Common neural and transcriptional correlates of inhibitory control underlie emotion regulation and memory control

Authoritarianism and the brain: Structural MR correlates associated with polarized left- and right-wing ideology traits

Authoritarian attitudes across the political spectrum foster radical behaviors, which adversely affect the social fabric. Both left-wing (LWA) and right-wing (RWA) forms of authoritarianism have been described in relation to their psychological correlates, yet little is known about their neurobiological basis. In this study, we explored brain structural correlates (e.g., in cortical thickness (CT) and gray matter (GM) volume) of authoritarianism. For this purpose, we assessed authoritarian dispositions in a sample of 100 young adults and collected 3 T MR images. Images were computed using the CAT12 toolbox. Behaviorally, both the LWA and RWA were positively associated with negative urgency; the LWA also showed a robust positive association with trait anxiety. At the neural level, results showed a negative correlation (r = -0.48) between RWA and a GM volume cluster located in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC). In addition, we also observed a negative correlation (r = -0.41) between the LWA anti-hierarchical aggression subscale and a CT cluster located in the right anterior insula. Additionally, the resulting clusters converged with further left-wing and right-wing ideology scales related to LWA and RWA, thus providing a robustness check. These results are supported by previous studies showing the relevance of the dmPFC and the anterior insula on social cognition and empathy/inhibitory control, respectively.

Brain mechanisms underlying the inhibitory control of thought

Controlling action and thought requires the capacity to stop mental processes. Over the past two decades, evidence has grown that a domain-general inhibitory control mechanism supported by the right lateral prefrontal cortex achieves these functions. However, current views of the neural mechanisms of inhibitory control derive largely from research into the stopping of action. Whereas action stopping is a convenient empirical model, it does not invoke thought inhibition and cannot be used to identify the unique features of this process. Here, we review research that addresses how organisms stop a key process that drives thoughts: memory retrieval. This work has shown that retrieval stopping shares right dorsolateral and ventrolateral prefrontal mechanisms with action stopping, consistent with a domain-general inhibitory control mechanism, but also recruits a distinct fronto-temporal pathway that determines the success of mental control. As part of this pathway, GABAergic inhibition within the hippocampus influences the efficacy of prefrontal control over thought. These unique elements of mental control suggest that hippocampal disinhibition is a transdiagnostic factor underlying intrusive thinking, linking the fronto-temporal control pathway to preclinical models of psychiatric disorders and fear extinction. We suggest that retrieval-stopping deficits may underlie the intrusive thinking that is common across many psychiatric disorders.

Comparison of the social gene expression network and social brain network: a resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging study

Numerous previous studies have classified brain regions related to social processing into the "social brain" regions. Recent genetic studies showed that gene expression has a crucial effect on both brain functions and behavioral social performance. However, studies still lack a clear understanding of the organization of the social gene expression (SocGene) network. This study aimed to distinguish the difference between the SocGene network and the social brain network (SBN) and further explored their deficits in schizophrenia (SCZ) patients. The SocGene network was constructed by generating the gene expression maps of six social neuropeptide receptors from the Allen Human Brain Atlas. Then, we recruited a general population sample of 37 participants and a clinical sample including 26 SCZ and 25 Healthy controls (HCs) successively to construct the resting-state SocGene and SBN at the individual level. The integration (global efficiency, GE) and segregation (local efficiency, LE) of these brain networks were calculated using the graphic analysis. Results showed that the GE and LE of the SocGene network were significantly higher than those of the SBN in both two cohorts. The SCZ patients showed significantly diminished LE of the two brain networks compared to HCs, especially in the SocGene network. These findings implied that the SocGene network strengthened the integration and segregation compared to the SBN. SCZ patients mainly exhibited deficits in the segregation of these two brain networks. The current findings provide a new perspective on combining genetic expression and brain function in understanding the psychopathology of social functioning.

Individual differences in functional connectivity during suppression of imagined threat

Functional magnetic resonance imaging studies typically rely on between-person analyses. To examine individual differences in functional connectivity, we used Group Iterative Multiple Model Estimation and its subgrouping function to analyze functional magnetic resonance imaging data of 54 participants who were suppressing imagined future threat. A two-stage random-effects meta-analytic approach was employed to examine individual differences. In addition to generalizable connections between brain regions, we identified individual differences in personalized models suggesting different pathways through which individuals suppress future threat. Two subgroups with distinct connectivity patterns emerged: One subgroup (n = 29; 53.70%), characterized by an additional lagged connection from the right to the left posterior cingulate cortex, exhibited comparatively higher anxiety and less brain connectivity, whereas the other subgroup (n = 25; 46.30%), showing an additional connection from the left posterior cingulate cortex to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, was associated with lower anxiety levels and greater connectivity. This study points to individual differences in functional connectivity during emotion regulation.

Maintenance of Bodily Expressions Modulates Functional Connectivity Between Prefrontal Cortex and Extrastriate Body Area During Working Memory Processing

Background/Objectives: As a form of visual input, bodily expressions can be maintained and manipulated in visual working memory (VWM) over a short period of time. While the prefrontal cortex (PFC) plays an indispensable role in top-down control, it remains largely unclear whether this region also modulates the VWM storage of bodily expressions during a delay period. Therefore, the two primary goals of this study were to examine whether the emotional bodies would elicit heightened brain activity among areas such as the PFC and extrastriate body area (EBA) and whether the emotional effects subsequently modulate the functional connectivity patterns for active maintenance during delay periods. Methods: During functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanning, participants performed a delayed-response task in which they were instructed to view and maintain a body stimulus in working memory before emotion categorization (happiness, anger, and neutral). If processing happy and angry bodies consume increased cognitive demands, stronger PFC activation and its functional connectivity with perceptual areas would be observed. Results: Results based on univariate and multivariate analyses conducted on the data collected during stimulus presentation revealed an enhanced processing of the left PFC and left EBA. Importantly, subsequent functional connectivity analyses performed on delayed-period data using a psychophysiological interaction model indicated that functional connectivity between the PFC and EBA increases for happy and angry bodies compared to neutral bodies. Conclusions: The emotion-modulated coupling between the PFC and EBA during maintenance deepens our understanding of the functional organization underlying the VWM processing of bodily information.

Meta-analysis of variance in tDCS effects on response inhibition

Deficiencies in response inhibition are associated with numerous mental health conditions, warranting innovative treatments. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), a non-invasive brain stimulation technique, modulates cortical excitability and has shown promise in improving response inhibition. However, tDCS effects on response inhibition often yield contradictory findings. Previous research emphasized the importance of inter-individual factors that are mostly ignored in conventional meta-analyses of mean effects. We aimed to fill this gap and promote the complementary use of the coefficient of variation ratio and standardized mean effects. The systematic literature search included single-session and sham-controlled tDCS studies utilizing stop-signal task or Go-NoGo tasks, analyzing 88 effect sizes from 53 studies. Considering the impact of inter-individual factors, we hypothesized that variances increase in the active versus sham tDCS. However, the results showed that variances between both groups did not differ. Additionally, analyzing standardized mean effects supported previous research showing an improvement in the stop-signal task but not in the Go-NoGo task following active tDCS. These findings suggest that inter-individual differences do not increase variances in response inhibition, implying that the heterogeneity cannot be attributed to higher variance in response inhibition during and after active tDCS. Furthermore, methodological considerations are crucial for tDCS efficacy.

Abnormal global and local connectivity in patients with anti-N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor encephalitis: A resting-state functional MRI study

OBJECTIVE

We decided to investigate the changes of global and local connectivity in anti-N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (anti-NMDAR) encephalitis patients based on eigenvector centrality (EC) and regional homogeneity (ReHo). We sought new biomarkers to identify the patients based on multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA).

METHODS

Functional MRI (fMRI) was performed on all participants. EC, ReHo and MVPA were used to analyze the fMRI images. The correlation between the global or local connectivity and neuropsychology tests was detected.

RESULTS

The MoCA scores of the patients were lower than those of the healthy controls (HCs), while the HAMD24 and HAMA scores of the patients were higher than those of the HCs. Increased EC values in the right calcarine (CAL.R) and decreased EC values in the right putamen (PUT.R) distinguished these subjects with anti-NMDAR encephalitis from HCs. The higher ReHo values in the left postcentral gyrus (PoCG.L) were detected in the patients. The correlation analysis showed that the EC values in the PUT.R were negatively correlated with HAMD24 and HAMA scores, while the ReHo values in the PoCG.L were negatively correlated with MoCA scores. Better classification performance was reached in the EC-based classifier (AUC = 0.80), while weaker classification performance was achieved in the ReHo-based classifier (AUC = 0.74) or the classifier based on EC and ReHo (AUC = 0.74). The brain areas with large weights were located in the frontal lobe, parietal lobe, cerebellum and basal ganglia.

CONCLUSION

Our findings suggest that abnormal global and local connectivity may play an important part in the pathophysiological mechanism of neuropsychiatric symptoms in the anti-NMDAR encephalitis patients. The EC-based classifier may be better than the ReHo-based classifier in identifying anti-NMDAR encephalitis patients.

Neural mechanisms of the continued influence effect of misinformation: Analysis based on fMRI causal connectivity

The continued influence effect of misinformation (CIEM) can negatively affect individuals' reasoning and judgment processes. This research aims to enhance the correction of misinformation and foster rational judgement by investigating the internal brain mechanisms involved in the processing of the CIEM through the use of task-based functional magnetic resonance imaging combined with Granger causality analysis. Our findings demonstrate notable effective interactions in varying directions between the left inferior frontal gyrus and middle temporal gyrus during the encoding phase, and between the right anterior cingulate gyrus and left inferior occipital gyrus in the retrieval phase. These insights elucidate the roles of mental model updating and retrieval failure in the processing of CIEM, offering more granular evidence to support the differentiation in processing phases.

Chronotype and emotional/behavioral problems mediate the association between leisure screen time and academic achievement in children

Leisure screen time is associated with poor academic achievement; however, the mechanism underlying this relationship is unclear. Chronotypes and emotional/behavioral problems may be linked to this association. This study aimed to examine the associations between leisure screen time, chronotype, emotional/behavioral problems, and academic achievement using mediation analysis. A total of 113 children aged 9-12 years participated in this study. All participants were assessed for leisure screen time, chronotype, emotional/behavioral problems, and academic achievement. Leisure screen time was evaluated using a self-reported questionnaire. Chronotypes were measured using The Japanese Children's Chronotype Questionnaire, and the morningness/eveningness (M/E) score was calculated. Emotional/behavioral problems were assessed using The Japanese Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, and the total difficulties score (TDS) was calculated. Academic achievement was assessed by the homeroom teacher for each of the seven school subjects. Partial correlation analysis adjusted for grade, sex, and sleep duration indicated that leisure screen time was associated with M/E scores and academic achievement (p < 0.05). There was a positive association between M/E score and TDS (p < 0.05) and a negative association between TDS and academic achievement (p < 0.05). A mediation analysis adjusted for grade, sex, and sleep duration was performed. There was a significant total effect of leisure screen time on academic achievement (p < 0.05). Additionally, the M/E score and TDS significantly mediated the association between leisure screen time and academic achievement (p < 0.05). Our findings suggest that the serial path between chronotype and emotional/behavioral problems weakly but significantly mediates the association of leisure screen time with academic achievement.

The interplay between memory control and emotion regulation

Memory control (MC) and emotion regulation (ER) are critical cognitive functions for adapting to life's challenges, drawing significant research attention. Accumulating evidence suggests these processes are interrelated, yet a comprehensive discussion of their interplay remains lacking. We introduce an integrative framework exploring the mutual influence between MC and ER, composed of two interrelated branches: first, MC aids in ER through the retrieval of positive memories, intentional forgetting of undesirable content, and the adaptive updating of memory stores. Second, ER impacts MC by upregulating positivity and downregulating negativity in memories. The framework spotlights the need to harness MC-ER interplay for future research. Potential directions include utilizing MC to amplify ER capabilities, training ER skills to refine MC performance, and modulating the cognitive and neural overlapping of both processes to improve both functions. Delving into the MC-ER nexus advances understanding of the intricate emotion-memory relationship and holds great promise for developing novel behavioral interventions.

Exploring the relationship between emotion regulation, inhibitory control, and eating psychopathology in a non-clinical sample

OBJECTIVE

The present study aimed to explore the relationship between difficulties in emotion regulation and deficits in inhibitory control, and the role of these processes in eating psychopathology in a non-clinical sample. We also explored the specificity in which deficits in inhibitory control may underlie eating psychopathology, namely whether they can be conceptualised as context specific or more extensive in nature.

METHOD

Participants were 107 healthy individuals recruited at a major Portuguese university, aged between 18 and 43 years-old (M = 21.23, SD = 4.79). Two computerised neuropsychological tasks (i.e., emotional go/no-go and food go/no-go tasks) were used to assess response inhibition in the presence of general versus context-specific stimuli. A set of self-report measures was used to assess variables of interest such as emotion regulation and eating psychopathology.

RESULTS

Results indicated higher response inhibition deficits among participants with higher difficulties in emotion regulation comparing to those with lower difficulties in emotion regulation, particularly in the context of food-related stimuli. In addition, the relationship between difficulties in emotion regulation and eating psychopathology was moderated by inhibitory control deficits in both the context of food and pleasant stimuli.

CONCLUSIONS

The present findings highlight inhibitory control as an important process underlying the relationship between difficulties in emotion regulation and eating psychopathology in non-clinical samples. Findings have important implications for clinical practice and the prevention of eating psychopathology in healthy individuals and individuals with eating disorders.

Amygdala-based functional connectivity mediates the relationship between thought control ability and trait anxiety

Thought control ability (TCA) refers to the ability to exclude unwanted thoughts. There has been consistent evidence on the protective effect of TCA on anxiety, that higher TCA is associated with lower anxiety. However, the underlying neural mechanism remains unclear. In this study, with a large sample (N = 495), we investigated how seed-based resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) mediates the relationship between TCA and anxiety. Our behaviour results replicated previous findings that TCA is negatively associated with trait anxiety after controlling for gender, age, and depression. More importantly, the RSFC results revealed that TCA is negatively associated with the left amygdala - left frontal pole (LA-LFP), left amygdala - left inferior temporal gyrus (LA-LITG), and left hippocampus - left inferior frontal gyrus (LH-LIFG) connectivity. In addition, a mediation analysis demonstrated that the LA-LFP and LA-LITG connectivity in particular mediated the influence of TCA on trait anxiety. Overall, our study extends previous research by revealing the neural bases underlying the protective effect of TCA on anxiety and pinpointing specific mediating RSFC pathways. Future studies could explore whether targeted TCA training (behavioural or neural) can help alleviate anxiety.

Emotional Intelligence in Carriers of Different СОМТ, BDNF, DRD2 and HTR2A Genotypes

Background

Emotional intelligence is the ability to quickly and correctly recognize the emotional expressions of other people and to express and manage one's own emotions. It contributes to the success of a person in activities related to communication and interaction with people. Emotional intelligence has been studied largely in the context of organizational and education psychology, but less is known about the influence of genetics on it.

Objective

We aim to study emotional intelligence in carriers of different СОМТ, BDNF, DRD2, and HTR2A genotypes.

Design

We used three methods to measure emotional intelligence. Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test is a set of tasks with forced choice and frequency-based correct responses. We also applied two self-report questionnaires by Lyusin and Hall. We recruited 280 participants who took part in all three measures. We also identified their genotypes of the СОМТ, BDNF, DRD2, and HTR2A genes.

Results

Carriers of the Val/Met genotype of the COMT gene, A/A genotype of the HTR2A gene and C/C genotype of the DRD2 gene showed the highest level of emotional intelligence, while no differences were found between carriers of the BDNF genotypes. These data were obtained by using the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test. Self-report scores of emotional intelligence did not differ between carriers of different genotypes across all four of the genes in question.

Conclusion

Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test scores were differed for carriers of some genotypes, whereas self-reported emotional intelligence scores did not differ between according to genotype.

Inhibitory control and problem solving in early childhood: Exploring the burdens and benefits of high self-control

Low inhibitory control (IC) is sometimes associated with enhanced problem-solving amongst adults, yet for young children high IC is primarily framed as inherently better than low IC. Here, we explore associations between IC and performance on a novel problem-solving task, amongst 102 English 2- and 3-year-olds (Study 1) and 84 Swedish children, seen at 18-months and 4-years (Study 2). Generativity during problem-solving was negatively associated with IC, as measured by prohibition-compliance (Study 1, both ages, Study 2 longitudinally from 18-months). High parent-reported IC was associated with poorer overall problem-solving success, and greater perseveration (Study 1, 3-year-olds only). Benefits of high parent-reported IC on persistence could be accounted for by developmental level. No concurrent association was observed between problem-solving performance and IC as measured with a Delay-of-Gratification task (Study 2, concurrent associations at 4-years). We suggest that, for young children, high IC may confer burden on insight- and analytic-aspects of problem-solving.

Reappraisal and empathic perspective-taking - More alike than meets the eyes

Emotion regulation and empathy represent highly intertwined psychological processes sharing common conceptual ground. Despite the wealth of research in these fields, the joint and distinct functional nature and topological features of these constructs have not yet been investigated using the same experimental approach. This study investigated the common and distinct neural correlates of emotion regulation and empathy using a meta-analytic approach. The regions that were jointly activated were then characterized using meta-analytic connectivity modeling and functional decoding of metadata terms. The results revealed convergent activity within the ventrolateral and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex as well as temporal regions. The functional decoding analysis demonstrated that emotion regulation and empathy were related to highly similar executive and internally oriented processes. This synthesis underlining strong functional and neuronal correspondence between emotion regulation and empathy could (i) facilitate greater integration of these two separate lines of literature, (ii) accelerate progress toward elucidating the neural mechanisms that support social cognition, and (iii) push forward the development of a common theoretical framework for these psychological processes essential to human social interactions.

The inter-relationships of the neural basis of rumination and inhibitory control: neuroimaging-based meta-analyses

Rumination, as a clinical manifestation and pathogenic factor of depression, has long been the focus of psychological research regarding its causes and ameliorating approaches. Behavioral studies have shown that rumination is related to inhibitory control deficits, which provides ideas for reducing it. However, the neural relationship between them has not been clearly discussed. In this study, we first used multi-level kernel density analysis to conduct two meta-analyses of published functional magnetic resonance imaging studies: one was rumination comprising 17 studies with 180 foci, and the other was inhibitory control comprising 205 studies with 3791 foci. Conjunction analysis was then performed to explore the common brain regions and further decode them through Neurosynth to confirm the cognitive specificity. Results showed that rumination was mainly related to the default mode network (DMN), while inhibitory control was associated with the frontoparietal network (FPN). In addition, the common activation areas were mainly concentrated in the bilateral precuneus, right superior frontal gyrus, bilateral median cingulate, paracingulate gyri, and the left triangular part of inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). Decoding results also revealed they were involved in inhibition, memory retrieval, and self-related processes. Our findings support that rumination is associated with inhibitory control and can be explained neurologically by an antagonistic relationship between the DMN and FPN. In sum, inhibitory control may be related to rumination via inhibiting task-unrelated attention and controlling self-related processing. This research will help us understand and predict rumination from the perspective of inhibitory control and reduce rumination through behavioral training of inhibitory control or the application of neuromodulation techniques to common activation regions.

Neural basis underlying the association between expressive suppression and procrastination: The mediation role of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex

Procrastination can lead to a variety of negative consequences, including poorer health conditions and more financial issues. Previous researches highlight that procrastination is a result of the failure of emotion-regulation. Although substantial studies have shown that emotion regulation plays an essential role in procrastination, little is known about the neural basis of the relationship between expressive suppression and procrastination. To address this question, we employed the voxel-based morphometry (VBM) method to investigate the neural basis underlying how expressive suppression links to procrastination across two independent samples (sample1, N = 98). Expressive suppression was significantly negatively associated with procrastination. Furthermore, VBM results indicated that expressive suppression was positively correlated with gray matter (GM) volumes of the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC). More importantly, the GM volumes in dlPFC mediated the relationship between expressive suppression and procrastination, which was further replicated in an independent sample (sample 2, N = 110). These findings suggest that dlPFC, which plays a crucial role in inhibitory control, may be the key brain region mediating the relation between expressive suppression and procrastination. The current work provides a new perspective to understand how emotion regulation in terms of expressive suppression plays a role in procrastination.

Dynamic Transitions between Neural States Are Associated with Flexible Task Switching during a Memory Task

Flexible behavior requires switching between different task conditions. It is known that such task switching is associated with costs in terms of slowed RT, reduced accuracy, or both. The neural correlates of task switching have usually been studied by requiring participants to switch between distinct task conditions that recruit different brain networks. Here, we investigated the transition of neural states underlying switching between two opposite memory-related processes (i.e., memory retrieval and memory suppression) in a memory task. We investigated 26 healthy participants who performed a think/no-think task while being in the fMRI scanner. Behaviorally, we show that it was more difficult for participants to suppress unwanted memories when a no-think was preceded by a think trial instead of another no-think trial. Neurally, we demonstrate that think-no-think switches were associated with an increase in control-related and a decrease in memory-related brain activity. Neural representations of task condition, assessed by decoding accuracy, were lower immediately after task switching compared with the nonswitch transitions, suggesting a switch-induced delay in the neural transition toward the required task condition. This suggestion is corroborated by an association between condition-specific representational strength and condition-specific performance in switch trials. Taken together, we provided neural evidence from the time-resolved decoding approach to support the notion that carryover of the previous task set activation is associated with the switching cost, leading to less successful memory suppression.

Unveiling the neuroimaging-genetic intersections in the human brain

PURPOSE OF REVIEW

The prevalence of new public datasets of brain-wide and single-cell transcriptome data has created new opportunities to link neuroimaging findings with genetic data. The aim of this study is to present the different methodological approaches that have been used to combine this data.

RECENT FINDINGS

Drawing from various sources of open access data, several studies have been able to correlate neuroimaging maps with spatial distribution of brain expression. These efforts have enabled researchers to identify functional annotations of related genes, identify specific cell types related to brain phenotypes, study the expression of genes across life span and highlight the importance of selected brain genes in disease genetic networks.

SUMMARY

New transcriptome datasets and methodological approaches complement current neuroimaging work and will be crucial to improve our understanding of the biological mechanism that underlies many neurological conditions.

Overcoming false-positive gene-category enrichment in the analysis of spatially resolved transcriptomic brain atlas data

Transcriptomic atlases have improved our understanding of the correlations between gene-expression patterns and spatially varying properties of brain structure and function. Gene-category enrichment analysis (GCEA) is a common method to identify functional gene categories that drive these associations, using gene-to-category annotation systems like the Gene Ontology (GO). Here, we show that applying standard GCEA methodology to spatial transcriptomic data is affected by substantial false-positive bias, with GO categories displaying an over 500-fold average inflation of false-positive associations with random neural phenotypes in mouse and human. The estimated false-positive rate of a GO category is associated with its rate of being reported as significantly enriched in the literature, suggesting that published reports are affected by this false-positive bias. We show that within-category gene-gene coexpression and spatial autocorrelation are key drivers of the false-positive bias and introduce flexible ensemble-based null models that can account for these effects, made available as a software toolbox.

Emotional regulation in eating disorders and gambling disorder: A transdiagnostic approach

BACKGROUND AND AIMS

Difficulties in Emotion Regulation (ER) are related to the etiology and maintenance of several psychological disorders, including Eating Disorders (ED) and Gambling Disorder (GD). This study explored the existence of latent empirical groups between both disorders, based on ER difficulties and considering a set of indicators of personality traits, the severity of the disorder, and psychopathological distress.

METHODS

The sample included 1,288 female and male participants, diagnosed with ED (n = 906) and GD (n = 382). Two-step clustering was used for the empirical classification, while analysis of variance and chi-square tests were used for the comparison between the latent groups.

RESULTS

Three empirical groups were identified, from the most disturbed ER profile (Subgroup 1) to the most functional (Subgroup 3). The ER state showed a linear relationship with the severity of each disorder and the psychopathological state. Different personality traits were found to be related to the level of emotion dysregulation.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

In this study, three distinct empirical groups based on ER were identified across ED and GD, suggesting that ER is a transdiagnostic construct. These findings may lead to the development of common treatment strategies and more tailored approaches.

Forgetting positive social feedback is difficult: ERP evidence in a directed forgetting paradigm

Voluntary forgetting of unwanted memories is an adaptive cognitive function. However, it remains unknown how voluntary forgetting of unwanted social feedback may influence subsequent memories and evaluations, and what the underlying neurocognitive processes are. Here, we presented participants with peer photos together with feedback indicating social acceptance or rejection, followed by "remember" or "forget" instructive cues, while electroencephalograms were recorded during the experiment. We examined the Directed Forgetting (DF) effect in a recognition memory test, and tested participants' explicit and implicit attitudes toward the peers using a social evaluation task and an affect misattribution procedure (AMP). Both the memory test and the AMP were examined immediately and 3 days after the DF task so to estimate both the instant and the long-term effects of memory control. Behaviorally, immediate memory test showed smaller DF effect for positive than negative social feedback, which suggests that forgetting positive social feedback was more difficult than forgetting negative social feedback. Regarding the ERP results, although participants showed comparable frontal N2 amplitudes (reflecting inhibitory control efforts) following the instruction of forgetting positive and negative social feedback, positive feedback elicited larger late positive potential (LPP) amplitudes than negative feedback during initial encoding phase, suggesting an encoding bias for positive self-relevant information. Intriguingly, voluntary efforts to forget negative social feedback enhanced people's explicit and implicit evaluations toward the feedback senders. These findings provide new evidence for the adaptive function of memory control, which broadens the influence of voluntary forgetting in the context of social interaction and social evaluation.