scholarly journals Amygdala activity to angry and fearful faces relates to bullying and victimization in adolescents

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (10) ◽  
pp. 1027-1035 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johnna R Swartz ◽  
Angelica F Carranza ◽  
Annchen R Knodt
Keyword(s):  
Social Information Processing ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Matching Task ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Fearful Faces ◽  
Relational Bullying ◽  
Amygdala Activity ◽  
Bullying Behavior ◽  
Emotional Face

Abstract Relational bullying and victimization are common social experiences during adolescence, but relatively little functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) research has examined the neural correlates of bullying and victimization in adolescents. The aim of the present study was to address this gap by examining the association between amygdala activity to angry and fearful faces and peer relational bullying and victimization in a community-based sample of adolescents. Participants included 49 adolescents, 12–15 years old, who underwent fMRI scanning while completing an emotional face matching task. Results indicated that interactions between amygdala activity to angry and fearful faces predicted self-reported relational bullying and victimization. Specifically, a combination of higher amygdala activity to angry faces and lower amygdala activity to fearful faces predicted more bullying behavior, whereas a combination of lower amygdala activity to angry faces and lower amygdala activity to fearful faces predicted less relational victimization. Exploratory whole-brain analyses also suggested that increased rostral anterior cingulate cortex activity to fearful faces was associated with less bullying. These results suggest that relational bullying and victimization are related to different patterns of neural activity to angry and fearful faces, which may help in understanding how patterns of social information processing predict these experiences.

scholarly journals The roles of early-life adversity and rumination in neural response to emotional faces amongst anxious and depressed adults

2018 ◽  
Vol 49 (13) ◽  
pp. 2267-2278 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy T. Peters ◽  
Katie L. Burkhouse ◽  
Kerry L. Kinney ◽  
K. Luan Phan
Keyword(s):  
Early Life ◽  
Emotion Processing ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Matching Task ◽  
Parameter Estimates ◽  
Early Life Adversity ◽  
Emotional Faces ◽  
Regulatory Strategies ◽  
Emotional Face

AbstractBackgroundEarly-life adversity (ELA) is a risk factor for internalizing psychopathology (IP). ELA is also linked to alterations in neural phenotypes of emotion processing and maladaptive emotion regulatory strategies, such as ruminative brooding, in adulthood. We therefore expected that ELA would predict cortical brain activation to emotional faces in transdiagnostic IP and in turn, mediate the extent of rumination amongst patients with IPs and ELA (IP + ELA).MethodOne hundred and thirty-two individuals, including 102 treatment-seeking adults with heterogeneous IPs and 30 healthy controls (HCs) performed an Emotional Face-Matching Task during functional magnetic resonance imaging. Whole-brain analyses compared HC (n = 30), IP (n = 52), and IP + ELA (n = 50) neural responses to emotional (angry, fearful, happy, and sad) faces v. shapes, controlling for depression and anxiety symptoms. Parameter estimates of activation were extracted for significant between-group differences and tested as a mediator of ruminative brooding in IP + ELA.ResultsIP + ELA demonstrated increased activation in the superior frontal gyrus and anterior cingulate cortex (fear), superior parietal lobule, precuneus, posterior cingulate, and inferior temporal gyrus (fear only), and cuneus (fear and angry). These regions were preferentially correlated with ruminative brooding in IP + ELA, many of which mediated the link between IP + ELA and ruminative brooding.ConclusionsResults provide evidence that ELA history amongst IP patients augments engagement of brain regions involved in emotion processing, above and beyond what is accounted for by current symptoms. Though longitudinal designs are needed, alterations in the neural correlates of maladaptive processing of socio-emotional information may be a common pathway by which ELA poses risk for psychopathology.

scholarly journals Insula reactivity mediates subjective isolation stress in alexithymia

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mitjan Morr ◽  
Jana Lieberz ◽  
Michael Dobbelstein ◽  
Alexandra Philipsen ◽  
René Hurlemann ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Psychosocial Stress ◽  
Emotional Processing ◽  
Emotional Awareness ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Matching Task ◽  
First Year ◽  
Subjective Stress ◽  
Emotional Faces ◽  
Neurobiological Substrates ◽  
Emotional Face

AbstractThe risk for developing stress-related disorders is elevated in individuals with high alexithymia, a personality trait characterized by impaired emotional awareness and interpersonal relating. However, it is still unclear how alexithymia alters perceived psychosocial stress and which neurobiological substrates are mechanistically involved. To address this question, we examined freshmen during transition to university, given that this period entails psychosocial stress and frequently initiates psychopathology. Specifically, we used a functional magnetic resonance imaging emotional face matching task to probe emotional processing in 54 participants (39 women) at the beginning of the first year at university and 6 months later. Furthermore, we assessed alexithymia and monitored perceived psychosocial stress and loneliness via questionnaires for six consecutive months. Perceived psychosocial stress significantly increased over time and initial alexithymia predicted subjective stress experiences via enhanced loneliness. On the neural level, alexithymia was associated with lowered amygdala responses to emotional faces, while loneliness correlated with diminished reactivity in the anterior insular and anterior cingulate cortex. Furthermore, insula activity mediated the association between alexithymia and loneliness that predicted perceived psychosocial stress. Our findings are consistent with the notion that alexithymia exacerbates subjective stress via blunted insula reactivity and increased perception of social isolation.

scholarly journals Effects of diazepam on BOLD activation during the processing of aversive faces

2010 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 443-451 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristina M Del-Ben ◽  
Cesar AQ Ferreira ◽  
Tiago A Sanchez ◽  
Wolme C Alves-Neto ◽  
Vinicius G Guapo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Recognition Task ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Experimental Session ◽  
Double Blind ◽  
Emotional Faces ◽  
Fearful Faces ◽  
Stimulus Features ◽  
Emotional Face ◽  
Left Insula

This study aimed to measure, using fMRI, the effect of diazepam on the haemodynamic response to emotional faces. Twelve healthy male volunteers (mean age = 24.83 ± 3.16 years), were evaluated in a randomized, balanced-order, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover design. Diazepam (10 mg) or placebo was given 1 h before the neuroimaging acquisition. In a blocked design covert face emotional task, subjects were presented with neutral (A) and aversive (B) (angry or fearful) faces. Participants were also submitted to an explicit emotional face recognition task, and subjective anxiety was evaluated throughout the procedures. Diazepam attenuated the activation of right amygdala and right orbitofrontal cortex and enhanced the activation of right anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) to fearful faces. In contrast, diazepam enhanced the activation of posterior left insula and attenuated the activation of bilateral ACC to angry faces. In the behavioural task, diazepam impaired the recognition of fear in female faces. Under the action of diazepam, volunteers were less anxious at the end of the experimental session. These results suggest that benzodiazepines can differentially modulate brain activation to aversive stimuli, depending on the stimulus features and indicate a role of amygdala and insula in the anxiolytic action of benzodiazepines.

scholarly journals Sex differences in neural correlates of common psychopathological symptoms in early adolescence

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Francesca Biondo ◽  
Charlotte Nymberg Thunell ◽  
Bing Xu ◽  
Congying Chu ◽  
Tianye Jia ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Internalizing Symptoms ◽  
Grey Matter ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Female Adolescents ◽  
Grey Matter Volume ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Psychopathological Symptom ◽  
Strengths And Difficulties ◽  
The Brain

Abstract Background Sex-related differences in psychopathology are known phenomena, with externalizing and internalizing symptoms typically more common in boys and girls, respectively. However, the neural correlates of these sex-by-psychopathology interactions are underinvestigated, particularly in adolescence. Methods Participants were 14 years of age and part of the IMAGEN study, a large (N = 1526) community-based sample. To test for sex-by-psychopathology interactions in structural grey matter volume (GMV), we used whole-brain, voxel-wise neuroimaging analyses based on robust non-parametric methods. Psychopathological symptom data were derived from the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). Results We found a sex-by-hyperactivity/inattention interaction in four brain clusters: right temporoparietal-opercular region (p < 0.01, Cohen's d = −0.24), bilateral anterior and mid-cingulum (p < 0.05, Cohen's d = −0.18), right cerebellum and fusiform (p < 0.05, Cohen's d = −0.20) and left frontal superior and middle gyri (p < 0.05, Cohen's d = −0.26). Higher symptoms of hyperactivity/inattention were associated with lower GMV in all four brain clusters in boys, and with higher GMV in the temporoparietal-opercular and cerebellar-fusiform clusters in girls. Conclusions Using a large, sex-balanced and community-based sample, our study lends support to the idea that externalizing symptoms of hyperactivity/inattention may be associated with different neural structures in male and female adolescents. The brain regions we report have been associated with a myriad of important cognitive functions, in particular, attention, cognitive and motor control, and timing, that are potentially relevant to understand the behavioural manifestations of hyperactive and inattentive symptoms. This study highlights the importance of considering sex in our efforts to uncover mechanisms underlying psychopathology during adolescence.

scholarly journals Discrete modes of social information processing predict individual behavior of fish in a group

2017 ◽  
Vol 114 (38) ◽  
pp. 10149-10154 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roy Harpaz ◽  
Gašper Tkačik ◽  
Elad Schneidman
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Social Information Processing ◽  
Collective Behavior ◽  
Single Mode ◽  
Group Behavior ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Individual Behavior ◽  
Group Level ◽  
Adult Zebrafish ◽  
Passive Mode

Individual computations and social interactions underlying collective behavior in groups of animals are of great ethological, behavioral, and theoretical interest. While complex individual behaviors have successfully been parsed into small dictionaries of stereotyped behavioral modes, studies of collective behavior largely ignored these findings; instead, their focus was on inferring single, mode-independent social interaction rules that reproduced macroscopic and often qualitative features of group behavior. Here, we bring these two approaches together to predict individual swimming patterns of adult zebrafish in a group. We show that fish alternate between an “active” mode, in which they are sensitive to the swimming patterns of conspecifics, and a “passive” mode, where they ignore them. Using a model that accounts for these two modes explicitly, we predict behaviors of individual fish with high accuracy, outperforming previous approaches that assumed a single continuous computation by individuals and simple metric or topological weighing of neighbors’ behavior. At the group level, switching between active and passive modes is uncorrelated among fish, but correlated directional swimming behavior still emerges. Our quantitative approach for studying complex, multimodal individual behavior jointly with emergent group behavior is readily extensible to additional behavioral modes and their neural correlates as well as to other species.

scholarly journals EEG recording during an emotional face-matching task in children of mothers with interpersonal violence-related posttraumatic stress disorder

2019 ◽  
Vol 283 ◽  
pp. 34-44
Author(s):  
Virginie C. Perizzolo ◽  
Cristina Berchio ◽  
Dominik A. Moser ◽  
Cristina Puro Gomez ◽  
Marylène Vital ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder ◽  
Posttraumatic Stress ◽  
Interpersonal Violence ◽  
Stress Disorder ◽  
Matching Task ◽  
Face Matching ◽  
Emotional Face

scholarly journals Neural correlates of beauty retouching to enhance attractiveness of self-depictions in women

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chisa Ota ◽  
Tamami Nakano
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Resonance Imaging ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Neural Activity ◽  
Facial Attractiveness ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Functional Magnetic Resonance ◽  
Resonance Imaging ◽  
Amygdala Activity ◽  
Increased Activity

AbstractBeauty filters, while often employed for retouching photos to appear more attractive on social media, when used in excess cause images to give a distorted impression. The neural mechanisms underlying this change in facial attractiveness according to beauty retouching level remain unknown. The present study used functional magnetic resonance imaging in women as they viewed photos of their own face or unknown faces that had been retouched at three levels: no, mild, and extreme. The activity in the nucleus accumbens (NA) exhibited a positive correlation with facial attractiveness, whereas amygdala activity showed a negative correlation with attractiveness. Even though the participants rated others’ faces as more attractive than their own, the NA showed increased activity only for their mildly retouched own face and the amygdala exhibited greater activation in the others’ faces condition than the own face condition. Moreover, amygdala activity was greater for extremely retouched faces than for unretouched or mildly retouched faces for both conditions. Frontotemporal and cortical midline areas showed greater activation for one’s own than others’ faces, but such self-related activation was absent when extremely retouched. These results suggest that neural activity dynamically switches between the NA and amygdala according to perceived attractiveness of one’s face.

scholarly journals Social Information Processing in Substance Use Disorders: Insights From an Emotional Go-Nogo Task

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
James M. Bjork ◽  
Lori Keyser-Marcus ◽  
Jasmin Vassileva ◽  
Tatiana Ramey ◽  
David C. Houghton ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Substance Use ◽  
Information Processing ◽  
Social Information Processing ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Opioid Use ◽  
Social Signals ◽  
Emotional Faces ◽  
Fearful Faces ◽  
Fearful Face

Positive social connections are crucial for recovery from Substance Use Disorder (SUD). Of interest is understanding potential social information processing (SIP) mediators of this effect. To explore whether persons with different SUD show idiosyncratic biases toward social signals, we administered an emotional go-nogo task (EGNG) to 31 individuals with Cocaine Use Disorder (CoUD), 31 with Cannabis Use Disorder (CaUD), 79 with Opioid Use Disorder (OUD), and 58 controls. Participants were instructed to respond to emotional faces (Fear/Happy) but withhold responses to expressionless faces in two task blocks, with the reverse instruction in the other two blocks. Emotional faces as non-targets elicited more “false alarm” (FA) commission errors as a main effect. Groups did not differ in overall rates of hits (correct responses to target faces), but participants with CaUD and CoUD showed reduced rates of hits (relative to controls) when expressionless faces were targets. OUD participants had worse hit rates [and slower reaction times (RT)] when fearful faces (but not happy faces) were targets. CaUD participants were most affected by instruction effects (respond/“go” vs withhold response/“no-go” to emotional face) on discriminability statistic A. Participants were faster to respond to happy face targets than to expressionless faces. However, this pattern was reversed in fearful face blocks in OUD and CoUD participants. This experiment replicated previous findings of the greater salience of expressive face images, and extends this finding to SUD, where persons with CaUD may show even greater bias toward emotional faces. Conversely, OUD participants showed idiosyncratic behavior in response to fearful faces suggestive of increased attentional disruption by fear. These data suggest a mechanism by which positive social signals may contribute to recovery.

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