Neural circuits associated with positive and negative self-appraisal

Self-compassion, self-referential caudate circuitry, and adolescent suicide ideation

Suicide is the second leading cause of death in youth, and depression is a strong proximal predictor of adolescent suicide. It is important to identify psychological factors that may protect against suicide ideation in depressed adolescents. Self-compassion may be such a factor. Converging evidence indicates the inverse association between self-compassion and suicide ideation, but the neural mechanisms underlying their link remain unknown. Because self-referential caudate activity is associated with both self-compassion and suicide ideation, its functional connectivity might explain their relationship. In this study, we examined the relationship between self-compassion and caudate functional connectivity during self-appraisals, a typical self-referential paradigm, and their associations with suicide ideation in both depressed and healthy youth. In the scanner, 79 depressed youth and 36 healthy controls evaluated, from various perspectives, whether phrases they heard were self-descriptive. Self-compassion and suicide ideation were rated with self-report and interview-based measures. We found that self-compassion was associated with stronger left caudate functional connectivity with bilateral posterior superior temporal sulcus/temporoparietal junction, the left middle temporal gyrus (MTG), and the left middle occipital gyrus during positive versus negative self-appraisals. Stronger left caudate connectivity with the left MTG explained the association between higher self-compassion and lower suicide ideation, even controlling for non-suicide ideation depression severity, anxiety severity, and non-suicidal self-injurious behavior. The findings suggest that the left caudate to MTG connectivity during positive versus negative self-referential processing could be a biomarker to be targeted by neural stimulation interventions for reducing suicide ideation in depressed youth, combined with self-compassion interventions.

Neural Mechanisms of Resting-State Networks and the Amygdala Underlying the Cognitive and Emotional Effects of Psilocybin

BACKGROUND

Serotonergic psychedelics, such as psilocybin, alter perceptual and cognitive systems that are functionally integrated with the amygdala. These changes can alter cognition and emotions that are hypothesized to contribute to their therapeutic utility. However, the neural mechanisms of cognitive and subcortical systems altered by psychedelics are not well understood.

METHODS

We used resting-state functional magnetic resonance images collected during a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial of 24 healthy adults under 0.2 mg/kg psilocybin to estimate the directed (i.e., effective) changes between the amygdala and 3 large-scale resting-state networks involved in cognition. These networks are the default mode network, the salience network, and the central executive network.

RESULTS

We found a pattern of decreased top-down effective connectivity from these resting-state networks to the amygdala. Effective connectivity decreased within the default mode network and salience network but increased within the central executive network. These changes in effective connectivity were statistically associated with behavioral measures of altered cognition and emotion under the influence of psilocybin.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings suggest that temporary amygdala signal attenuation is associated with mechanistic changes to resting-state network connectivity. These changes are significant for altered cognition and perception and suggest targets for research investigating the efficacy of psychedelic therapy for internalizing psychiatric disorders. More broadly, our study suggests the value of quantifying the brain's hierarchical organization using effective connectivity to identify important mechanisms for basic cognitive function and how they are integrated to give rise to subjective experiences.

A neural network underlying cognitive strategies related to eating, weight and body image concerns

Concerns about food intake, weight and body shape can trigger negatively loaded emotions, which may prompt the use of cognitive strategies to regulate these emotional states. A novel fMRI task was developed to assess the neurobehavioral correlates of cognitive strategies related to eating, weight and body image concerns, such as self-criticism, avoidance, rumination, and self-reassurance. Fourteen healthy females were presented audio sentences referring to these conditions and instructed to repeat these internally while engaging their thoughts with the content of food or body images. Participants were asked to report the elicited emotion and rate their performance. All cognitive strategies recruited a network including the inferior and superior frontal gyri, orbitofrontal and anterior cingulate cortex, insula, and dorsal striatum. These brain regions are involved in emotional, reward and inhibitory control processing. Representational similarity analysis revealed distinct patterns of neural responses for each cognitive strategy. Additionally, self-report measures showed that self-criticism was positively associated with superior frontal gyrus (SFG) activation. Self-compassion scores were negatively correlated with activations in the insula and right putamen, while self-reassurance scores were negatively associated with activity in the orbitofrontal cortex. These findings identify a neural network underlying cognitive strategies related to eating, weight and body image concerns, where neurobehavioral correlation patterns depend on the cognitive strategy.

Striatal correlates of Bayesian beliefs in self-efficacy in adolescents and their relation to mood and autonomy: a pilot study

Major depressive disorder often originates in adolescence and is associated with long-term functional impairment. Mechanistically characterizing this heterogeneous illness could provide important leads for optimizing treatment. Importantly, reward learning is known to be disrupted in depression. In this pilot fMRI study of 21 adolescents (16-20 years), we assessed how reward network disruption impacts specifically on Bayesian belief representations of self-efficacy (SE-B) and their associated uncertainty (SE-U), using a modified instrumental learning task probing activation induced by the opportunity to choose, and an optimal Hierarchical Gaussian Filter computational model. SE-U engaged caudate, nucleus accumbens (NAcc), precuneus, posterior parietal and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (PFWE < 0.005). Sparse partial least squares analysis identified SE-U striatal activation as associating with one's sense of perceived choice and depressive symptoms, particularly anhedonia and negative feelings about oneself. As Bayesian uncertainty modulates belief flexibility and their capacity to steer future actions, this suggests that these striatal signals may be informative developmentally, longitudinally and in assessing response to treatment.

Neural Correlates of Academic Self-concept and the Association with Academic Achievement in Older Children

Academic self-concept, which can be defined as one's beliefs about their academic ability, plays an important role in students' future academic achievement. Here, we examined the neuroanatomical substrates underlying academic self-concept in 92 school-aged children (9.90 ± 0.85 years, 41 girls) using voxel-based morphometry of images obtained by structural magnetic resonance imaging. Our results revealed a significant positive correlation between academic self-concept and achievement 1 year after assessment. Whole-brain regression analyses found that gray matter volume in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (DMPFC) was negatively associated with academic self-concept. Region of interest analyses further showed that regional gray matter volume in the right DLPFC could significantly predict achievement 1 year after assessment. Notably, mediation analyses suggested that regional gray matter volume in the right DLPFC mediated the effect of academic self-concept on students' future academic achievement.

Valence of Temporal Self-Appraisals: A Comparison Between First-Person Perspective and Third-Person Perspective

Mental time travel is one of the most remarkable achievements of mankind. On the one hand, people perceive past self, present self, and future self as a continuous unity; on the other hand, people have the ability to distinguish among the three types of temporal selves because there are different representations of them. In this study, we used an adapted temporal self-reference paradigm to explore the processing mechanism of different temporal selves. Temporal self-reference was performed from the first-person perspective in Experiment 1 and from the third-person perspective in Experiment 2. The results indicated that people showed a more positive bias toward future self compared with past self and present self no matter in the first-person perspective or third-person perspective. There was no difference in recognition rate among past self, present self, and future self. Compared with the first-person perspective, present self-processing in the third-person perspective was more abstract and generalized, which may reflect that the third-person perspective has the same distancing function as time. This study can deepen understandings on temporal self-appraisals from different perspectives.

How Self-Appraisal Is Mediated by the Brain

Self-appraisal is a process that leads to the formation of self-esteem, which contributes to subjective well-being and mental health. Neuroimaging studies link self-esteem with the activity of the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ), posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), anterior insula (AIns), and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. It is not known, however, how the process of self-appraisal itself is mediated by the brain and how different nodes of the self-appraisal network interact with each other. In this study, we used multilevel mediation analysis of functional MRI data recorded during the trait adjective judgment task, treating the emotional valence of adjectives as the predictor, behavioral response as the dependent variable, and brain activity as the mediator. The mediation effect was revealed in the rTPJ. Dynamic causal modeling showed that positive self-descriptions trigger communication within the network, with the rTPJ exerting the strongest excitatory output and MPFC receiving the strongest excitatory input. rAIns receives the strongest inhibitory input and sends exclusively inhibitory connections to other regions pointing out to its role in the processing of negative self-descriptions. Analysis of individual differences showed that in some individuals, self-appraisal is mostly driven by the endorsement of positive self-descriptions and is accompanied by increased activation and communication between rTPJ, MPFC, and PCC. In others, self-appraisal is driven by the rejection of negative self-descriptions and is accompanied by increased activation of rAIns and inhibition of PCC and MPFC. Membership of these groups was predicted by different personality variables. This evidence uncovers different mechanisms of positive self-bias, which may contribute to different facets of self-esteem and are associated with different personality profiles.

Changes in the neural correlates of self-blame following mindfulness-based cognitive therapy in remitted depressed participants

Mindfulness-Based-Cognitive-Therapy (MBCT) reduces vulnerability for relapse into depression by helping individuals to counter tendencies to engage in maladaptive repetitive patterns of thinking and respond more compassionately to negative self-judgment. However, little is known about the neural correlates underlying these effects. To elucidate these correlates, we investigated fMRI brain activation during a task eliciting feelings of blaming oneself or others. Sixteen participants in remission from major depressive disorder (MDD) completed fMRI assessments before and after MBCT, alongside self-reported levels of self-compassion, mindfulness, and depression symptoms. Analyses of self-blame versus other-blame contrasts showed a reduction in activation in the bilateral dorsal anterior cingulate/medial superior frontal gyrus after MBCT compared to baseline. Further, exploratory analyses showed that increases in self-kindness after MBCT correlated with reduced activation in the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC)/precuneus in self-blame versus rest contrasts. These findings suggest that MBCT is associated with a reduction in activations in cortical midline regions to self-blame which may be mediated by increasing self-kindness. However, this is a small, uncontrolled study with 16 participants and therefore our results will need confirmation in a controlled study.

Neural activations during self-related processing in patients with chronic pain and effects of a brief self-compassion training - A pilot study

Chronic pain negatively affects psychological functioning including self-perception. Self-compassion may improve self-related functioning in patients with chronic pain but understanding of the neural mechanisms is limited. In this study, twenty patients with chronic low back pain read negative self-related situations and were instructed to be either self-reassuring or self-critical while undergoing fMRI. Patients rated their feelings of self-reassurance and self-criticism during each condition, and brain responses were contrasted with neutral instructions. Trait self-compassion measures (SCS) were also acquired. Brain activations during self-criticism and self-reassurance were localized to prefrontal, self- and emotion-processing areas, such as medial prefrontal cortex, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and posterior cingulate cortex. Self-reassurance resulted in more widespread and stronger activations relative to self-criticism. Patients then completed a brief self-compassion training (8 contact hours, 2 weeks home practice). Exploratory pre-post comparisons in thirteen patients found that feelings of self-criticism were significantly reduced and brain activations were greater in the anterior insula and prefrontal cortical regions such as dlPFC. Pre-post increases in dlPFC activation correlated with increased self-compassion (SCS), suggesting that early self-compassion skills might primarily target self-criticism via dlPFC upregulation. Future controlled studies on self-compassion training in chronic pain populations should extend these results.

Brain activity underlying negative self- and other-perception in adolescents: The role of attachment-derived self-representations

One of teenagers’ key developmental tasks is to engage in new and meaningful relationships with peers and adults outside the family context. Attachment-derived expectations about the self and others in terms of internal attachment working models have the potential to shape such social reorientation processes critically and thereby influence adolescents’ social-emotional development and social integration. Because the neural underpinnings of this developmental task remain largely unknown, we sought to investigate them by functional magnetic resonance imaging. We asked n = 44 adolescents (ages 12.01–18.84 years) to evaluate positive and negative adjectives regarding either themselves or a close other during an adapted version of the well-established self-other trait-evaluation task. As measures of attachment, we obtained scores reflecting participants’ positive versus negative attachment-derived self- and other-models by means of the Relationship Questionnaire. We controlled for possible confounding factors by also obtaining scores reflecting internalizing/externalizing problems, schizotypy, and borderline symptomatology. Our results revealed that participants with a more negative attachment-derived self-model showed increased brain activity during positive and negative adjective evaluation regarding the self, but decreased brain activity during negative adjective evaluation regarding a close other, in bilateral amygdala/parahippocampus, bilateral anterior temporal pole/anterior superior temporal gyrus, and left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. These findings suggest that a low positivity of the self-concept characteristic for the attachment anxiety dimension may influence neural information processing, but in opposite directions when it comes to self- versus (close) other-representations. We discuss our results in the framework of attachment theory and regarding their implications especially for adolescent social-emotional development and social integration.

Theta band transcranial alternating current stimulations modulates network behavior of dorsal anterior cingulate cortex

Dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) is an important region in the processing of both cognition and affect. Recently, transcranial brain stimulation has been used to modulate cortical activity, but it is unclear whether this stimulation has a specific effect on dACC. Based on EEG evidence that frontal midline theta activity is generated in dACC, we hypothesized that transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) with theta band frequency would modulate neural networks including dACC. In this study, we examined the effects of theta band tACS on functional networks and emotional state. Graph theory analysis for resting-state functional MRI data revealed that theta band tACS decreased functional integration and hub capacity in dACC, and the attenuation of dACC network function was associated with emotional state change. Overall, these results demonstrate that theta band stimulation can modulate dACC.

Sleep-Wake Differences in Relative Regional Cerebral Metabolic Rate for Glucose among Patients with Insomnia Compared with Good Sleepers

STUDY OBJECTIVES

The neurobiological mechanisms of insomnia may involve altered patterns of activation across sleep-wake states in brain regions associated with cognition, self-referential processes, affect, and sleep-wake promotion. The objective of this study was to compare relative regional cerebral metabolic rate for glucose (rCMRglc) in these brain regions across wake and nonrapid eye movement (NREM) sleep states in patients with primary insomnia (PI) and good sleeper controls (GS).

METHODS

Participants included 44 PI and 40 GS matched for age (mean = 37 y old, range 21-60), sex, and race. We conducted [18F]fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose positron emission tomography scans in PI and GS during both morning wakefulness and NREM sleep at night. Repeated measures analysis of variance was used to test for group (PI vs. GS) by state (wake vs. NREM sleep) interactions in relative rCMRglc.

RESULTS

Significant group-by-state interactions in relative rCMRglc were found in the precuneus/posterior cingulate cortex, left middle frontal gyrus, left inferior/superior parietal lobules, left lingual/fusiform/occipital gyri, and right lingual gyrus. All clusters were significant at Pcorrected < 0.05.

CONCLUSIONS

Insomnia was characterized by regional alterations in relative glucose metabolism across NREM sleep and wakefulness. Significant group-by-state interactions in relative rCMRglc suggest that insomnia is associated with impaired disengagement of brain regions involved in cognition (left frontoparietal), self-referential processes (precuneus/posterior cingulate), and affect (left middle frontal, fusiform/lingual gyri) during NREM sleep, or alternatively, to impaired engagement of these regions during wakefulness.

Isolating biomarkers for symptomatic states: considering symptom-substrate chronometry

A long-standing goal of psychopathology research is to develop objective markers of symptomatic states, yet progress has been far slower than expected. Although prior reviews have attributed this state of affairs to diagnostic heterogeneity, symptom comorbidity and phenotypic complexity, little attention has been paid to the implications of intra-individual symptom dynamics and inter-relatedness for biomarker study designs. In this critical review, we consider the impact of short-term symptom fluctuations on widely used study designs that regress the 'average level' of a given symptom against biological data collected at a single time point, and summarize findings from ambulatory assessment studies suggesting that such designs may be sub-optimal to detect symptom-substrate relationships. Although such designs have a crucial role in advancing our understanding of biological substrates related to more stable, longer-term changes (for example, gray matter thinning during a depressive episode), they may be less optimal for the detection of symptoms that exhibit high frequency fluctuations, are susceptible to common reporting biases, or may be heavily influenced by the presence of other symptoms. We propose that a greater emphasis on intra-individual symptom chronometry may be useful for identifying subgroups of patients with common, proximal pathological indicators. Taken together, these three recent developments in the areas of symptom conceptualization and measurement raise important considerations for future studies attempting to identify reliable biomarkers in psychiatry.

Functional brain substrate of quality of life in patients with schizophrenia: A brain SPECT multidimensional analysis

The aim of this study was to investigate the functional brain substrate of quality of life (QoL) in patients with schizophrenia. Participants comprised 130 right-handed patients with schizophrenia who underwent whole-brain single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) with (99m)Tc-labeled ethylcysteinate dimer ((99m)Tc-ECD) for exploring correlations of regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) with the eight dimensions score of the Schizophrenia Quality of Life questionnaire (S-QoL 18). A significant positive correlation was found between the global index of the S-QoL 18 and rCBF in the right superior temporal sulcus and between psychological well-being dimension and rCBF in Brodmann area (BA)6, BA8, BA9, and BA10 and between self-esteem dimension and rCBF in striatum and between family relationship dimension and rCBF in BA1, BA2, BA3, BA4, BA8, BA22, BA40, BA42 and BA44 and between relationship with friends dimension and rCBF in BA44 and between physical well-being dimension and rCBF in parahippocampal gyrus, and finally between autonomy dimension and rCBF in cuneus and precuneus. A significant negative correlation was found between resilience dimension and rCBF in precuneus and between sentimental life dimension and rCBF in BA10. Our findings provide neural correlates of QoL. Brain regions involved in cognitions, emotional information processing and social cognition underlie the different QoL dimensions.

The neural basis of trait self-esteem revealed by the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations and resting state functional connectivity

Self-esteem is an affective, self-evaluation of oneself and has a significant effect on mental and behavioral health. Although research has focused on the neural substrates of self-esteem, little is known about the spontaneous brain activity that is associated with trait self-esteem (TSE) during the resting state. In this study, we used the resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) signal of the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (ALFFs) and resting state functional connectivity (RSFC) to identify TSE-related regions and networks. We found that a higher level of TSE was associated with higher ALFFs in the left ventral medial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and lower ALFFs in the left cuneus/lingual gyrus and right lingual gyrus. RSFC analyses revealed that the strengths of functional connectivity between the left vmPFC and bilateral hippocampus were positively correlated with TSE; however, the connections between the left vmPFC and right inferior frontal gyrus and posterior superior temporal sulcus were negatively associated with TSE. Furthermore, the strengths of functional connectivity between the left cuneus/lingual gyrus and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex were positively related to TSE. These findings indicate that TSE is linked to core regions in the default mode network and social cognition network, which is involved in self-referential processing, autobiographical memory and social cognition.

Conversations between self and self as Sigmund Freud--A virtual body ownership paradigm for self counselling

When people see a life-sized virtual body (VB) from first person perspective in virtual reality they are likely to have the perceptual illusion that it is their body. Additionally such virtual embodiment can lead to changes in perception, implicit attitudes and behaviour based on attributes of the VB. To date the changes that have been studied are as a result of being embodied in a body representative of particular social groups (e.g., children and other race). In our experiment participants alternately switched between a VB closely resembling themselves where they described a personal problem, and a VB representing Dr Sigmund Freud, from which they offered themselves counselling. Here we show that when the counsellor resembles Freud participants improve their mood, compared to the counsellor being a self-representation. The improvement was greater when the Freud VB moved synchronously with the participant, compared to asynchronously. Synchronous VB movement was associated with a much stronger illusion of ownership over the Freud body. This suggests that this form of embodied perspective taking can lead to sufficient detachment from habitual ways of thinking about personal problems, so as to improve the outcome, and demonstrates the power of virtual body ownership to effect cognitive changes.

Lower [3H]Citalopram binding in brain areas related to social cognition in alcoholics

AIMS

In the present study, putative alterations in the serotonin transporter density were evaluated in anterior and posterior insula, posterior cingulate cortex, dorsolateral and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, parahippocampal gyrus and dorsal raphe nucleus in Cloninger type 1 (n = 9) and type 2 (n = 8) alcoholics and non-alcoholic controls (n = 10).

METHODS

Human whole-hemisphere autoradiography was used to measure [3H]citalopram binding to serotonin transporters in eight brain areas in all post-mortem brains.

RESULTS

Significant differences were observed in the mean [3H]citalopram binding between the study groups, with antisocial type 2 alcoholics showing the lowest binding. Differences between the study groups were prominent in the posterior insula and posterior cingulate cortex, where both alcoholic groups had low [3H]citalopram binding, and in the parahippocampal gyrus where only antisocial type 2 alcoholics had low [3H]citalopram binding when compared with non-alcoholic controls.

CONCLUSION

Although these data are preliminary, and from relatively small diagnostic groups, these results show that alcoholics may have lower serotonergic tone in the brain, thus decreasing social cognition and increasing alcohol-cue reactivity.