Gene by Culture Effects on Emotional Processing of Social Cues among East Asians and European Americans

Greater Early Posttrauma Activation in the Right Inferior Frontal Gyrus Predicts Recovery From Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms

BACKGROUND

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been associated with altered emotion processing and modulation in specific brain regions, i.e., the amygdala, insula, and medial prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortices. Functional alterations in these regions, recorded shortly after trauma exposure, may predict changes in PTSD symptoms.

METHODS

Survivors (N = 104) of a traumatic event, predominantly a motor vehicle accident, were included. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to assess brain activation 1, 6, and 14 months after trauma exposure (T1, T2, and T3, respectively). Participants performed the Shifted-attention Emotional Appraisal Task, which probes 3 affective processes: implicit emotional processing (of emotional faces), emotion modulation by attention shifting (away from these faces), and emotion modulation by appraisal (of the participants' own emotional response to these faces). We defined regions of interest based on task-related activations, extracted beta weights from these regions of interest, and submitted them to a series of analyses to examine relationships between neural activation and PTSD severity over the 3 time points.

RESULTS

At T1, a regression model containing activations in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, bilateral inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), and medial prefrontal cortex during emotion modulation by appraisal significantly predicted change in PTSD symptoms. More specifically, greater right IFG activation at T1 was associated with greater reduction in symptom severity (T1-T3). Exploratory analysis also found that activation of the right IFG increased from T1 to T3.

CONCLUSIONS

The results suggest that greater early posttrauma activation during emotion appraisal in the right IFG, a region previously linked to cognitive control in PTSD, predicts recovery from PTSD symptoms.

Non-suicidal self-injury in adolescents with mood disorders and the roles of self-compassion and emotional regulation

Objective

We aimed to investigate the characteristics and psychological mechanism of non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) in adolescents with mood disorders. We examined how self-compassion and emotional regulation affected NSSI and tested the mediating role of self-compassion in the link between emotional regulation and NSSI.

Method

We recruited outpatient and inpatient adolescent patients with bipolar and related disorders or depressive disorders (DSM-5), with a focus on NSSI. We also recruited healthy controls from the community. We collected demographic and clinical data. The Adolescent Self-injury Questionnaire, Self-compassion Scale (SCS), and Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ) were used to assess the frequency and severity of NSSI, level of self-compassion, and emotional regulation.

Results

In total, we recruited 248 adolescent patients with mood disorders (N = 196 with NSSI, and 52 without NSSI) and 212 healthy controls. NSSI was significantly associated with the female sex, lower levels of education and less use of cognitive reappraisal strategies, lower levels of self-warmth, and higher levels of self-coldness. Multivariate analysis of variance showed that there were significant differences in the scores of ERQ, cognitive reassessment score, and the scores of SCS among the three groups, but no statistical differences in expressive suppression score among the three groups. Self-warmth had a mediating effect between cognitive reappraisal and NSSI behavior.

Conclusion

NSSI is prevalent among adolescent patients with mood disorders in clinical settings, especially among girls and those with lower levels of education and less cognitive reappraisal strategies. More clinical attention is needed. Self-compassion and its factors may mediate the association between emotional regulation and NSSI. Clinical implications and future research directions were discussed.

Practical approaches to conducting biopsychosocial research with refugee and internally displaced communities

Refugees and internally displaced people comprise one percent of the world population. Forced migration involves a multitude of ongoing stressful and traumatic experiences, often resulting in lasting psychological symptoms for people resettling as refugees. Despite these risks, the underrepresentation of refugee populations in research-particularly in biological sciences-has impeded the allocation of effective resources and the development of novel interventions for these groups. This paper identifies and addresses key methodological challenges to successfully and appropriately conducting research with refugee and internally displaced communities, many of which have served as barriers to improving research representation for these populations. Methodological challenges discussed include language and literacy barriers; political fears; differing cultural dynamics between participants and researchers; and others. We provide practical recommendations for overcoming each challenge, often sourced from our experience conducting multi-year studies and interventions in refugee mental health. Several key strategies include the recruitment of researchers and research assistants from similar cultural and linguistic backgrounds as participants; providing detailed, ongoing communication about informed consent; avoiding assumptions regarding participants' understanding of concepts that may vary based on culture or experience (e.g., "voluntary" research; confidentiality); and adopting flexible data collection procedures compatible with participants' needs and restrictions. Finally, we discuss the role of the researcher in regard to cultural competencies and partnering with the refugee community. Given the increasing global population of refugees, the strategies discussed in this paper are suggested in order to encourage future research in this underrepresented population and empower investigators to logistically carry out studies with refugees.

Effects of Voluntary Attention on Social and Non-Social Emotion Perception

Existing studies have focused on the effect of emotion on attention, and the role of attention on emotion has largely been underestimated. To further determine the mechanisms underlying the role of attention on emotion, the present study explored the effects of voluntary attention on both social and non-social aspects of emotional perception. Participants were 25 college students who completed the Rapid Serial Visual Prime (RSVP) paradigm. In this study, the selection rates of participants' emotional intensity, pleasure and distinctness perception of the pictures were measured. The results showed as following: (a) The cued condition selection rate was higher than the non-cued condition in the evaluation of non-social emotional intensity perception and pleasure perception, (b) In the evaluation of social emotional intensity and pleasure perception, there was no significant difference in the selection rate between the cued and non-cued condition, (c) The cued condition selection rate was higher than the non-cued condition in the perception of non-social positive emotional intensity and social negative emotional distinctness. The novel findings of this study revealed that the effect of voluntary attention on emotional perception is influenced not only by emotional valence but also by emotional sociality.

Biological Psychiatry in Displaced Populations: What We Know, and What We Need to Begin to Learn

Conflict and climate change continue to displace millions of people, who experience unique trauma and stressors as they resettle in host countries. Both children and adults who are forcibly displaced, or choose to migrate, experience posttraumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression, and other mental health conditions at higher rates than the general population. This may be attributed to severe, cumulative stress and trauma (largely interpersonal traumas); discrimination and harassment in host countries; and structural barriers to accessing and addressing mental health concerns, including clinician availability, language barriers, cultural differences, geographic accessibility, health care access, and stigma. Despite high exposure to and clinical impact of such experiences, and despite representing 1% of the world population, forcibly displaced people are underrepresented in neuroscientific research. The availability of such literature and research findings is significant in understanding the unique genetic and cultural aspects of trauma- and stress-related mental health, advocacy, reducing stigma, informing prevention, and treatment. The present work aimed to explore how the field of neuroscience can address mental health equity for individuals who have been uprooted in relation to land, with a focus on refugee populations. We offer practical suggestions on how to improve research in this area and narrow the gap in knowledge.

Cultural differences in vocal expression analysis: Effects of task, language, and stimulus-related factors

Cultural context shapes the way that emotions are expressed and socially interpreted. Building on previous research looking at cultural differences in judgements of facial expressions, we examined how listeners recognize speech-embedded emotional expressions and make inferences about a speaker's feelings in relation to their vocal display. Canadian and Chinese participants categorized vocal expressions of emotions (anger, fear, happiness, sadness) expressed at different intensity levels in three languages (English, Mandarin, Hindi). In two additional tasks, participants rated the intensity of each emotional expression and the intensity of the speaker's feelings from the same stimuli. Each group was more accurate at recognizing emotions produced in their native language (in-group advantage). However, Canadian and Chinese participants both judged the speaker's feelings to be equivalent or more intense than their actual display (especially for highly aroused, negative emotions), suggesting that similar inference rules were applied to vocal expressions by the two cultures in this task. Our results provide new insights on how people categorize and interpret speech-embedded vocal expressions versus facial expressions and what cultural factors are at play.

A neural model of vulnerability and resilience to stress-related disorders linked to differential susceptibility

Expert opinion remains divided concerning the impact of putative risk factors on vulnerability to depression and other stress-related disorders. A large body of literature has investigated gene by environment interactions, particularly between the serotonin transporter polymorphism (5-HTTLPR) and negative environments, on the risk for depression. However, fewer studies have simultaneously investigated the outcomes in both negative and positive environments, which could explain some of the inconclusive findings. This is embodied by the concept of differential susceptibility, i.e., the idea that certain common gene polymorphisms, prenatal factors, and traits make some individuals not only disproportionately more susceptible and responsive to negative, vulnerability-promoting environments, but also more sensitive and responsive to positive, resilience-enhancing environmental conditions. Although this concept from the field of developmental psychology is well accepted and supported by behavioral findings, it is striking that its implementation in neuropsychiatric research is limited and that underlying neural mechanisms are virtually unknown. Based on neuroimaging studies that examined how factors mediating differential susceptibility affect brain function, we posit that environmental sensitivity manifests in increased salience network activity, increased salience and default mode network connectivity, and increased salience and central executive network connectivity. These changes in network function may bring about automatic exogenous attention for positive and negative stimuli and flexible attentional set-shifting. We conclude with a call to action; unraveling the neural mechanisms through which differential susceptibility factors mediate vulnerability and resilience may lead us to personalized preventive interventions.

Mapping Cultural Values onto the Brain: the Fragmented Landscape

Basic values are the core element of culture, explaining many important differences in social, economic and political effects. Yet the nature and the composition of cultural value systems remains highly debatable. An emerging field of cultural neuroscience promises to shed light on how societies differ in their value systems and on the low-level mechanisms through which they operate. A systematic review of 47 experimental studies using different brain research methods is conducted to identify neural systems and processes, which can be associated with specific values, irrespective of interpretations given by the authors of original studies. Key findings were extracted and systematized according to Hofstede's and some other (Trompenaars' and Gelfand's) models of national cultures. From the perspective of existing accounts of cultural value systems, existing literature provides only a very fragmented and biased view of the neural processing of values. Absolute majority of existing evidence (37 studies) of cultural differences in the brain functions can be associated with individualism-collectivism value dimension. Affectivity-Neutrality is identified in 11 studies, Tightness-Looseness - 6, Power Distance - 3; Indulgence, Long-Term Orientation and Universalism - 2, and Uncertainty Avoidance - 1. Other value dimensions from the applied models of culture are not represented at all. Key problems limiting the contribution of the contemporary culture neuroscience to the comparative studies of cultural values include: researchers' theoretical framing within the independence-interdependence paradigm, resulting in the loss of a broader perspective and alternative interpretations of findings, the lack of focus on the direct comparison of values and value dimensions, insufficiently representative and biased samples.