Development and psychometric properties of a new brief scale for subjective personal agency (SPA-5) in people with schizophrenia.

AIMS: Personal agency is a variable which potentially facilitates personal recovery in people with serious mental illness. This study aimed to develop a new brief measure for subjective personal agency that can be completed by people with serious mental illness. METHODS: Two focus group interviews were first conducted with 11 people with schizophrenia to understand the fundamental components of subjective personal agency for people with serious mental illness living in the community. One group comprised six people with schizophrenia living in the community, while the other consisted of five people with schizophrenia working as peer-support workers. We then developed scale items through collaboration with people with schizophrenia and qualitative analysis (stage 1). A cross-sectional survey was then conducted to test the psychometric properties of the new scale among service users with schizophrenia in 18 assertive community treatment teams (stage 2). Factor validity was tested via exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). We evaluated convergent validity with the Boston University Empowerment Scale (BUES), divergent validity with the global assessment of functioning (GAF), internal consistency, and test-retest reliability. RESULTS: Seven items were included in the scale at stage 1. In stage 2, 195 participants completed this scale. EFA revealed a one-factor model with five items. CFA indicated good model fit (χ2 statistics [CMIN] = 8.445, df = 5 (CMIN/df = 1.689), p = 0.133, comparative fit index = 0.974, Tucker-Lewis fit index = 0.949, root mean square error of approximation = 0.077 and standardised root mean squared residual = 0.042). The new scale was significantly correlated with total BUES score (r = 0.526, p < 0.001), but not with GAF score. Cronbach's α for internal consistency was 0.79, and intra-class correlation coefficient for test-retest reliability was 0.70. CONCLUSION: We developed a new, five-item Subjective Personal Agency scale (SPA-5) that can be completed by people with serious mental illness. Further studies are needed to confirm the results outside Japan.

Mediating role of attenuated physiological arousal on the association between psychopathic traits and fairness norm violation.

The low-fear model of primary psychopathy has been supported by empirical findings such as attenuated physiological arousal in anticipation of threatening stimuli. The somatic marker hypothesis proposes that salient changes in the bodily state are processed as signals of whether a situation is good or bad and guide an individual to avoid potential adverse consequences. The present study aimed to elucidate the role that attenuated physiological arousal plays in the relationship between primary psychopathy and fairness norm violations both under the threat of punishment and under no potential for punishment. Primary psychopathy was associated with an attenuated skin conductance response prior to the choice of unfair monetary offers to another person, regardless of the potential for punishment. Attenuated skin conductance mediated the association between primary psychopathy and the choice of an unfair offer, especially in the no-punishment condition. However, in the punishment condition, primary psychopathy significantly predicted the choice of unfair offers even after controlling for the magnitude of skin conductance. The bodily response may have only a marginal effect on interpersonal decision-making under a threat of punishment. The present results suggest that the low-fear account of social norm violations as a function of primary psychopathy should be re-discussed.

Machiavellianism and early neural responses to others' facial expressions caused by one's own decisions.

The processing of social stimuli generated by one's own voluntary behavior is an element of social adaptation. It is known that self-generated stimuli induce attenuated sensory experiences compared with externally generated stimuli. The present study aimed to examine this self-specific attenuation effect on early stimulus processing in the case of others' facial expressions during interpersonal interactions. In addition, this study explored the possibility that the self-specific attenuation effect on social cognition is modulated by antisocial personality traits such as Machiavellianism. We analyzed early components of the event-related brain potential in participants elicited by happy and sad facial expressions of others when the participant's decision was responsible for the others' emotions and when the others' facial expressions were independent of the participant's decision. Compared to the non-responsible condition, the responsible condition showed an attenuated amplitude of the N170 component in response to sad faces. Moreover, Machiavellianism explained individual differences in the self-specific attenuation effect depending on the affective valence of social signals. The present findings support the possibility that the self-specific attenuation effect extends to interpersonal interactions and imply that distorted cognition of others' emotions caused by one's own behavior is associated with personality disorders that promote antisocial behaviors.

Selective Fair Behavior as a Function of Psychopathic Traits in a Subclinical Population.

Psychopathy is a group of personality traits that are associated with violations of social norms. Previous studies have suggested that people with psychopathic traits in subclinical populations do not necessarily display antisocial, self-defeating behaviors, and instead may strategically show adaptive behaviors in response to cues during reciprocal social interactions. Therefore, in the present study, we examined whether the association between psychopathic traits and unfair behavior can be moderated by a potential for punishment and social distance (anonymity), which are known to facilitate fair behavior. We focused on two psychopathic traits: primary and secondary psychopathy. Primary psychopathy is characterized by callousness, shallow affect, manipulation, and superficial charm. In contrast, secondary psychopathy is associated with impulsivity and lack of long-term goals, and is related to hostile behavior. A total of 348 undergraduate students determined the amounts of money that they would offer to strangers or friends at their university in hypothetical scenarios of the ultimatum game (UG) and the dictator game (DG). While gender affected decisions in the hypothetical scenarios of the DG, it did not interact with psychopathic traits. The score for primary psychopathy on the Levenson self-report psychopathy scale predicted unfair monetary offers to strangers in the DG, where participants could not be punished. However, compared with their offers in the DG, individuals with higher scores for primary psychopathy made larger offers in the UG, where low offers could trigger punishment from the recipient. Moreover, primary psychopathy did not decrease the amounts of offers in either game when the participant considered the recipient to be a friend. On the other hand, secondary psychopathy was not associated with differences in behavioral fairness depending on a potential for punishment or social distance. Based on these findings, we discuss strategic social skills as a function of primary psychopathy.

Time course and localization of brain activity in humor comprehension: An ERP/sLORETA study.

Although a number of studies have investigated the incongruity-detection and resolution process in humor comprehension, it is difficult to functionally and anatomically dissociate these processes. We used event-related potentials (ERP) and standardized low resolution brain electromagnetic tomography analysis (sLORETA) to examine the time course and localization of brain activity during incongruity detection and resolution. We used the same materials as in our previous fMRI study. Eighteen participants read funny and unfunny scenarios and judged whether the target sentence was funny or not. Results indicated that ERPs elicited by a funny punch line showed a P2 component followed by a P600 component over the centro-parietal electrode sites. Our sLORETA analysis of the P2 ERPs revealed a stronger activation for the funny vs. unfunny condition in the superior frontal gyrus (SFG) and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). For the P600 ERPs, the funny punch line elicited greater activation in the temporal-parietal regions. These results indicate that incongruity-detection processes activate the SFG and mPFC in the P2 time window, while incongruity-resolution processes generate activation at the temporal-parietal regions in the P600 time window. These results provide the evidence that verbal humor comprehension is processed in steps which start with the incongruity detection in the early P2 time window and followed by a P600 component reflecting incongruity resolution.

Heart-rate deceleration predicting the determination of costly punishment: Implications for its involvement in cognitive effort expended in overriding self-interest.

Previous studies have investigated which biological markers predict the decision to reject unfair monetary offers, termed costly punishment, in the ultimatum game (UG). One study showed that a phasic deceleratory response in heart rate (HR) is evoked in the responder more readily by offers that will be rejected than by offers that will be accepted. However, owing to the paucity of supporting evidence, it remains unclear whether and why HR deceleration can predict the decisions of UG responders. In this paper, we report two separate studies (Study 1 and Study 2) using modified versions of the UG to explore factors modulating HR deceleration. In Study 1, as well as unfair offers, fair offers induced greater HR deceleration when responders were forced to reject offers compared to when they were forced to accept offers. In Study 2, a high rejection rate for very unfair offers was sustained, regardless of the size of the offers, but HR deceleration was increased for unfair but large offers, relative to unfair, small offers. Moreover, HR deceleration was associated with the rejection of large offers. However, across the two studies, HR deceleration did not simply vary depending on unfairness. These findings support the possibility that HR decelerates as a function of cognitive load in determining costly punishment.

Vagal nerve activity as a moderator of brain-immune relationships.

We investigated whether vagal tone, as assessed by heart rate variability (HRV), moderates the neural correlates of immune and physiological responses to acute stress. Participants with low and high baseline HRV underwent a reversal learning task as an acute stressor. Natural killer cells, norepinephrine, and adrenocorticotropic hormone in peripheral blood changed with acute stress in the high HRV group only. Activity in the prefrontal cortex and striatum correlated with the immune and physiological indices in the high HRV group. High vagal tone may reflect more flexible top-down brain regulation of immune and physiological activity.

Pro-inflammatory cytokine predicts reduced rejection of unfair financial offers.

OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to examine one of biological correlates, pro-inflammatory cytokine, in rejection of unfair financial offers in the Ultimatum Game (UG), where the division of a sum of money is proposed and the player can accept or reject this offer. METHODS: Nineteen participants played 20 trials of the UG as responders, and they were proposed unfair offers in a half of the trials. Baseline levels of several pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory cytokines, subjective happiness, and depression of them were measured. RESULTS: Participants with higher levels of the pro-inflammatory cytokine, interleukin (IL)-6 rejected fewer unfair offers. This effect of IL-6 levels on decision-making was independent from other pro-inflammatory cytokines, anti-inflammatory cytokines, subjective happiness, and depression. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggested that chronic higher levels of IL-6 might affect functions of neural regions related to decision making, and thus can modulate rejection of unfair offers.

Amygdala dysfunction attenuates frustration-induced aggression in psychopathic individuals in a non-criminal population.

BACKGROUND: Individuals with psychopathy have an increased tendency toward certain types of aggression. We hypothesized that successful psychopaths, who have no criminal convictions but can be diagnosed with psychopathy in terms of personality characteristics, are skilled at regulating aggressive impulses, compared to incarcerated unsuccessful psychopaths. METHODS: In this block-designed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we sought to clarify the neural mechanisms underlying differences in frustration-induced aggression as a function of psychopathy in non-criminal populations. Twenty male undergraduate students who completed a self-report psychopathy questionnaire were scanned while they completed a task in which they either could or could not punish other individuals who made unfair offers of monetary distribution. RESULTS: Individuals with high psychopathic tendencies were less likely to make a decision to inflict costly punishment on people proposing unfair offers. During this decision-making, psychopathy was associated with less amygdala activity in response to the unfairness of offers. Moreover, the amygdala dysfunction in psychopathic individuals was associated with reduced functional connectivity with dopaminergic-related areas, including the striatum, when punishment was available compared to when it was unavailable. LIMITATIONS: The possibility that levels of psychopathic traits in a regular population were milder than in incarcerated populations cannot be ruled out. CONCLUSIONS: The findings indicate that amygdala dysfunction underlies affective deficits of psychopathy. We propose that the insensitivity of the amygdala to the affective significance of social stimuli contributes to an increased risk of violation of social norms, but enhances the ability to attenuate impulses toward maladaptive aggression in successful psychopaths.

Medial prefrontal cortex-dorsal anterior cingulate cortex connectivity during behavior selection without an objective correct answer.

Life choices (e.g., occupational choice) often include situations with two or more possible correct answers, thereby putting us in a situation of conflict. Recent reports have described that the evaluation of conflict might be crucially mediated by neural activity in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), although the reduction of conflict might rather be associated with neural activity in the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC). What remains unclear is whether these regions mutually interact, thereby raising the question of their functional connectivity during conflict situations. Using psychophysiological interaction (PPI) analyses of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data, this study shows that the dACC co-varied significantly higher with the MPFC during an occupational choice task with two possible correct answers when compared to the control task: a word-length task with one possible correct answer. These results suggest that the MPFC has a functional relation with dACC, especially in conflict situations where there is no objective correct answer. Taken together, this lends support to the assumption that the MPFC might be crucial in biasing the decision, thereby reducing conflict.

Transient neural activation in human amygdala involved in aversive conditioning of face and voice.

Elucidating the neural mechanisms involved in aversive conditioning helps find effective treatments for psychiatric disorders such as anxiety disorder and phobia. Previous studies using fMRI and human subjects have reported that the amygdala plays a role in this phenomenon. However, the noxious stimuli that were used as unconditioned stimuli in previous studies (e.g., electric shock) might have been ecologically invalid because we seldom encounter such stimuli in daily life. Therefore, we investigated whether a face stimulus could be conditioned by using a voice that had negative emotional valence and was collected from a real-life environment. A skin conductance response showed that healthy subjects were conditioned by using these stimuli. In an fMRI study, there was greater amygdala activation in response to the faces that had been paired with the voice than to those that had not. The right amygdala showed transient activity in the early stage of acquisition. A psychophysiological interaction analysis indicated that the subcortical pathway from the medial geniculate body to the amygdala played a role in conditioning. Modulation of the subcortical pathway by voice stimuli preceded the transient activity in the amygdala. The finding that an ecologically valid stimulus elicited the conditioning and amygdala response suggests that our brain is automatically processing unpleasant stimuli in daily life.

Polymorphism of the serotonin transporter gene modulates brain and physiological responses to acute stress in Japanese men.

A short (S) variant, compared to a long (L) variant, of the promoter region of the serotonin transporter gene-linked polymorphic region (5HTTLPR) has been related to emotional hyper-reactivity. We tested whether the 5HTTLPR could modulate acute stress responses in the brain and, the cardiovascular and neuroendocrine systems. Ten Japanese male participants carrying double copies of the S alleles and 10 Japanese males carrying S and L alleles conducted a mental arithmetic task, and their regional cerebral blood flow by (15)O positron emission tomography and cardiovascular and neuroendocrine parameters were measured. During the acute stress task, the participants with the SS alleles showed stronger reactivity in blood pressure and secretion of epinephrine, compared to the participants with the SL and LL alleles. Furthermore, the SS carriers showed greater activation in stress-related brain regions such as the hypothalamus, cerebellum, midbrain, and pulvinar compared to the SL and LL carriers during the acute stress task. The present findings indicated that the S allele of the 5HTTLPR is associated with greater brain and physiological reactivity to acute stress in Japanese men.

Cardiac responses predict decisions: an investigation of the relation between orienting response and decisions in the ultimatum game.

Emotion-based behaviors in humans cannot be fully explained by economic rationality. Particularly, in the ultimatum game, which incorporates conflict between self-interest and fairness, negative emotions evoked by an unfair offer seem to promote an economically irrational decision. In accordance with this suggestion, the previous studies have reported that physiological arousal is associated with rejecting unfair offers. In the present study, we investigated electrocardiogram and electrodermal activities in individuals which received fair, advantageously unfair, and disadvantageously unfair offers to specify the relations of the orienting and the defensive responses with these offers and with the decisions to accept and reject them. The results indicated that when an offer that would be rejected was presented, heart rate initially decelerated more than when an offer that would be accepted was presented. Additionally, there was a linear relationship between the deceleration and unfairness of offers. On the other hand, such different patterns were not seen in late cardiac acceleration or electrodermal response. The results suggest that because of perception of disadvantage and unpleasantness in a social context, the orienting response is evoked when an offer will be rejected. In addition, these results are discussed regarding the effect of the autonomic activity in decision-making.

Neural bases of behavior selection without an objective correct answer.

Life choice (e.g. occupation choice) often includes situations with two or more possible answers. How does the brain respond to such conflict-ridden situations? We investigated whether the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) evaluates the degree of conflict between possible answers. Additionally, we investigated whether the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) or the medial temporal lobe (MTL) has a function in behavior selection with plural possible answers. We used an occupational choice task (e.g. which occupation do you think you could do better?-dancer or chemist) with two possible answers and a word-length task (e.g. which word is longer?-dentist or comedian) that has a correct answer. The conflicts in each task were manipulated. Results showed that the dACC and the MTL were activated when the conflict during occupational choice was large, and that the MPFC and posterior cingulate cortex were activated more in the occupational choice task than in the word-length task. Our results show that the dACC evaluates the degree of conflict between possible answers, and that the MTL, MPFC, and posterior cingulate cortex have a function in behavior selection without an objective correct answer. It is thought that the MTL functions to reduce conflict when a large-conflict is detected in the dACC. Furthermore, the MPFC and posterior cingulate are thought to have a function of biasing any of the plural answers in behavior selection without an objective answer.