Institute of Psychology,Chinese Academy Of Sciences
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Happy facial expression processing with different social interaction cues: An fMRI study of individuals with schizotypal personality traits
No full textIn daily life facial expressions change rapidly and the direction of change provides important clues about social interaction. The aim of conducting this study was to elucidate the dynamic happy facial expression processing with different social interaction cues in individuals with (n= 14) and without (n= 14) schizotypal personality disorder (SPD) traits. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), dynamic happy facial expression processing was examined by presenting video clips depicting happiness appearing and disappearing under happiness inducing ('praise') or reducing ('blame') interaction cues. The happiness appearing condition consistently elicited more brain activations than the happiness disappearing condition in the posterior cingulate bilaterally in all participants. Further analyses showed that the SPD group was less deactivated than the non-SPD group in the right anterior cingulate cortex in the happiness appearing-disappearing contrast. The SPD group deactivated more than the non-SPD group in the left posterior cingulate and right superior temporal gyrus in the praise-blame contrast. Moreover, the incongruence of cues and facial expression activated the frontal-thalamus-caudate-parietal network, which is involved in emotion recognition and conflict resolution. These results shed light on the neural basis of social interaction deficits in individuals with schizotypal personality traits. (C) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved
Brain structural plasticity in survivors of a major earthquake
No full textBackground: Stress responses have been studied extensively in animal models, but effects of major life stress on the human brain remain poorly understood. The aim of this study was to determine whether survivors of a major earthquake, who were presumed to have experienced extreme emotional stress during the disaster, demonstrate differences in brain anatomy relative to individuals who have not experienced such stressors. Methods: Healthy survivors living in an area devastated by a major earthquake and matched healthy controls underwent 3-dimentional high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Survivors were scanned 13-25 days after the earthquake; controls had undergone MRI for other studies not long before the earthquake. We used optimized voxel-based morphometry analysis to identify regional differences of grey matter volume between the survivors and controls. Results: We included 44 survivors (17 female, mean age 37 [standard deviation (SD) 10.6] yr) and 38 controls (14 female, mean age 35.3 [SD 11.2] yr) in our analysis. Compared with controls, the survivors showed significantly lower grey matter volume in the bilateral insula, hippocampus, left caudate and putamen, and greater grey matter volume in the bilateral orbitofrontal cortex and the parietal lobe (all p < 0.05, corrected for multiple comparison). Limitations: Differences in the variance of survivor and control data could impact study findings. Conclusion: Acute anatomic alterations could be observed in earthquake survivors in brain regions where functional alterations after stress have been described. Anatomic changes in the present study were observed earlier than previously reported and were seen in prefrontal-limbic, parietal and striatal brain systems. Together with the results of previous functional imaging studies, our observations suggest a complex pattern of human brain response to major life stress affecting brain systems that modulate and respond to heightened affective arousal
Maternal separation induces alterations of serotonergic system in different aged rats
No full textMaternal separation (MS) induces profound behavioral and neurochemical dysregulations in adult rodents. In the present longitudinal study, we investigated the effects of repeated (4 h/day) maternal separation during postnatal days 1-21 on serotonergic synthesis and activity in the prefrontal cortex (PFC), nucleus accumbens (NAc) and hippocampus of juvenile (post-natal day 21, PND 21), adolescent (PND 35) and early adult (PND 56) male Wistar rats. We found that MS increased 5-HT levels in the PFC of juvenile rats, and although MS increased 5-HT and 5-HIAA levels in the NAc of adolescent rats, the ratio between 5-HIAA and 5-HT decreased in the PFC. In addition, MS-treated adult rats showed increased levels of 5-HT in the PFC as well as 5-HT and 5-HIAA in the NAc. These data provided evidence that MS leads to profound and age-specific changes in serotonergic synthesis and activity in rodents. Our study also found that there are U-shaped and inverted U-shaped patterns for serotonergic synthesis and serotonergic activity from younger rats to adults, respectively. Together, our findings support the use of maternal separation as an animal model for studying the neurobiological pathogenesis of neurodevelopmental diseases. (C) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved
How does cognitive reappraisal affect the response to gains and losses?
No full textTo investigate the influence of cognitive reappraisal, one important kind of emotion regulation strategy, on psychological and electrophysiological responses to gains and losses, a monetary gambling task was performed in two conditions, that is, spontaneity and regulation. Event-related potentials (ERP) and self-rating emotional experiences to outcome feedback were recorded during the task. Cognitive reappraisal reduced self-rating emotional experience to both gains and losses and the amplitudes of the feedback-related negativity (FRN) and the P3 of ERPs. According to these results, we suggest that the application of cognitive reappraisal strategy significantly modulated the motivational salience of current outcomes, thus weakening the subjective emotional experience elicited. In addition, cognitive reappraisal might have changed the allocation of cognitive resources during outcome evaluation. This study extends emotion regulation studies by applying monetary outcomes as emotional stimuli, and also implicates the significance of emotion regulation in decision-making processes
Self-Enhancement and Self-Protection Strategies in China: Cultural Expressions of a Fundamental Human Motive
No full textThe motive to enhance and protect positive views of the self manifests in a variety of cognitive and behavioral strategies, but its universality versus cultural specificity is debated by scholars. We sought to inform this debate by soliciting self-reports of the four principal types of self-enhancement and self-protection strategy (positivity embracement, favorable construals, self-affirming reflections, defensiveness) from a Chinese sample and comparing their structure, levels, and correlates to a Western sample. The Chinese data fit the same factor structure and were subject to the same individual differences in regulatory focus, self-esteem, and narcissism, as the Western data. Chinese participants reported lower levels of (enhancement-oriented) positivity embracement but higher levels of (protection-oriented) defensiveness than Western participants. Levels of favorable construals were also higher in the Chinese sample, with no differences in self-affirming reflections. These findings support and extend the universalist perspective on the self by demonstrating the cross-cultural structure, yet culturally sensitive manifestation, of self-enhancement motivation
Internet addiction of adolescents in China: Prevalence, predictors, and association with well-being
No full textInternet addiction is a mental health problem that affects a significant number of people worldwide. Our study attempted to investigate the prevalence of Internet addiction among Chinese adolescents and to explore the predictors of Internet addiction and its association with well-being. A total of 10,988 adolescents from nine different cities in China were surveyed using the Diagnostic Questionnaire (DQ) for Internet addiction, the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale, the Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale, and the Adolescent's Satisfaction with Life Scale. The mean age of the whole sample was 17.2 years (ranging from 13 to 23 years). The prevalence rate of Internet addiction among the surveyed adolescents was 7.5%, which was influenced by gender and grade (chi(2) = 74.027, p < 0.001; chi(2) = 7.162, p < 0.05). The breadth of extracurricular activities, the age when people used Internet for the first time, and whether people used Internet for the first time in Internet bar were significant predictors of Internet addiction (beta = -0.065, p < 0.001; beta = -0.101, p < 0.001; beta = 0.545, p < 0.001). Finally, our study found evidence demonstrating the link between Internet addiction and well-being. Increased symptoms of problematic use were associated with decreased self-esteem (F = 258.344, p < 0.001), satisfaction with life (F = 232.428, p < 0.001), and increased depression (F = 607.062, p < 0.001)
Differences in learning rates for item and associative memories between amnestic mild cognitive impairment and healthy controls
No full textBackground: It has been established that the overall performance of associative memory was disproportionately impaired in contrast to item memory in aMCI (Amnestic mild cognitive impairment) patients, but little is known about the specific aspects of the memory process that show differences between aMCI and healthy controls. By comparing an item-item associative learning test with an individual item learning test, the present study investigated whether the rate of learning was slower in associative memory than in item memory in aMCI. Furthermore, we examined whether deficits in intertrial acquisition and consolidation contributed to the potential disproportionate impairments in the learning rate of associative memory for aMCI patients. In addition, we further explored whether the aMCI-discriminative power of the associative memory test increases more than that of the item memory test when the number of learning-test trials increases. Methods: A group of 40 aMCI patients and 40 matched control participants were administered a standardized item memory test (Auditory Verbal Learning Test, AVLT) and a standardized associative memory test (Paired Associative Learning Test, PALT), as well as other neuropsychological tests and clinical assessments. Results: The results indicated that the learning rate deficits in aMCI patients were more obvious for associative memory than for item memory and that the deficits resulted from impairments in both intertrial acquisition and consolidation. In addition, the receiver operating characteristic curve and logistical regression analysis revealed that the discriminative power of the associative memory test for aMCI was larger than that of the item memory test, especially with more than one learning-test trials. Conclusions: Due to more deficits in learning rate of associative memory than that of item memory, the discriminative power for aMCI tended to be larger in associative memory than in item memory when the number of learning-test trials increased. It is suggested that associative memory tests with multiple trials may be particularly useful for early detection of aMCI
Familial Self as a Potent Source of Affirmation: Evidence From China
No full textDoes affirmation of familial self have a distinct buffering function compared to affirmation of close other (friend, partner) self or individual self? We addressed this question in an East-Asian culture (China) that places particularly high value on familial self. Familial self-affirmation (compared to other forms of self-affirmation as well as low affirmation) curtailed the mortality salience-induced intolerance to birth-control policy (Experiment 1), reduced female participants' performance detriments-due to stereotype threat-on mental rotation (Experiment 2), and diminished the disadvantageous influence of negative feedback on further interest in information about one's weaknesses (Experiment 3). Close other self-affirmation, devoid of family context, was no more potent than individual self-affirmation or low affirmation. The findings underscore the utility of distinguishing among different sources of self-affirmation, highlight the relevance of familial self-affirmation to self-affirmation theory, and call for research testing the germaneness of familial self (and, more generally, the construct of family) in other Eastern, as well as Western, cultures
Cognition-Emotion Integration in the Anterior Insular Cortex
No full textBoth cognitive and affective processes require mental resources. However, it remains unclear whether these 2 processes work in parallel or in an integrated fashion. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging study, we investigated their interaction using an empathy-for-pain paradigm, with simultaneous manipulation of cognitive demand of the tasks and emotional valence of the stimuli. Eighteen healthy adult participants viewed photographs showing other people's hands and feet in painful or nonpainful situations while performing tasks of low (body part judgment) and high (laterality judgment) cognitive demand. Behavioral data showed increased reaction times and error rates for painful compared with nonpainful stimuli under laterality judgment relative to body part judgment, indicating an interaction between cognitive demand and stimulus valence. Imaging analyses showed activity in bilateral anterior insula (AI) and primary somatosensory cortex (SI), but not posterior insula, for main effects of cognitive demand and stimulus valence. Importantly, cognitive demand and stimulus valence showed a significant interaction in AI, SI, and regions of the frontoparietal network. These results suggest that cognitive and emotional processes at least partially share common brain networks and that AI might serve as a key node in a brain network subserving cognition-emotion integration
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