunting is related to SSRI dose and possibly serotonergic effects on the frontal lobes and/or serotonergic modulation of midbrain dopaminergic systems projecting to the prefrontal cortex (PFC). By enhancing serotonergic transmission, SSRIs can activate the inhibitory Gamma Aminobutyric Acid (GABA) interneurons, thereby dampening the noradrenergic and dopaminergic input ( Blier. Int J Neuropsychopharmacol., 2014; 17:997–1008).Management of SSRI induced anhedonia includes lowering the current SSRI dose. Adding non SSRI antidepressant to the current SSRI dose or to a lowered SSRI dose. Gradual discontinuation of the SSRI and switching to another antidepressant with a different profile (SNRI) that might improve the patient’s emotional response (Koenigs. Behav Brain Res., 2009;201:239–43).Bupropion is an antidepressant with less possibility to give rise to emotional blunting. (Tomoko et al. Neuroscience Letters., 2021; 749, 135716. agomelatine(Thome et al. Journal of neural transmission., 2015; 122(1), 3-7.Vortioxetine and others (Bing et al. frontiers in psychiatry., Jan, 2019; 10-17. are of inrerest in this regard.Image 2:ConclusionsThe most selective SSRI concept assumes that most selective means less affinity to other receptors or secondary binding sites which might suggest less side effects and perhaps being the most efficacious. Not only serotonin but multiple neurotransmitters are in action at the downstream part of a cascade of events underpinning the etiology of MDD. MDD has heterogeneous etiology and this explains why patients respond differently. SSRI induced anhedonia could be tackled and we need to explore how many patients would benefit from that now and have not yet.Disclosure of InterestNone Declared

Integrating the pattern of negative emotion processing and acute stress response with childhood stress among healthy young adults

Childhood adversity might impair corticolimbic brain regions, which play a crucial role in emotion processing and the acute stress response. The dimensional model of childhood adversity proposed that deprivation and threat dimensions might associated with individuals’ development through different mechanisms. However, few studies have explored the relationship between different dimensions of childhood stress, emotion processing, and acute stress reactivity despite the overlapping brain regions of the last two. With the aid of the event-related potentials technique, we explore whether negative emotion processing, which might be particularly relevant for adaptive stress responding among individuals with adverse childhood experience, mediates the relationship between dimensional childhood stress and acute stress response. Fifty-one young adults completed a free-viewing task to evaluate neural response to negative stimuli measured by late positive potential (LPP) of ERPs (Event-related potentials). On a separate day, heart rate and salivary cortisol were collected during a social-evaluative stress challenge (i.e. TSST, Trier Social Stress Test). After the TSST, the childhood trauma questionnaire was measured to indicate the level of abuse (as a proxy of threat) and neglect (as a proxy of deprivation) dimensions. Multiple linear regression and mediation analysis were used to explore the relationship among childhood stress, emotion processing, and acute stress response. Higher level of childhood abuse (but not neglect) was distinctly related to smaller LPP amplitudes to negative stimuli, as well as smaller heart rate reactivity to acute stress. For these participants, smaller LPP amplitudes were linked with smaller heart rate reactivity to acute stress. Furthermore, decreased LPP amplitudes to negative stimuli mediated the relationship between higher level of childhood abuse and blunted heart rate reactivity to stress. Consistent with the dimensional model of childhood stress, our study showed that childhood abuse is distinctly associated with neural as well as physiological response to threat. Furthermore, the blunted neural response to negative stimuli might be the underlying mechanism in which childhood abuse leads to the blunted acute stress response. Considering that all the participants are healthy in the present study, the blunted processing of negative stimuli might rather reflect adaptation instead of vulnerability, in order to prevent stress overshooting in the face of early-life threatening experiences.

The Interplay between Chronotype and Emotion Regulation in the Recognition of Facial Expressions of Emotion.

Emotion regulation strategies affect the experience and processing of emotions and emotional stimuli. Chronotype has also been shown to influence the processing of emotional stimuli, with late chronotypes showing a bias towards better processing of negative stimuli. Additionally, greater eveningness has been associated with increased difficulties in emotion regulation and preferential use of expressive suppression strategies. Therefore, the present study aimed to understand the interplay between chronotype and emotion regulation on the recognition of dynamic facial expressions of emotion. To that end, 287 participants answered self-report measures and performed an online facial emotion recognition task from short video clips where a neutral face gradually morphed into a full-emotion expression (one of the six basic emotions). Participants should press the spacebar to stop each video as soon as they could recognize the emotional expression, and then identify it from six provided labels/emotions. Greater eveningness was associated with shorter response times (RT) in the identification of sadness, disgust and happiness. Higher scores of expressive suppression were associated with longer RT in identifying sadness, disgust, anger and surprise. Expressive suppression significantly moderated the relationship between chronotype and the recognition of sadness and anger, with chronotype being a significant predictor of emotion recognition times only at higher levels of expressive suppression. No significant effects were observed for cognitive reappraisal. These results are consistent with a negative bias in emotion processing in late chronotypes and increased difficulty in anger and sadness recognition for expressive suppressor morning-types.

Refocus on stopping! Replication of reduced right amygdala reactivity to negative, visual primes during inhibition of motor responses

Several practices contribute to low replication rates in neuroimaging; unreported analytical flexibility, publication biases, the lack of data sharing, the use of underpowered samples, and many more. In the current study, we tried to replicate emotional interference during motor response inhibition in a sample of N = 57 healthy students at a different study site. The failure to inhibit impulses in highly emotional situations is a characteristic of many mental disorders. Apart from this, exaggerated emotional responses can debilitate social and cognitive functioning in healthy participants. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was acquired while participants performed a combined stop signal and Simon task with neutral and negative, visual primes. Negative, visual primes led to prolonged reaction times and stopping latencies. FMRI data showed that negative, visual primes led to increased activation in the bilateral amygdala and enhanced visual processing. Consistent with other studies on emotional interference, we observed decreased activation in regions of the central-executive network and reduced deactivation in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex for negative trials. Replicating the results of our former studies (Kampa et al., 2018, 2020), we found an interaction effect in the right amygdala. Concurrent inhibition of motor responses thus seemed to downregulate the processing of negative stimuli in the right amygdala. We performed exploratory brain-behavior correlation analyses to test if increased right amygdala activation to negative primes was associated with a decrement in performance. We found no such relationship; however, because of the low statistical power, we cannot decide conclusively on the relationship between the right amygdala, and behavioral interference. We discuss potential solutions for overcoming the power problem associated with brain-behavior correlation analyses.

Dysfunction of Emotion Regulation in Mild Cognitive Impairment Individuals Combined With Depressive Disorder: A Neural Mechanism Study.

Depression increases the risk of progression from mild cognitive impairment (MCI) to dementia, where impaired emotion regulation is a core symptom of depression. However, the neural mechanisms underlying the decreased emotion regulation in individuals with MCI combined with depressive symptoms are not precise. We assessed the behavioral performance by emotion regulation tasks and recorded event-related electroencephalography (EEG) signals related to emotion regulation tasks simultaneously. EEG analysis, including event-related potential (ERP), event-related spectral perturbation (ERSP), functional connectivity and graph theory, was used to compare the difference between MCI individuals and MCI depressed individuals in behavioral performance, the late positive potential (LPP) amplitudes, neural oscillations and brain networks during the processing of emotional stimuli. We found that MCI depressed individuals have negative preferences and are prone to allocate more attentional resources to negative stimuli. Results suggested that theta and alpha oscillations activity is increased, and gamma oscillations activity is decreased during negative stimulus processing in MCI depressed individuals, thus indicating that the decreased emotion regulation in MCI depressed individuals may be associated with enhanced low-frequency and decreased high-frequency oscillations activity. Functional connectivity analysis revealed a decrease in functional connectivity in the left cerebral hemisphere of the alpha band and an increase in functional connectivity in the right cerebral hemisphere of the alpha band in MCI depressed individuals. Graph theory analysis suggested that global network metrics, including clustering coefficients and disassortative, decreased, while nodal and modular network metrics regarding local nodal efficiency, degree centrality, and betweenness centrality were significantly increased in the frontal lobe and decreased in the parieto-occipital lobe, which was observed in the alpha band, further suggesting that abnormal alpha band network connectivity may be a potential marker of depressive symptoms. Correlational analyses showed that depressive symptoms were closely related to emotion regulation, power oscillations and functional connectivity. In conclusion, the dominant processing of negative stimuli, the increased low-frequency oscillations activity and decreased high-frequency activity, so as the decrease in top-down information processing in the frontal parieto-occipital lobe, results in the abnormality of alpha-band network connectivity. It is suggested that these factors, in turn, contribute to the declined ability of MCI depressed individuals in emotion regulation.

In young women, a link between childhood abuse and subliminal processing of aversive cues is moderated by impulsivity

BackgroundChildhood maltreatment is a serious public health concern. The association between child maltreatment, adverse behaviors, mental health outcomes, and alterations to brain function and structure have begun to be characterized. Less is known about the specific associations of maltreatment subtypes with cue-response to evocative cues and the moderating effects of confounding mental health/behavioral variables.MethodsFifty-four emerging adult women (aged 18–24) completed assessments for behaviors, mental health, and childhood maltreatment. They participated in a fMRI task featuring passive viewing of evocative (33 ms) cues presented by “backward masking” to prevent conscious processing. Correlations of abuse/neglect scores, behavioral/mental health factors, and brain function were assessed. Follow-up analyses investigated the moderating effects of behavioral/mental health factors on maltreatment and brain relationships.ResultsGreater frequency of childhood abuse and neglect were correlated with higher scores of impulsivity, depressive symptoms, and anxious attachment. Childhood abuse was positively associated with increased medial orbitofrontal cortical (mOFC) response to aversive (vs. neutral) cues. Among the behavioral/mental health variables, only impulsivity appeared to have a moderating effect on the relationship between childhood abuse and brain response to aversive cues.ConclusionsThe link between childhood abuse and a heightened mOFC response to “unseen” aversive stimuli, moderated by impulsivity, adds to the growing literature on the impact of prior adversity on brain function. These findings offer further understanding for the way in which childhood maltreatment affects the brain processing of negative stimuli, helping to explain the well-documented link between childhood maltreatment and a variety of adverse outcomes in adulthood.

Altered effective connectivity in migraine patients during emotional stimuli: a multi-frequency magnetoencephalography study

BackgroundMigraine is a common and disabling primary headache, which is associated with a wide range of psychiatric comorbidities. However, the mechanisms of emotion processing in migraine are not fully understood yet. The present study aimed to investigate the neural network during neutral, positive, and negative emotional stimuli in the migraine patients.MethodsA total of 24 migraine patients and 24 age- and sex-matching healthy controls were enrolled in this study. Neuromagnetic brain activity was recorded using a whole-head magnetoencephalography (MEG) system upon exposure to human facial expression stimuli. MEG data were analyzed in multi-frequency ranges from 1 to 100 Hz.ResultsThe migraine patients exhibited a significant enhancement in the effective connectivity from the prefrontal lobe to the temporal cortex during the negative emotional stimuli in the gamma frequency (30–90 Hz). Graph theory analysis revealed that the migraine patients had an increased degree and clustering coefficient of connectivity in the delta frequency range (1–4 Hz) upon exposure to positive emotional stimuli and an increased degree of connectivity in the delta frequency range (1–4 Hz) upon exposure to negative emotional stimuli. Clinical correlation analysis showed that the history, attack frequency, duration, and neuropsychological scales of the migraine patients had a negative correlation with the network parameters in certain frequency ranges.ConclusionsThe results suggested that the individuals with migraine showed deviant effective connectivity in viewing the human facial expressions in multi-frequencies. The prefrontal-temporal pathway might be related to the altered negative emotional modulation in migraine. These findings suggested that migraine might be characterized by more universal altered cerebral processing of negative stimuli. Since the significant result in this study was frequency-specific, more independent replicative studies are needed to confirm these results, and to elucidate the neurocircuitry underlying the association between migraine and emotional conditions.

68415 Neural Impact of Neighborhood Disadvantage in Traumatically-Injured Adults: a Multi-Modal Investigation

ABSTRACT IMPACT: Neighborhood disadvantage was significantly associated with brain structure and function in trauma-exposed adults, providing evidence that contextual factors should be assessed in mental health research, particularly in high-risk populations. OBJECTIVES/GOALS: Over 13 percent of Americans live in a socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhood. Previous work has linked lower individual socioeconomic position to alterations in brain structure and function. However, the neural effects of area-level socioeconomic factors, such as neighborhood disadvantage, are unclear. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: We recruited two-hundred and fifteen traumatically-injured participants from an Emergency Department in southeastern Wisconsin. An Area Deprivation Index (ADI) score, a national measure of neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage, was derived from each participant’s home address. Two-weeks post-trauma, participants underwent a battery of self-report measures and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans. Using a multi-modal approach, we investigated the impact of ADI on brain structure as well as neural activation during rest and during an emotional uncertainty task. We sought to disentangle the relationship between neighborhood and individual socioeconomic position and neural activity in the context of trauma. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: We demonstrated that neighborhood disadvantage is associated with decreased volume and alterations of resting state functional connectivity of structures implicated in affect processing, including the hippocampus, amygdala, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex. These results held even after controlling for relevant individual variables, including acute post-traumatic stress symptoms and years of education. Moreover, individuals from disadvantaged neighborhoods exhibited heighted activation of these same structures in response to aversive stimuli. Thus, brain regions critical for recognizing and processing negative stimuli are susceptible to the effects of area-level socioeconomic factors. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF FINDINGS: The results offer additional evidence that neurobiological mechanisms clarify how stress ‘gets under the skin’. Changes to key brain regions may explain why those living in disadvantaged neighborhoods are at a heighted risk of PTSD. Broadly, these findings should inform future policies and community-driven interventions aimed at reducing poverty.

Mood-congruent biases in facial emotion perception and their gender dependence.

Due to mood-congruency effects, we expect the emotion perceived on a face to be biased towards one's own mood. But the findings in the scant literature on such mood effects in normal healthy populations have not consistently and adequately supported this expectation. Employing effective mood manipulation techniques that ensured that the intended mood was sustained throughout the perception task, we explored mood-congruent intensity and recognition accuracy biases in emotion perception. Using realistic face stimuli with expressive cues of happiness and sadness, we demonstrated that happy, neutral and ambiguous expressions were perceived more positively in the positive than in the negative mood. The mood-congruency effect decreased with the degree of perceived negativity in the expression. Also, males were more affected by the mood-congruency effect in intensity perception than females. We suggest that the greater salience and better processing of negative stimuli and the superior cognitive ability of females in emotion perception are responsible for these observations. We found no evidence for mood-congruency effect in the recognition accuracy of emotions and suggest with supporting evidence that past reports of this effect may be attributed to response bias driven by mood.

Brain functional effects of electroconvulsive therapy during emotional processing in major depressive disorder

BackgroundIn treatment-resistant major depressive disorder (MDD), electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a treatment with high efficacy. While knowledge regarding changes in brain structure following ECT is growing, the effects of ECT on brain function during emotional processing are largely unknown. ObjectiveWe investigated the effects of ECT on the activity of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and amygdala during negative emotional stimuli processing and its association with clinical response. MethodsIn this non-randomized longitudinal study, patients with MDD (n = 37) were assessed before and after treatment with ECT. Healthy controls (n = 37) were matched regarding age and gender. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was obtained twice, at baseline and after six weeks using a supraliminal face-matching paradigm. In order to evaluate effects of clinical response, additional post-hoc analyses were performed comparing responders to non-responders. ResultsAfter ECT, patients with MDD showed a statistically significant increase in ACC activity during processing of negative emotional stimuli (pFWE = .039). This effect was driven by responders (pFWE = .023), while non-responders showed no increase. Responders also had lower pre-treatment ACC activity compared to non-responders (pFWE = .025). No significant effects in the amygdala could be observed. ConclusionsECT leads to brain functional changes in the ACC, a relevant region for emotional regulation during processing of negative stimuli. Furthermore, baseline ACC activity might serve as a biomarker for treatment response. Findings are in accordance with recent studies highlighting properties of pre-treatment ACC to be associated with general antidepressive treatment response.

Differential Effects of REM Sleep on Emotional Processing: Initial Evidence for Increased Short-term Emotional Responses and Reduced Long-term Intrusive Memories

ABSTRACT Background: Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep has been postulated to facilitate emotional processing of negative stimuli. However, empirical evidence is mixed and the conditions under which higher amounts of REM sleep lead to decreased or increased emotional responses are unclear. We proposed that the time course between REM sleep and measurement of emotional responses is a crucial factor and hypothesized that more REM sleep will enhance emotional responses shortly after sleep, but will lead to decreased emotional responses in the long-term. Participants and Methods: Seventy-six healthy young women watched negative and neutral pictures before a polysomnographically-recorded nap including three different groups (1: no REM sleep, 2: REM sleep awakening, 3: REM sleep). Short-term emotional responses were measured using aversiveness ratings of negative pictures; aversiveness ratings of intrusive picture memories on the three subsequent evenings were used to measure long-term emotional responses. Results: For short-term emotional responses, no significant interaction indicating group differences was found. However, we found correlations between longer REM sleep duration and higher aversiveness ratings of negative pictures. In contrast, lower aversiveness of intrusive picture memories after two days was found in participants with a full REM sleep period compared to individuals without REM sleep. Correlational analyses also supported this pattern of results. Conclusions: Results suggest that REM sleep may increase reactivity to emotional stimuli in the short-term and this effect of REM sleep appears to facilitate emotional processing during subsequent nights leading to reduced intrusive picture memories in the long-term.

Altered neural processing of negative stimuli in people with internet gaming disorder: fMRI evidence from the comparison with recreational game users

BackgroundAbundant clinical studies have suggested that emotion dysregulation seems to be the essential pathogenesis for Internet gaming disorder (IGD). However, the neural mechanism of emotion regulation for IGD is still unclear. MethodsSubjective evaluation and fMRI data were collected from 50 subjects (IGD: 24; recreational game user (RGU): 26) while they were performing an emotion reappraisal task. We collected and compared their brain features during emotion processing of different visual stimuli. ResultsHigher activation in the left dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), right ventral ACC, left claustrum and bilateral insula was observed in participants with IGD during emotion reappraisal relative to that of the RGU participants. In addition, generalized psychophysiological interaction analysis also showed that IGD participants had stronger functional connectivity between the right insula and bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) than the RGU participants. ConclusionsThe results suggest that IGD participants could not down-regulate their negative emotional experiences as efficiently as the RGU participants, although they engaged more cognitive resources. These results reveal the special neural circuits of emotion dysregulation in IGD individuals and provide new neural perspective for the intervention of IGD.

Linear Ballistic Accumulator Modeling of Attentional Bias Modification Revealed Disturbed Evidence Accumulation of Negative Information by Explicit Instruction.

In recent years, several attentional bias modification (ABM) studies have been conducted. Previous studies have suggested that explicit instruction (i.e., informing participants of the contingency of stimuli) enhances the effect of ABM. However, the specific working mechanism has not been identified. This is partly because reaction time (RT) data are typically reduced to an attention bias score, which is a mere difference of RT between experimental and control conditions. This data reduction causes a loss of information, as RT reflects various cognitive processes at play while making a response or decision. To overcome this issue, the present study applied linear ballistic accumulator (LBA) modeling to the outcomes (RT measures) of explicitly guided (compared to standard) ABM. This computational modeling approach allowed us to dissociate RTs into distinct components that can be relevant for attentional bias, such as efficiency of information processing or prior knowledge of the task; this provides an understanding of the mechanism of action underlying explicitly guided ABM. The analyzed data were RT-observed in the dot-probe task, which was administered before and after 3-days of ABM training. Our main focus was on the changes in LBA components that would be induced by the training. Additionally, we analyzed in-session performances over the 3 days of training. The LBA analysis revealed a significant reduction in processing efficiency (i.e., drift rate) in the congruent condition, where the target probe is presented in the same location as a negative stimulus. This explains the reduction in the overall attentional bias score, suggesting that explicit ABM suppresses processing of negative stimuli. Moreover, the results suggest that explicitly guided ABM may influence prior knowledge of the target location in the training task and make participants prepared to respond to the task. These findings highlight the usefulness of LBA-based analysis to explore the underlying cognitive mechanisms in ABM, and indeed our analyses revealed the differences between the explicit and the standard ABM that could not be identified by traditional RT analysis or attentional bias scores.

Nonacceptance of negative emotions in women with borderline personality disorder: association with neuroactivity of the dorsal striatum

Emotion dysfunction is a key symptom in patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) and is considered a consequence of dysfunctional emotion regulation (e.g., reduced emotion acceptance). In the present functional MRI (fMRI) study, we investigated the neural correlates of habitual emotion acceptance in individuals with BPD. Female patients with BPD and female healthy controls passively viewed negative and neutral movie clips of faces during fMRI. We assessed emotion acceptance using the Emotion Acceptance Questionnaire (EAQ). To examine brain activation associated with habitual emotional acceptance of negative stimuli, the EAQ score was included as a regressor of interest in brain data analyses of activation intensity during negative compared with neutral movies. We included 20 women with BPD and 20 heatlhy controls in our analysis. Compared with healthy controls, patients with BPD showed significantly more activation in frontostriatal brain regions (i.e., left superior frontal gyrus, right caudate) as well as in the left precuneus, left precentral gyrus, left posterior cingulate cortex and left hippocampus when confronted with negative (v. neutral) stimuli. Patients with BPD reported decreased emotion acceptance compared with healthy controls, and habitual emotion acceptance was inversely associated with activation of striatal areas (i.e., left putamen, left caudate) in patients with BPD. Causal conclusions are not possible. Comorbid diagnoses were not excluded, and only female participants were investigated. Stimuli were not rated immediately and may not be generalizable to all negative emotions. We cannot make any statements about other emotion-regulation strategies that may have been applied here. Data indicate that striatal hyperactivation during the processing of negative stimuli in women with BPD is related to their decreased disposition to accept unpleasant emotional states. Thus, individuals with BPD may benefit from therapy approaches that focus on emotion acceptance in order to normalize emotional reactions.

The relationship between neuroticism and appetitive conditioning.

Appetitive conditioning is considered a central mechanism for the vulnerability to psychiatric disorders. However, the investigation of individual differences that are related to altered appetitive learning has been almost neglected so far. The aim of this study was to investigate the link between neuroticism and appetitive conditioning processes. 79 subjects participated in a differential conditioning procedure in which a conditioned stimulus (CS+) was paired with a reward (money) after a fast behavioral response, while a second conditioned stimulus (CS-) was never followed by a reward, irrespective of the behavioral response. As a main result, neuroticism correlated negatively with the underlying neural processes of appetitive conditioning in females, but not in males. In detail, higher levels of neuroticism were associated with decreased neural responses in the left (p = .001) and right amygdala (p = .011), left (p = .063) and right (p = .019) nucleus accumbens, and left (p = .002) and right (p = .021) orbitofrontal cortex (all results are family-wise-error-corrected). The present results support previous findings, which also showed an inverse sex-specific effect in the context of neuroticism and emotional processing in females. In addition, the findings suggest that neuroticism is not solely linked to increased amygdala sensitivity during the processing of negative stimuli but also to decreased neural responses when processing rewarding stimuli. Possible explanations for the sex differences and implications are discussed.

Emotional modulation of the pupil response in psychopathy.

Psychopathy is a form of personality disorder associated with a deficit in emotional processing. However, there is debate whether this deficit applies to all emotions or exists only for negative emotions. The pupil dilates rapidly in response to emotional stimuli, allowing a time-sensitive index of emotional processing. Across 3 experiments using (a) visual images of real-world scenes, (b) auditory sound clips, and (c) videos of dynamic facial expressions, we measured emotional modulation of the pupil response to both negative and positive stimuli. Participants were 82 male mentally disordered offenders. Psychopathy was measured using the Psychopathy Checklist—Revised to produce factor scores of interpersonal–affective traits (Factor 1) and lifestyle–antisocial traits (Factor 2). Participants with high Factor 1 scores showed reduced emotional modulation of the pupil response to negative images and angry faces but not to any of the positive stimuli. These effects only occurred shortly after the emotion was presented (<2,000 ms), suggesting delayed processing of negative affective stimuli in Factor 1 psychopathy. Factor 2 scores were not associated with any changes in pupil response. There were no effects of psychopathy on the pupil response to the affective sound clips. The results support a specific psychopathic deficit in the processing of negative stimuli related to the interpersonal–affective dimension of psychopathy. We argue that pupillometry is a powerful and noninvasive tool to investigate emotional processing in clinical populations.