A Short Functional Neuroimaging Assay Using Attachment Scenes to Recruit Neural Correlates of Social Cognition-A Replication Study.

Attachment theory provides a conceptual framework to understand the impact of early child-caregiver experiences, such as loss or separation, on adult functioning and psychopathology. In the current study, scenes from the Adult Attachment Projective Picture System (AAP), a validated, commonly used standardized diagnostic instrument to assess adult attachment representations, were used to develop a short fMRI assay eliciting the neural correlates of encoding of potentially hurtful and threatening social situations such as social losses, rejections or loneliness. Data from healthy participants (N = 19) showed activations in brain areas associated with social cognition and semantic knowledge during exposure to attachment-related scenes compared to control scenes. Extensive activation of the temporal poles was observed, suggesting the use of semantic knowledge for generating social concepts and scripts. This knowledge may underlie our ability to explain and predict social interactions, a specific aspect of theory of mind or mentalization. In this replication study, we verified the effectiveness of a modified fMRI assay to assess the external validity of a previously used imaging paradigm to investigate the processing of emotionally negatively valenced and painful social interactions. Our data confirm the recruitment of brain areas associated with social cognition with our very short neuroimaging assay.

Effects of genetic variability of CYP2D6 on neural substrates of sustained attention during on-task activity.

The polymorphic drug-metabolizing enzyme CYP2D6, which is responsible for the metabolism of most psychoactive compounds, is expressed not only in the liver, but also in the brain. The effects of its marked genetic polymorphism on the individual capacity to metabolize drugs are well known, but its role in metabolism of neural substrates affecting behavior personality or cognition, suggested by its CNS expression, is a long-standing unresolved issue. To verify earlier findings suggesting a potential effect on attentional processes, we collected functional imaging data, while N = 415 participants performed a simple task in which the reward for correct responses varied. CYP2D6 allelic variants predicting higher levels of enzymatic activity level were positively associated with cortical activity in occipito-parietal areas as well as in a right lateralized network known to be activated by spatial attentional tasks. Reward-related modulation of activity in cortical areas was more pronounced in poor metabolizers. In conjunction with effects on reaction times, our findings provide evidence for reduced cognitive efficiency in rapid metabolizers compared to poor metabolizers in on-task attentional processes manifested through differential recruitment of a specific neural substrate.

Segregation, connectivity, and gradients of deactivation in neural correlates of evidence in social decision making.

Functional imaging studies of sensory decision making have detected a signal associated with evidence for decisions that is consistent with data from single-cell recordings in laboratory animals. However, the generality of this finding and its implications on our understanding of the organization of the fMRI signal are not clear. In the present functional imaging study, we investigated decisions in an elementary social cognition domain to identify the neural correlates of evidence, their segregation, connectivity, and their relationship to task deactivations. Besides providing data in support of an evidence-related signal in a social cognition task, we were interested in embedding these neural correlates in models of supramodal associative cortex placed at the top of a hierarchy of processing areas. Participants were asked to decide which of two depicted individuals was saddest based on information rich in sensory features (facial expressions) or through contextual cues suggesting the mental state of others (stylized drawings of mourning individuals). The signal associated with evidence for the decision was located in two distinct networks differentially recruited depending on the information type. Using the largest peaks of the signal associated with evidence as seeds in a database of connectivity data, these two networks were retrieved. Furthermore, the hubs of these networks were located near or along a ribbon of cortex located between task activations and deactivations between areas affected by perceptual priming and the deactivated areas of the default network system. In associative cortex, these findings suggest gradients of progressive relative deactivation as a possible neural correlate of the cortical organization envisaged by structural models of cortical organization and by predictive coding theories of cortical function.

Signals of anticipation of reward and of mean reward rates in the human brain.

Theoretical models of dopamine function stemming from reinforcement learning theory have emphasized the importance of prediction errors, which signal changes in the expectation of impending rewards. Much less is known about the effects of mean reward rates, which may be of motivational significance due to their role in computing the optimal effort put into exploiting reward opportunities. Here, we used a reinforcement learning model to design three functional neuroimaging studies and disentangle the effects of changes in reward expectations and mean reward rates, showing recruitment of specific regions in the brainstem regardless of prediction errors. While changes in reward expectations activated ventral striatal areas as in previous studies, mean reward rates preferentially modulated the substantia nigra/ventral tegmental area, deep layers of the superior colliculi, and a posterior pontomesencephalic region. These brainstem structures may work together to set motivation and attentional efforts levels according to perceived reward opportunities.

Mirror neuron activations in encoding of psychic pain in borderline personality disorder.

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is characterized by pronounced emotional instability in interpersonal relations. Previous studies have shown increased activity in the amygdala, an imaging phenotype of negative affect. However, clinical accounts of BPD have drawn attention to deficits in social cognition and their likely role in engendering emotional instability. BPD patients show enhanced sensitivity to other people's emotions, while being less proficient in reading motives and reasons. In the present functional imaging study, we exposed BPD participants to stylized scenes of individuals affected by loss or separation, an issue to which these patients are particularly sensitive. Previously shown to activate the mirror neuron system, these mourning scenes were here also used to assess differential amygdala activity in stimuli of negative valence, but low arousal. Relative to controls, BPD patients were found to activate sensorimotor areas, a part of the mirror neuron system thought to encode basic aspects of the perception of motoric activity and pain. This contrasted with the activity of areas related to more complex aspects of social cognition, such as the inferior frontal gyrus. The amygdala was more active in patients when viewing these scenes, but this effect also showed a strong association with levels of depressiveness and neuroticism. After adjusting for these covariates, differences in amygdala activation were no longer significant. These findings are consistent with models of social cognition in BPD that attribute emotional sensitivity to emotional contagion through the mirror neuron system, in contrast to areas associated with more sophisticated forms of social cognition. These effects were accompanied by increased amygdala reactivity, consistently with the common occurrence of affective symptoms in these patients.

Adaptation of the Scrambled-Sentences Task to Assess "Shattered Assumptions:" Construction of the Test and Investigation of Neural Substrates in an fMRI Study.

BACKGROUND: Increasing recognition is being given to the importance of cognitions observed in posttraumatic conditions. These cognitions may reflect the activation of negative schemas. The aim of this work was to evaluate the feasibility of the scrambled-sentences task (SST) to assess individual differences in attributions commonly observed after traumas. Originally developed to assess the tendency to activate negative cognitions in individuals predisposed to depression, the SST is a laboratory task the outcome of which has been shown to predict depression relapse and is associated with depressiveness. SAMPLING AND METHODS: We used content from self-rating scales for assessment of the activation of trauma-related schemas to develop a trauma-related SST and evaluated its performance in a behavioral study (n = 43) and a functional neuroimaging study (n = 20). RESULTS: In the healthy sample in which we tested it, the trauma-related SST was strongly associated with individual differences in negative affect (scores in depressiveness and neuroticism scales) as well as with the scores on trauma-related cognition scales. However, we failed to detect a clear specificity of trauma-related cognitions in correlations with scores on the trauma-related scales in the healthy participants. The neuroimaging data demonstrated activation of a ventral network of areas that included the perisylvian/temporal cortex and the peri-cingular cortex in handling trauma-related relative to neutral material, replicating previous neuroimaging studies of the SST. CONCLUSION: The shattered-assumptions SST demonstrated strong associations with individual differences in all of the rating scales used in the study, suggesting its usefulness in capturing aspects of affective psychopathology. The neuroimaging study confirmed the capacity of this task to elicit specific activations. In future studies, evaluation of the conditions in which these neural substrates are active may shed light on the mechanism of schema selection.

Repeated fMRI in measuring the activation of the amygdala without habituation when viewing faces displaying negative emotions.

Functional imaging studies of affective disorders have demonstrated abnormal activity in the amygdala in response to emotionally salient stimuli. Since in other studies this response has been shown to habituate during the scanning session, it is not clear if it may be of use in monitoring disease progression or remission, or in monitoring the effects of therapy, as habituation may confound normalisation of response. We investigated here amygdala activation in healthy participants exposed to displays of emotional facial expressions in a sample of N = 31 individuals assessed twice in an interval of three weeks. At this interval no habituation could be detected, suggesting the validity of this imaging assay in repeated assessments of amygdalar reactivity. However, the fusiform gyrus and the inferior frontal lobes showed decreases in activations that may be related to the role of these areas in encoding visual and emotional aspects of the stimuli.

The iconography of mourning and its neural correlates: a functional neuroimaging study.

The present functional neuroimaging study focuses on the iconography of mourning. A culture-specific pattern of body postures of mourning individuals, mostly suggesting withdrawal, emerged from a survey of visual material. When used in different combinations in stylized drawings in our neuroimaging study, this material activated cortical areas commonly seen in studies of social cognition (temporo-parietal junction, superior temporal gyrus, and inferior temporal lobe), empathy for pain (somatosensory cortex), and loss (precuneus, middle/posterior cingular gyrus). This pattern of activation developed over time. While in the early phases of exposure lower association areas, such as the extrastriate body area, were active, in the late phases activation in parietal and temporal association areas and the prefrontal cortex was more prominent. These findings are consistent with the conventional and contextual character of iconographic material, and further differentiate it from emotionally negatively valenced and high-arousing stimuli. In future studies, this neuroimaging assay may be useful in characterizing interpretive appraisal of material of negative emotional valence.

A Computerized Version of the Scrambled Sentences Test.

The scrambled sentences test (SST), an experimental procedure that involves participants writing down their cognitions, has been used to elicit individual differences in depressiveness and vulnerability to depression. We describe here a modification of the SST to adapt it to computerized administration, with a particular view of its use in large samples and functional neuroimaging applications. In a first study with the computerized version, we reproduce the preponderance of positive cognitions in the healthy and the inverse association of these cognitions with individual measures of depressiveness. We also report a tendency of self-referential cognitions to elicit higher positive cognition rates. In a second study, we describe the patterns of neural activations elicited by emotional and neutral sentences in a functional neuroimaging study, showing that it replicates and extends previous findings obtained with the original version of the SST. During the formation of emotional cognitions, ventral areas such as the ventral anterior cingulus and the supramarginal gyrus were relatively activated. This activation pattern speaks for the recruitment of mechanisms coordinating motivational and associative processes in the formation of value-based decisions.