Oxytocin enhances pupil dilation and sensitivity to ‘hidden’ emotional expressions

Sensing others’ emotions through subtle facial expressions is a highly important social skill. We investigated the effects of intranasal oxytocin treatment on the evaluation of explicit and ‘hidden’ emotional expressions and related the results to individual differences in sensitivity to others’ subtle expressions of anger and happiness. Forty healthy volunteers participated in this double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover study, which shows that a single dose of intranasal oxytocin (40 IU) enhanced or ‘sharpened’ evaluative processing of others’ positive and negative facial expression for both explicit and hidden emotional information. Our results point to mechanisms that could underpin oxytocin’s prosocial effects in humans. Importantly, individual differences in baseline emotional sensitivity predicted oxytocin’s effects on the ability to sense differences between faces with hidden emotional information. Participants with low emotional sensitivity showed greater oxytocin-induced improvement. These participants also showed larger task-related pupil dilation, suggesting that they also allocated the most attentional resources to the task. Overall, oxytocin treatment enhanced stimulus-induced pupil dilation, consistent with oxytocin enhancement of attention towards socially relevant stimuli. Since pupil dilation can be associated with increased attractiveness and approach behaviour, this effect could also represent a mechanism by which oxytocin increases human affiliation.     

The role of the medial frontal cortex in the maintenance of emotional states

Evidence is accruing that people can maintain their emotional states, but how they do it and which brain regions are responsible still remains unclear. We examined whether people maintain emotional states ‘actively’, with explicit elaboration of the emotion, or ‘passively’, without elaboration. Twenty-four participants completed an emotion maintenance task in which they either maintained the emotional intensity from the first picture of a pair to compare to that of the second picture (‘maintain’ condition), or only rated their emotional response to the second picture (‘non-maintain’ condition). Supporting the ‘active’ maintenance hypothesis, when maintaining vs not maintaining emotion, participants exhibited increased height and width of activation in the dorsal medial frontal cortex (MFC) and lateral prefrontal cortex, regions associated with explicit emotion generation and manipulation of contents in working memory, respectively. Supporting the ‘passive’ maintenance hypothesis, however, when viewing negative emotional pictures (vs neutral pictures) that were not explicitly maintained, participants exhibited greater duration of activity in the rostral MFC, a region associated with implicit emotion generation. Supported by behavioral findings, this evidence that people maintain emotional states both naturally in the rMFC and strategically in the dMFC may be critical for understanding normal as well as disordered emotion regulation.     

A Prospective,Multi-Center,Double-Blind,Randomized Study to Evaluate the Efficacy and Safety of the Synthetic Bone Graft Material DBM Gel with rhBMP-2 versus DBM Gel Used during the TLIF Procedure in Patients with Lumbar Disc Disease

ObjectiveThis study is to evaluate the efficacy and safety of demineralized bone matrix (DBM) gel versus DBM gel with recombinant human bone morphogenetic protein-2 (rhBMP-2) used in transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion (TLIF). MethodsThis study was designed as a prospective, multi-center, double-blind method, randomized study. All randomized subjects underwent TLIF with DBM gel with rhBMP-2 group (40 patients) as an experimental group or DBM gel group (36 patients) as a control group. Post-operative observations were performed at 12, 24, and 48 weeks. The spinal fusion rate on computed tomography scans and X-rays films, Visual analog scale pain scores, Oswestry disability index and SF-36 quality of life (QOL) scores were used for the efficacy evaluation. The incidence rate of adverse device effects (ADEs) and serious adverse device effects (SADEs) were used for safety evaluation. ResultsThe spinal fusion rate at 12 weeks for the DBM gel with rhBMP-2 group was higher with 73.68% compared to 58.82% for the DBM gel group. The 24 and 48 weeks were 72.22% and 82.86% for the DBM gel with rhBMP-2 group and 78.79% and 78.13%, respectively, for the DBM gel group. However, there were no significant differences between two groups in the spinal fusion rate at 12, 24, and 48 weeks post-treatment (p=0.1817, p=0.5272, p=0.6247). There was no significant difference between the two groups in the incidence rate of ADEs (p=0.3836). For ADEs in the experimental group, ‘Pyrexia’ (5.00%) was the most common ADE, followed by ‘Hypesthesia’, ‘Paresthesia’, ‘Transient peripheral paralysis’, ‘Spondylitis’ and ‘Insomnia’ (2.50%, respectively). ADEs reported in control group included ‘Pyrexia’, ‘Chest discomfort’, ‘Pain’, ‘Osteoarthritis’, ‘Nephropathy toxic’, ‘Neurogenic bladder’, ‘Liver function analyses’ and ‘Urticaria’ (2.86%, respectively). There was no significant difference between the two groups in the incidence rate of SADEs (p=0.6594). For SADE in the experimental group, ‘‘Pyrexia’ and ‘Spondylitis’ were 2.50%. SADE reported in the control group included ''Chest discomfort’, ‘Osteoarthritis’ and ‘Neurogenic bladder’. All SADEs described above were resolved after medical treatment. ConclusionThis study demonstrated that the spinal fusion rates of DBM gel group and DBM gel with rhBMP-2 group were not significantly different. But, this study provides knowledge regarding the earlier postoperative effect of rhBMP-2 containing DBM gel and also supports the idea that the longer term follow-up results are essential to confirm the safety and effectiveness.     

From mind to matter: neural correlates of abstract and concrete mindsets

Much work in the field of social cognition shows that adopting an abstract (vs concrete) mindset alters the way people construe the world, thereby exerting substantial effects across innumerable aspects of human behavior. In order to investigate the cognitive and neural basis of these effects, we scanned participants as they performed two widely used tasks that induce an abstracting vs concretizing mindsets. Specifically, participants: (i) indicated ‘why’ perform certain activities (a task that involves abstraction) or ‘how’ the same activities are performed (a task that involves concretization) and (ii) generated superordinate categories for certain objects (a task that involves abstraction) or subordinate exemplars for the same objects (a task that involves concretization). We conducted a conjunction analysis of the two tasks, in order to uncover the neural activity associated with abstraction and concretization. The results showed that concretization was associated with activation in fronto-parietal regions implicated in goal-directed action; abstraction was associated with activity within posterior regions implicated in visual perception. We discuss these findings in light of construal-level theory’s notion of abstraction.     

Disgust trait modulates frontal-posterior coupling as a function of disgust domain

Following the two-stage model of disgust, ‘core disgust’ (e.g. elicited by rotten food) is extended to stimuli that remind us of our animal nature ‘AR disgust’ (e.g. mutilations, animalistic instincts). There is ample evidence that core and AR represent distinct domains of disgust elicitors. Moreover, people show large differences in their tendency to respond with disgust to potential disgust elicitors (propensity), as well as in their appraisal of experiencing disgust (sensitivity). Thus these traits may be important moderators of people''s response patterns. Here, we aimed to find brain mechanisms associated with these distinct disgust domains and traits, as well as the interaction between them. The right ventrolateral occipitotemporal cortex, which preferentially responded to visual AR, was functionally coupled to the middle cingulate cortex (MCC), thalamus and prefrontal cortex (medial, dorsolateral), as a function of disgust domain. Coupling with the anterior part of MCC was modulated by disgust ‘propensity’, which was strongest during AR. Coupling with anterior insula and ventral premotor cortex was weaker, but relied fully on this domain–trait interaction. Disgust ‘sensitivity’ modulated left anterior insula activity irrespective of domain, and did not affect functional connectivity. Thus a frontal-posterior network that interacts with disgust ‘propensity’ dissects AR and core disgust.     

Mu rhythm suppression over sensorimotor regions is associated with greater empathic accuracy

When people encounter others’ emotions, they engage multiple brain systems, including parts of the sensorimotor cortex associated with motor simulation. Simulation-related brain activity is commonly described as a ‘low-level’ component of empathy and social cognition. It remains unclear whether and how sensorimotor simulation contributes to complex empathic judgments. Here, we combine a naturalistic social paradigm with a reliable index of sensorimotor cortex-based simulation: electroencephalography suppression of oscillatory activity in the mu frequency band. We recruited participants to watch naturalistic video clips of people (‘targets’) describing emotional life events. In two experiments, participants viewed these clips (i) with video and sound, (ii) with only video or (iii) with only sound and provided continuous ratings of how they believed the target felt. We operationalized ‘empathic accuracy’ as the correlation between participants’ inferences and targets’ self-report. In Experiment 1 (US sample), across all conditions, right-lateralized mu suppression tracked empathic accuracy. In Experiment 2 (Israeli sample), this replicated only when using individualized frequency-bands and only for the visual stimuli. Our results provide novel evidence that sensorimotor representations—as measured through mu suppression—play a role not only in low-level motor simulation, but also in higher-level inferences about others’ emotions, especially when visual cues are crucial for accuracy.     

The neural correlates of ‘vitality form’ recognition: an fMRI study: This work is dedicated to Daniel Stern,whose immeasurable contribution to science has inspired our research.

The observation of goal-directed actions performed by another individual allows one to understand what that individual is doing and why he/she is doing it. Important information about others’ behaviour is also carried out by the dynamics of the observed action. Action dynamics characterize the ‘vitality form’ of an action describing the cognitive and affective relation between the performing agent and the action recipient. Here, using the fMRI technique, we assessed the neural correlates of vitality form recognition presenting participants with videos showing two actors executing actions with different vitality forms: energetic and gentle. The participants viewed the actions in two tasks. In one task (what), they had to focus on the goal of the presented action; in the other task (how), they had to focus on the vitality form. For both tasks, activations were found in the action observation/execution circuit. Most interestingly, the contrast how vs what revealed activation in right dorso-central insula, highlighting the involvement, in the recognition of vitality form, of an anatomical region connecting somatosensory areas with the medial temporal region and, in particular, with the hippocampus. This somatosensory-insular-limbic circuit could underlie the observers’ capacity to understand the vitality forms conveyed by the observed action.     

Heterogeneity in brain reactivity to pleasant and food cues: evidence of sign-tracking in humans

Aberrant brain reward responses to food-related cues are an implied characteristic of human obesity; yet, findings are inconsistent. To explain these inconsistencies, we aimed to uncover endophenotypes associated with heterogeneity in attributing incentive salience to food cues in the context of other emotionally salient cues; a phenomenon described as sign- vs goal tracking in preclinical models. Data from 64 lean and 88 obese adults who were 35.5 ± 9.4 years old and predominantly women (79%) were analyzed. Participants viewed food-related, pleasant, neutral and unpleasant images while recording electroencephalograph. Late positive potentials were used to assess incentive salience attributed to the visual stimuli. Eating and affective traits were also assessed. Findings demonstrated that obese individuals, in general, do not demonstrate aberrant brain reward responses to food-related cues. As hypothesized, latent profile analysis of the late positive potential uncovered two distinct groups. ‘Sign-trackers’ showed greater responses to food-related cues (P < 0.001) but lower responses to pleasant stimuli (P < 0.001) compared with ‘goal-trackers’. There were proportionally more obese than lean ‘sign-trackers’ (P = 0.03). Obese ‘sign-trackers’ reported significantly higher levels of emotional eating and food craving (P < 0.001). By examining the heterogeneity in brain reactivity to various emotional stimuli, this translational study highlights the need to consider important neurobehavioral endophenotypes of obesity.     

Dynamic functional integration of distinct neural empathy systems

Recent evidence points to two separate systems for empathy: a vicarious sharing emotional system that supports our ability to share emotions and mental states and a cognitive system that involves cognitive understanding of the perspective of others. Several recent models offer new evidence regarding the brain regions involved in these systems, but no study till date has examined how regions within each system dynamically interact. The study by Raz et al. in this issue of Social, Cognitive, & Affective Neuroscience is among the first to use a novel approach of functional magnetic resonance imaging analysis of fluctuations in network cohesion while an individual is experiencing empathy. Their results substantiate the approach positing two empathy mechanisms and, more broadly, demonstrate how dynamic analysis of emotions can further our understanding of social behavior.One of the fundamental empathy-related questions is whether empathy is an emotional affective or a cognitive concept. Whereas the capacity to experience affective reactions to the observed experiences of others or to share a ‘fellow feeling’ has been described as ‘emotional empathy’, the concept of cognitive empathy describes the cognitive process of adopting another’s psychological point of view. Recent evidence from the field of social neuroscience has proven essential in characterizing the neural basis of empathy, thus providing new insights into these questions. Converging evidence supports a model of two separate systems for empathy: an emotional system and a cognitive system. The study by Raz et al. (2013) addresses the process of emotional empathy as involving not only affective information, but also more basic embodied simulation (ES). ES is defined as a bottom–up automatic process that involves the vicarious sharing of the bodily states of others and is linked to a set of brain regions, among them the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) that is associated with the mirror neurons system as well as the anterior insula (AI) and the middle anterior cingulate (ACC). On the other hand, cognitive empathy is defined in this study as a more top–down system that allows the making of inferences regarding the mental state of others (e.g. theory of mind: ToM). This system is associated with a series of brain regions, including the ventral and dorsal aspects of the medial prefrontal (MPF) cortex, the superior temporal sulcus and the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ).In this issue of Social, Cognitive, & Affective Neuroscience, Raz et al. report on a new study showing not only that empathy is indeed mediated by these two different series of brain regions, but also that regions within each system interact dynamically and corresponds with the intensity of reported empathic feelings. Thus far, neuroimaging studies have identified several brain regions as being involved in empathy, but only a handful of studies have examined connectivity between these regions. Furthermore, till date no study has examined the developing dynamics of the functional connectivity between these regions during an empathy-provoking situation. Thus, the main strength of the study lies in its use of an innovative methodological approach to identify how regions within the ES and the ToM networks interact during different empathy-eliciting situations. According to the theoretical framework presented in this study, the synchrony or coherence of brain activities changes dynamically during emotional experiences, so that characterizing the dynamics of connectivity within and between functional networks may provide important information regarding empathy-related processes.In this study, empathy was provoked by showing participants two scenes that depict a dramatic development in the plot of two well-known films [Stepmom (Columbus, 1998); Sophie''s Choice (Pakula, 1982)]. Both are extremely distressing scenes depicting a mother being separated from her children. To examine how empathy dynamically changes throughout the scenes, the authors developed a data analysis method based on functional magnetic resonance imaging, which calculates an index based on the strength and distribution of the correlations between regions within a defined neural network. This cohesion index allows the intensity of the interactions between regions in a network to be characterized over time. Thus, patterns of connectivity within both the ES and the ToM networks were examined, as was the connectivity between these networks and limbic regions. Specifically, the authors speculated that the cohesion index would be higher in the ES and ToM networks depending on the empathy-provoking situation and that the connectivity within these networks as well as their links to limbic structures, would be modulated by the intensity of the behavioral ratings of the empathy experienced during film viewing.The findings of Raz et al. support the notion that ES- and ToM-related sets of regions actually function as networks. Importantly, the results show that inter-regional crosstalk may increase as individuals become empathically engaged. Moreover, the authors demonstrate that the cohesion index within the ToM network is positively linked with the behavioral empathy ratings in Stepmom, but negatively correlated with the cohesion index in Sophie''s Choice. On the other hand, the correlations between the behavioral empathy measures in Sophie''s Choice and the ES-limbic-index are positively significant.The discrepancy between the findings for Sophie''s Choice and those for Stepmom may represent distinct aspects of empathy. It appears that although both scenes in the films involve social distress associated with separation, they differ along many other contextual dimensions, among them vividness, levels of distress and emotionality. The situation in Sophie''s Choice depicts a mother who was forced by a Nazi officer to choose which of her two children would be sent to death, while in the clip from Stepmom, a mother talks separately with each of her children about her own impending death from a terminal disease. Thus, the scene in Sophie''s Choice appears to depict an immediate and vivid intense emotional separation, while the Stepmom scene involves discussions about a future separation.The association between the behavioral empathy measures in Sophie’s Choice and the ES-limbic-index may indicate that intense distressful scenarios such as abrupt separation and immediate threat of death trigger emotional empathy processing. These scenarios may elicit state-matching reactions associated with neural mechanisms of matching, such as mirror neurons system (MNS) activities that have been identified in the IFG (Brodmann’s Area [BA]45/44/6). The IFG has been suggested as a mechanism that identifies the goals or intentions of actions according to their resemblance to stored representations of these actions (Rizzolatti et al., 2009). The existence of mirror neurons related to emotional facial expressions in the human IFG suggests that the human MNS may be used to convert observed facial expressions into a pattern of neural activity that would be suitable for producing similar facial expressions and would provide the neural basis for emotional contagion (Keysers and Gazzola, 2006).Furthermore, the ES system includes other core regions such as the ACC and AI that have been associated with the experience of shared pain. The scene from Sophie’s Choice that shows a mother’s realization that one of her sons is being sent to death involves the extreme social pain of separation. Empathy for pain has been repeatedly shown to involve regions related to the first-hand experience of pain, such as parts of the pain matrix. Specifically, a network including the anterior ACC and the AI was reported to respond both to felt and to observed pain (Decety, 2010). Moreover, considering that a growing body of literature has suggested a possible overlap in the neural circuitry underlying physical and social pain (Eisenberger, 2012), it is possible that the correlations between the behavioral empathy measures for the scene from Sophie''s Choice and the ES-limbic-index reflect increased connectivity within a shared social pain network.While the scene from Sophie’s Choice was associated with increased cohesion in the ES system, the cohesion index within the ToM network was positively linked with the behavioral empathy ratings in Stepmom. As mentioned above, the scene from Stepmom involved a potential separation in the future, possibly indicating that increased cohesion between regions in this network may play a role in reflection about the future. Indeed, cumulative data suggest that self-projection (the ability to shift perspective from the immediate present to alternative perspectives), remembering the past and ToM are based on the same core brain networks (Buckner and Carroll, 2007), suggesting that these processes share similar mechanisms. It has been suggested that a neural network involving the MPF is crucial for remembering the past but also serves to provide building blocks for self-projection and future simulation (Schacter et al., 2007). Thus, one plausible hypothesis that emerges from this study is that ToM relies on a common set of processes by which thinking about the future is used to understand events happening to others.Furthermore, one of the elementary prerequisites for ToM is the basic distinction between actions generated by the self and those generated by others (Mitchell, 2009). Although the self–other distinction is also required in emotional empathy, it appears that during higher level inference-based processes, a network involving the MPF and the TPJ is responsible for shared representations of self and other (Zaki and Ochsner, 2012). Thus, it appears that the Stepmom scene, which depicts a top–down higher level of inference regarding future-based information, requires high levels of self–other distinction.Collectively, the findings of the study by Raz et al. serve as an excellent first step toward understanding the neural systems underlying the experience of real-time empathy. It appears that not only does the authors’ novel approach for analyzing the dynamics of functional network connectivity provides further support for the dissociation between the two empathy networks, it also suggests that these circuits may be dynamically recruited, depending on the circumstances under which empathy is experienced.These findings may also imply that psychiatric and neurological disorders that involve diminished empathy may originate not only from a dysfunction of localized regions within these networks, but perhaps may also emerge from impaired dynamism and connectivity within these networks.Finally, in line with social neuroscience’s growing emphasis on the need to move from a single brain to a multibrain frame of reference (Hasson et al., 2012), future studies involving real-time brain-to-brain techniques such as hyperscanning measures may extend these initial efforts and examine the dynamic of synchrony between two (or more) interacting brains. Applying the novel technique proposed by Raz et al. together with new interbrain approaches may provide an opportunity for further exploring the neural dynamics of social behavior.     

Neurocognitive processing of infant stimuli in mothers and non-mothers: psychophysiological,cognitive and neuroimaging evidence

Emerging evidence indicates that mothers and non-mothers show different neurocognitive responses to infant stimuli. This study investigated mothers’ psychophysiological, cognitive and neuronal responses to emotional infant stimuli. A total of 35 mothers with 4-month-old infants and 18 control women without young children underwent computerized tests assessing neurocognitive processing of infant stimuli. Their eye gazes and eye fixations, galvanic skin responses (GSRs) and facial expressions towards infant emotional stimuli were recorded during the tasks. Participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging during which they viewed pictures of an unknown infant and, for mothers, their own infants. Mothers gazed more and had increased GSR towards infant stimuli and displayed more positive facial expressions to infant laughter, and self-reported more positive ratings of infant vocalizations than control women. At a neural level, mothers showed greater neural response in insula, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and occipital brain regions within a predefined ‘maternal neural network’ while watching images of their own vs unknown infants. This specific neural response to own infants correlated with less negative ratings of own vs unknown infants’ signals of distress. Differences between mothers and control women without young children could be interpreted as neurocognitive adaptation to motherhood in the mothers.     

A selective role for right insula—basal ganglia circuits in appetitive stimulus processing

Hemispheric lateralization of hedonic evaluation (‘liking’) and incentive motivation (‘wanting’) in neural networks connecting the basal ganglia and insula (BG-I) in humans was examined. Participants with brain damage restricted to the BG-I of the right (n = 5) or left (n = 5) hemisphere, and 26 healthy participants matched on age, sex and intelligence quotient were tested on positively and negatively valenced pictures drawn from varied stimulus categories (Vijayaraghavan et al., 2008). Liking was assessed with explicit ratings of pleasantness using a nine-point Likert scale. Wanting was quantified as the amount of work (via repeated keypresses) that participants expended to increase (approach) or decrease (withdraw) viewing time. Right-lesion patients showed abnormally low viewing times and liking ratings for positive images. For a subset of positive images depicting sexual content, right-lesion patients exhibited active withdrawal, while the other two groups approached such stimuli. These results suggest that the right basal ganglia–insula complex plays a greater role than the left in supporting hedonic evaluation and motivational approach to positively valenced stimuli. The finding that active avoidance of stimuli that were not ‘liked’ was spared in both right- and left-sided lesion subjects suggests that unilateral damage to insula/basal ganglia circuits may not be sufficient to affect general incentive motivation independent of preference.     

The neural basis for establishing a focal point in pure coordination games

When making a decision, humans often have to ‘coordinate’—reach the same conclusion—as another individual without explicitly communicating. Relatively, little is known about the neural basis for coordination. Moreover, previous fMRI investigations have supported conflicting hypotheses. One account proposes that individuals coordinate using a ‘gut feeling’ and that this is supported by insula recruitment. Another account proposes that individuals recruit strategic decision-making mechanisms in prefrontal cortex in order to coordinate. We investigate the neural basis for coordination in individuals with behavioral-variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) who have limitations in social decision-making associated with disease in prefrontal cortex. We demonstrate that bvFTD are impaired at establishing a focal point in a semantic task (e.g. ‘Tell me any boy''s name’) that requires coordination relative to a similar, control semantic task that does not. Additionally, coordination limitations in bvFTD are related to cortical thinning in prefrontal cortex. These findings are consistent with behavioral economic models proposing that, beyond a ‘gut feeling’, strategic decision-making contributes to the coordination process, including a probabilistic mechanism that evaluates the salience of a response (e.g. is ‘John’ a frequent boy''s name), a hierarchical mechanism that iteratively models an opponent''s likely response and a mechanism involved in social perspective taking.     

Trait conscientiousness and the personality meta-trait stability are associated with regional white matter microstructure

Establishing the neural bases of individual differences in personality has been an enduring topic of interest. However, while a growing literature has sought to characterize grey matter correlates of personality traits, little attention to date has been focused on regional white matter correlates of personality, especially for the personality traits agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness. To rectify this gap in knowledge we used a large sample (n > 550) of older adults who provided data on both personality (International Personality Item Pool) and white matter tract-specific fractional anisotropy (FA) from diffusion tensor MRI. Results indicated that conscientiousness was associated with greater FA in the left uncinate fasciculus (β = 0.17, P < 0.001). We also examined links between FA and the personality meta-trait ‘stability’, which is defined as the common variance underlying agreeableness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism/emotional stability. We observed an association between left uncinate fasciculus FA and stability (β = 0.27, P < 0.001), which fully accounted for the link between left uncinate fasciculus FA and conscientiousness. In sum, these results provide novel evidence for links between regional white matter microstructure and key traits of human personality, specifically conscientiousness and the meta-trait, stability. Future research is recommended to replicate and address the causal directions of these associations.     

Activity in ventromedial prefrontal cortex co-varies with revealed social preferences: evidence for person-invariant value

Although altruistic and selfish behaviors seem fundamentally incommensurable humans regularly choose between them. One model of such choices suggests that individuals ascribe a common form of subjective value to their own outcomes and those of others. To test this ‘person invariance’ hypothesis, we asked individuals to choose between allocating varying amounts of money to themselves or to a partner. Participants’ choice patterns provided an estimate of the relative value they placed on their own and others’ gains. These estimates were used to isolate neural activity correlating with the subjective value of gains irrespective of the recipient (self or other) during a separate set of trials in which rewards were offered only to the self or partner. Activity in ventromedial prefrontal cortex scaled with this person-invariant value parameter, consistent with earlier demonstrations that this region supports common value computation. These data suggest that individuals reduce the value associated with their own and others’ experiences to a common subjective scale, which is used to guide social decision-making.     

Extended self: spontaneous activation of medial prefrontal cortex by objects that are ‘mine’

The concept of extended self refers to the idea that people incorporate self-relevant others or objects into one’s sense of self. Initial neural support for the notion of extended self was provided by fMRI evidence that medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) showed greater activation while people imagined objects belonging to them compared with someone else (Kim & Johnson, 2012). This study investigated whether self-associated objects (i.e. ‘mine’) subsequently engage MPFC spontaneously when a task does not require explicit self-referential judgments. During fMRI scanning, participants detected ‘oddballs’ (objects with a specific frame color) intermixed with objects participants had previously imagined belonging to them or to someone else and previously unseen non-oddball objects. There was greater activity in MPFC and posterior cingulate cortex for those ‘self-owned’ objects that participants were more successful at imagining owning compared with ‘other-owned’ objects. In addition, change in object preference following the ownership manipulation (a mere ownership effect) was predicted by activity in MPFC. Overall, these results provide neural evidence for the idea that personally relevant external stimuli may be incorporated into one’s sense of self.     

Reduced subcortical glutamate/glutamine in adults with autism spectrum disorders: a [1H]MRS study

Dysfunctional glutamatergic neurotransmission has been implicated in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, relatively few studies have directly measured brain glutamate in ASD adults, or related variation in glutamate to clinical phenotype. We therefore set out to investigate brain glutamate levels in adults with an ASD, comparing these to healthy controls and also comparing results between individuals at different points on the spectrum of symptom severity. We recruited 28 adults with ASD and 14 matched healthy controls. Of those with ASD, 15 fulfilled the ‘narrowly'' defined criteria for typical autism, whereas 13 met the ‘broader phenotype''. We measured the concentration of the combined glutamate and glutamine signal (Glx), and other important metabolites, using proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy in two brain regions implicated in ASD—the basal ganglia (including the head of caudate and the anterior putamen) and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex—as well as in a parietal cortex ‘control'' region. Individuals with ASD had a significant decrease (P<0.001) in concentration of Glx in the basal ganglia, and this was true in both the ‘narrow'' and ‘broader'' phenotype. Also, within the ASD sample, reduced basal ganglia Glx was significantly correlated with increased impairment in social communication (P=0.013). In addition, there was a significant reduction in the concentration of other metabolites such as choline, creatine (Cr) and N-acetylaspartate (NAA) in the basal ganglia. In the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, Cr and NAA were reduced (P<0.05), although Glx was not. There were no detectable differences in Glx, or any other metabolite, in the parietal lobe control region. There were no significant between-group differences in age, gender, IQ, voxel composition or data quality. In conclusion, individuals across the spectrum of ASD have regionally specific abnormalities in subcortical glutamatergic neurotransmission that are associated with variation in social development.     

Development and Validation of a Virtual Reality-Based Training Program for Promoting Subjective Well-Being

ObjectiveEnhancing subjective well-being is an effective way to improve mental health. This study aimed to validate a virtual reality-based interactive feedback program as an intervention tool for promoting subjective well-being. MethodsThirty-six males participated in this program, consisting of three tasks constructed based on the theories of positive psychology: ‘Experience-based problem recognition task’, ‘Future self-based success story expression task’, and ‘Strength expression task’. Participants rated visual analog scores associated with each of the tasks’ contents. The concurrent validity of task scores was evaluated by correlations with the psychological scale scores. ResultsThe total task score was positively correlated with scores of Mental Health Continuum-Short Form (MHC-SF) emotional well-being and psychological well-being, Rosenberg’s Self-Esteem Scale, Dispositional Hope Scale agency dimension and pathways dimension, and Life Orientation Test Revised, but not with MHC-SF social well-being scores. After controlling for the effects of the other task scores, the task scores had linear relationships with certain psychological assessments. ConclusionSince the task scores are closely related to indicators of well-being, self-esteem, hope, and optimism, the program contents are well associated with certain aspects of subjective well-being and thus may be available for training that improves subjective well-being through interactive feedback.     

Emotional Context Sculpts Action Goal Representations in the Lateral Frontal Pole

Emotional states provide an ever-present source of contextual information that should inform behavioral goals. Despite the ubiquity of emotional signals in our environment, the neural mechanisms underlying their influence on goal-directed action remains unclear. Prior work suggests that the lateral frontal pole (FPl) is uniquely positioned to integrate affective information into cognitive control representations. We used pattern similarity analysis to examine the content of representations in FPl and interconnected mid-lateral prefrontal and amygdala circuitry. Healthy participants (n = 37; n = 21 females) were scanned while undergoing an event-related Affective Go/No-Go task, which requires goal-oriented action selection during emotional processing. We found that FPl contained conjunctive emotion–action goal representations that were related to successful cognitive control during emotional processing. These representations differed from conjunctive emotion–action goal representations found in the basolateral amygdala. While robust action goal representations were present in mid-lateral prefrontal cortex, they were not modulated by emotional valence. Finally, converging results from functional connectivity and multivoxel pattern analyses indicated that FPl emotional valence signals likely originated from interconnected subgenual anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) (BA25), which was in turn functionally coupled with the amygdala. Thus, our results identify a key pathway by which internal emotional states influence goal-directed behavior.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Optimal functioning in everyday life requires behavioral regulation that flexibly adapts to dynamically changing emotional states. However, precisely how emotional states influence goal-directed action remains unclear. Unveiling the neural architecture that supports emotion–goal integration is critical for our understanding of disorders such as psychopathy, which is characterized by deficits in incorporating emotional cues into goals, as well as mood and anxiety disorders, which are characterized by impaired goal-based emotion regulation. Our study identifies a key circuit through which emotional states influence goal-directed behavior. This circuitry comprised the lateral frontal pole (FPl), which represented integrated emotion–goal information, as well as interconnected amygdala and subgenual ACC, which conveyed emotional signals to FPl.     

Is moral beauty different from facial beauty? Evidence from an fMRI study

Is moral beauty different from facial beauty? Two functional magnetic resonance imaging experiments were performed to answer this question. Experiment 1 investigated the network of moral aesthetic judgments and facial aesthetic judgments. Participants performed aesthetic judgments and gender judgments on both faces and scenes containing moral acts. The conjunction analysis of the contrasts ‘facial aesthetic judgment > facial gender judgment’ and ‘scene moral aesthetic judgment > scene gender judgment’ identified the common involvement of the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), inferior temporal gyrus and medial superior frontal gyrus, suggesting that both types of aesthetic judgments are based on the orchestration of perceptual, emotional and cognitive components. Experiment 2 examined the network of facial beauty and moral beauty during implicit perception. Participants performed a non-aesthetic judgment task on both faces (beautiful vs common) and scenes (containing morally beautiful vs neutral information). We observed that facial beauty (beautiful faces > common faces) involved both the cortical reward region OFC and the subcortical reward region putamen, whereas moral beauty (moral beauty scenes > moral neutral scenes) only involved the OFC. Moreover, compared with facial beauty, moral beauty spanned a larger-scale cortical network, indicating more advanced and complex cerebral representations characterizing moral beauty.