diff --git a/ace/ingest.py b/ace/ingest.py index 0f3c8a3..fd85c9f 100644 --- a/ace/ingest.py +++ b/ace/ingest.py @@ -10,6 +10,29 @@ logger = logging.getLogger(__name__) + +def _article_quality_score(article): + """Score article quality for same-PMID duplicate resolution. + + Higher is better. Prioritizes records that actually contain extracted + activations and usable tables over placeholder/blocked pages. + """ + if article is None: + return (-1, -1, -1, -1) + + tables = getattr(article, "tables", []) or [] + n_tables = len(tables) + n_activations = sum(len(getattr(t, "activations", []) or []) for t in tables) + missing_source = 1 if getattr(article, "missing_source", False) else 0 + + # Sort by: + # 1) Most activations + # 2) Most tables + # 3) Prefer non-missing-source parses + # 4) Presence of any table at all + return (n_activations, n_tables, -missing_source, int(n_tables > 0)) + + def _process_file_with_source(args): """Helper function to read, validate, and identify source for a file.""" f, source_configs = args @@ -50,8 +73,12 @@ def _parse_article(args): # Fallback to original source identification source = manager.identify_source(html) if source is None: - logger.info("Could not identify source for %s", f) - return f, None + if force_ingest and getattr(manager, "default_source", None) is not None: + logger.info("Could not identify source for %s; using DefaultSource fallback", f) + source = manager.default_source + else: + logger.info("Could not identify source for %s", f) + return f, None article = source.parse_article(html, pmid, metadata_dir=metadata_dir, **kwargs) if not article: @@ -163,13 +190,34 @@ def add_articles(db, files, commit=True, table_dir=None, limit=None, for args in tqdm(parse_args, desc="Parsing articles"): parsed_articles.append(_parse_article(args)) - # Add successfully parsed articles to database + # Add successfully parsed articles to database. + # When pmid_filenames=True we can see duplicate PMID files from different + # source folders (e.g., one blocked/challenge page + one valid page). Keep + # the best parsed candidate per PMID within this run. missing_sources = [] - for i, (f, article) in enumerate(parsed_articles): - if article is None: - missing_sources.append(f) - continue - + if pmid_filenames: + best_by_pmid = {} + for f, article in parsed_articles: + pmid = path.splitext(path.basename(f))[0] + if article is None: + missing_sources.append(f) + continue + + score = _article_quality_score(article) + existing = best_by_pmid.get(pmid) + if existing is None or score > existing[2]: + best_by_pmid[pmid] = (f, article, score) + + selected_articles = [(f, article) for (f, article, _) in best_by_pmid.values()] + else: + selected_articles = [] + for f, article in parsed_articles: + if article is None: + missing_sources.append(f) + continue + selected_articles.append((f, article)) + + for i, (f, article) in enumerate(selected_articles): if get_config('SAVE_ARTICLES_WITHOUT_ACTIVATIONS') or article.tables: pmid = path.splitext(path.basename(f))[0] if pmid_filenames else None if pmid and db.article_exists(pmid): @@ -177,9 +225,9 @@ def add_articles(db, files, commit=True, table_dir=None, limit=None, db.delete_article(pmid) else: continue - + db.add(article) - if commit and (i % 100 == 0 or i == len(parsed_articles) - 1): + if commit and (i % 100 == 0 or i == len(selected_articles) - 1): db.save() db.save() diff --git a/ace/scrape.py b/ace/scrape.py index 410b275..e22e353 100644 --- a/ace/scrape.py +++ b/ace/scrape.py @@ -225,6 +225,10 @@ def _validate_scrape(html): 'This site can’t be reached', 'used Cloudflare to restrict access', '502 Bad Gateway', + 'Checking your browser before accessing', + 'Checking your browser - reCAPTCHA', + '/recaptcha/challengepage/', + 'g-recaptcha', ] for pattern in patterns: diff --git a/ace/sources.py b/ace/sources.py index 573ed7a..4f97b0e 100644 --- a/ace/sources.py +++ b/ace/sources.py @@ -18,6 +18,39 @@ logger = logging.getLogger(__name__) +TABLE_LINK_TEXT_RE = re.compile( + r"\b(" + r"table|" + r"full\s*size\s*table|" + r"view\s+(this\s+)?table|" + r"view\s+popup|" + r"view\s+inline|" + r"table\s*view|" + r"open\s+table" + r")\b", + re.IGNORECASE, +) + +TABLE_LINK_HREF_RE = re.compile( + r"(" + r"/highwire/markup/\d+/expansion\b|" + r"/article(s)?/.+/tables/\d+(?:$|[/?#])|" + r"(?:^|/)[Tt]\d+[A-Za-z0-9_-]*\.expansion\.html(?:$|[?#])|" + r"/tables?/\d+(?:$|[/?#])|" + r"table[-_/]?(view|popup|inline|expand|expansion)" + r")", + re.IGNORECASE, +) + +COORD_HEADER_HINT_RE = re.compile( + r"\b(mni|talairach|coordinate|peak voxel coordinate|x\s*,\s*y\s*,\s*z)\b", + re.IGNORECASE, +) + +COORD_TRIPLET_HINT_RE = re.compile( + r"(? div.xtable + for tc in table_containers: + sub_tables = tc.find_all('div', {'class': 'xtable'}) + if not sub_tables: + sub_tables = [tc.find('table')] + for st in sub_tables: - t = self.parse_table(st) + table_html = st if getattr(st, "name", None) == "table" else (st.find("table") if st else None) + if table_html is None: + continue + signature = re.sub(r"\s+", " ", table_html.get_text(" ", strip=True)).strip().lower() + if not signature or signature in seen_signatures: + continue + + t = self.parse_table(table_html) if t: - t.position = i + 1 + t.position = len(tables) + 1 t.label = tc.find('h3').text if tc.find('h3') else None t.number = t.label.split(' ')[-1].strip() if t.label else None try: - t.caption = tc.find({"div": {"class": "caption"}}).text - except: + t.caption = tc.find('div', class_='caption').get_text() + except Exception: pass try: - t.notes = tc.find('div', class_='tblwrap-foot').text - except: + t.notes = tc.find('div', class_='tblwrap-foot').get_text() + except Exception: pass tables.append(t) + seen_signatures.add(signature) + + # Modern PMC-like path: section.tw / div.tbl-box wrappers with direct table content. + if not tables: + fallback_containers = soup.select('section.tw, section[class*=\"table\"], div.tbl-box, div[class*=\"tbl-box\"]') + logger.info(f"Found {len(fallback_containers)} fallback PMC containers.") + for tc in fallback_containers: + table_html = tc.find('table') + if table_html is None: + continue + signature = re.sub(r"\s+", " ", table_html.get_text(" ", strip=True)).strip().lower() + if not signature or signature in seen_signatures: + continue + + t = self.parse_table(table_html) + if t: + t.position = len(tables) + 1 + label_node = tc.find(['h3', 'h4', 'label', 'span'], class_=re.compile(r'label', re.IGNORECASE)) + if label_node: + t.label = label_node.get_text().strip() + m = re.search(r'(\d+)', t.label) + if m: + t.number = m.group(1) + caption_node = tc.find(['div', 'p'], class_=re.compile(r'caption', re.IGNORECASE)) + if caption_node: + t.caption = caption_node.get_text().strip() + notes_node = tc.find(['div', 'p'], class_=re.compile(r'foot|note', re.IGNORECASE)) + if notes_node: + t.notes = notes_node.get_text().strip() + tables.append(t) + seen_signatures.add(signature) self.article.tables = tables return self.article diff --git a/ace/tableparser.py b/ace/tableparser.py index 5109cc4..73d3cb1 100644 --- a/ace/tableparser.py +++ b/ace/tableparser.py @@ -29,6 +29,14 @@ def identify_standard_columns(labels): s = 'hemisphere' elif regex.search('(^k$)|(mm.*?3)|volume|voxels|size|extent', lab): s = 'size' + elif ( + regex.search(r'\bx\b.*\by\b.*\bz\b', lab) + or regex.search(r'(peak\s*voxel\s*coordinate|talairach\s*coordinates?|mni\s*coordinates?)', lab) + or (regex.search(r'coordinates?', lab) and not regex.search(r'cluster|score|value', lab)) + ): + # Some tables store x/y/z in one combined coordinate column. + s = 'coord_triplet' + found_coords = True # --- START OF FIX --- # OLD: elif regex.match('\s*[xy]\s*$', lab): @@ -59,7 +67,8 @@ def identify_standard_columns(labels): # --- END OF FIX --- elif regex.search('rdinate', lab): - continue + s = 'coord_triplet' + found_coords = True elif lab == 't' or regex.search('^(max.*(z|t).*|.*(z|t).*(score|value|max))$', lab): s = 'statistic' elif regex.search('p[\-\s]+.*val', lab): @@ -158,6 +167,15 @@ def identify_repeating_groups(labels): def create_activation(data, labels, standard_cols, group_labels=[]): activation = Activation() + coords_from_triplet = False + + def _extract_triplet(value): + clean_val = regex.sub(r'(? %s, %s, %s" % (sc, col, x, y, z)) + activation.set_coords(x, y, z) + coords_from_triplet = True + activation.add_col(labels[i], col) + continue + if sc == 'coord_triplet': + activation.add_col(labels[i], col) + continue + # Validate XYZ columns: Should only be integers (and possible trailing decimals). # If they're not, keep only leading numbers. The exception is that ScienceDirect # journals often follow the minus sign with a space (e.g., - 35), which we strip. if regex.match('[xyz]$', sc): + if coords_from_triplet and str(col).strip() == '': + activation.add_col(labels[i], col) + continue m = regex.match('([-])\s?(\d+\.*\d*)$', col) if m: col = "%s%s" % (m.group(1), m.group(2)) @@ -210,11 +244,9 @@ def create_activation(data, labels, standard_cols, group_labels=[]): # Also need to remove space between minus sign and numbers; some ScienceDirect # journals leave a gap. if not i in standard_cols: - cs = '([-]?\d{1,3}\.?\d{0,2})' - clean_col = regex.sub(r'(?= 1 + assert _count_valid_activations(article.tables) >= 1 + + +def test_oup_table_wrap_fallback_source(test_weird_data_path, source_manager): + pmid = '24700584' + html = open(join(test_weird_data_path, pmid + '.html')).read() + source = source_manager.identify_source(html) + assert source is not None + assert source.__class__.__name__ == 'OUPSource' + article = source.parse_article(html, pmid=pmid, skip_metadata=True) + assert article is not None + assert len(article.tables) >= 1 + assert _count_valid_activations(article.tables) >= 1 + + +def test_jcn_embedded_table_fallback_source(test_weird_data_path, source_manager): + pmid = '24666131' + html = open(join(test_weird_data_path, pmid + '.html')).read() + source = source_manager.identify_source(html) + assert source is not None + assert source.__class__.__name__ == 'JournalOfCognitiveNeuroscienceSource' + article = source.parse_article(html, pmid=pmid, skip_metadata=True) + assert article is not None + assert len(article.tables) >= 1 + assert _count_valid_activations(article.tables) >= 1 + + +def test_sciencedirect_combined_coordinate_column_source(test_weird_data_path, source_manager): + pmid = '15327927' + html = open(join(test_weird_data_path, pmid + '.html')).read() + source = source_manager.identify_source(html) + assert source is not None + assert source.__class__.__name__ == 'ScienceDirectSource' + article = source.parse_article(html, pmid=pmid, skip_metadata=True) + assert article is not None + assert len(article.tables) >= 1 + assert _count_valid_activations(article.tables) >= 1 + + +def test_springer_inline_table_fallback_source(test_weird_data_path, source_manager): + pmid = '27007121' + html = open(join(test_weird_data_path, pmid + '.html')).read() + source = source_manager.identify_source(html) + assert source is not None + assert source.__class__.__name__ == 'SpringerSource' + article = source.parse_article(html, pmid=pmid, skip_metadata=True) + assert article is not None + assert len(article.tables) >= 1 + assert _count_valid_activations(article.tables) >= 1 + + +def test_unknown_source_coordinate_table_with_force_ingest(test_weird_data_path, tmp_path): + pmid = '11296095' + src_file = join(test_weird_data_path, pmid + '.html') + target_file = tmp_path / f"{pmid}.html" + shutil.copy(src_file, target_file) + + db_path_no_force = f"sqlite:///{(tmp_path / 'ace_no_force.db').as_posix()}" + db_no_force = database.Database(adapter='sqlite', db_name=db_path_no_force) + missing_sources = ingest.add_articles( + db_no_force, + [str(target_file)], + pmid_filenames=True, + force_ingest=False, + num_workers=1, + skip_metadata=True, + ) + assert str(target_file) in missing_sources + assert len(db_no_force.articles) == 0 + + db_path_force = f"sqlite:///{(tmp_path / 'ace_force.db').as_posix()}" + db_force = database.Database(adapter='sqlite', db_name=db_path_force) + missing_sources_force = ingest.add_articles( + db_force, + [str(target_file)], + pmid_filenames=True, + force_ingest=True, + num_workers=1, + skip_metadata=True, + ) + assert str(target_file) not in missing_sources_force + assert len(db_force.articles) >= 1 + assert len(db_force.articles[0].tables) >= 1 + assert _count_valid_activations(db_force.articles[0].tables) >= 1 + + +def test_ingest_prefers_best_duplicate_pmid_file(test_weird_data_path, tmp_path): + pmid = "17913474" + bad_src = join(test_weird_data_path, "17913474_recaptcha.html") + good_src = join(test_weird_data_path, "17913474_pond.html") + + bad_dir = tmp_path / "a_bad" + good_dir = tmp_path / "b_good" + bad_dir.mkdir() + good_dir.mkdir() + + # Same PMID filename in two different source folders + bad_target = bad_dir / f"{pmid}.html" + good_target = good_dir / f"{pmid}.html" + shutil.copy(bad_src, bad_target) + shutil.copy(good_src, good_target) + + db_path = f"sqlite:///{(tmp_path / 'ace_dupe_pick_best.db').as_posix()}" + db = database.Database(adapter='sqlite', db_name=db_path) + + # Intentionally place blocked/challenge page first. + ingest.add_articles( + db, + [str(bad_target), str(good_target)], + pmid_filenames=True, + force_ingest=True, + num_workers=1, + skip_metadata=True, + ) + + assert len(db.articles) == 1 + assert len(db.articles[0].tables) >= 1 + assert _count_valid_activations(db.articles[0].tables) >= 1 + + +def test_validate_scrape_flags_recaptcha_challenge_page(test_weird_data_path): + html = open(join(test_weird_data_path, "17913474_recaptcha.html")).read() + assert scrape._validate_scrape(html) is False + + +@pytest.mark.parametrize( + "pmid,expected_source", + [ + ("17088334", "PMCSource"), + ("26342221", "OUPSource"), + ("27623361", "ScienceDirectSource"), + ("27319001", "SpringerSource"), + ("20350171", "JournalOfCognitiveNeuroscienceSource"), + ("12860777", None), # Unknown source -> DefaultSource fallback + ], +) +def test_additional_missed_in_main_text_regressions(test_weird_data_path, source_manager, pmid, expected_source): + html = open(join(test_weird_data_path, pmid + ".html")).read() + source = source_manager.identify_source(html) + + if expected_source is None: + assert source is None + parser = source_manager.default_source + assert parser is not None + else: + assert source is not None + assert source.__class__.__name__ == expected_source + parser = source + + article = parser.parse_article(html, pmid=pmid, skip_metadata=True) + assert article is not None + assert len(article.tables) >= 1 + assert _count_valid_activations(article.tables) >= 1 diff --git a/ace/tests/weird_data/11296095.html b/ace/tests/weird_data/11296095.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..68d43a1 --- /dev/null +++ b/ace/tests/weird_data/11296095.html @@ -0,0 +1,3251 @@ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Activation of Prefrontal Cortex and Anterior Thalamus in Alcoholic Subjects on Exposure to Alcohol-Specific Cues | Radiology | JAMA Psychiatry | JAMA Network + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + [Skip to Navigation] + + + + + + + + + + + + +
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Original Article
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Activation of Prefrontal Cortex and Anterior Thalamus in Alcoholic Subjects on Exposure to Alcohol-Specific Cues

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From the Departments of Radiology (Drs George and Vincent), Psychiatry (Drs George, Anton, Drobes, Lorberbaum, and Nahas and Mss Bloomer and Teneback), and Neurology (Dr George), Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston; and the Ralph H. Johnson Veterans Hospital, Charleston, SC (Dr George).

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Figure 1. 

Representative stimuli and a diagram of the functional magnetic resonance imaging alcohol-induction paradigm.

Figure 2. 

Mean craving ratings and SEM before, during, and after scanning.

Figure 3. 

Within-group Standard Parametric Mapping data by contrast. Brain regions that are significantly increased in one task compared with another are depicted in color for each group (alcoholic subjects [left] and social drinkers [right]) on representative transverse structural magnetic resonance imaging scans. Posterior brain regions that were not imaged and for which there are no dates are shaded in black. The threshold for determining significance is an extent cluster threshold of P<.05. The top row shows brain regions significantly increased while viewing alcohol cues compared with the beverage cues at the level of the anterior commisure (AC) (left image, 17; and 30 mm above the AC line, 28). The next 2 rows depict brain activity while viewing the alcohol or beverage cues compared with the visual control at 30 and 36 mm above the AC–posterior commisure (AC-PC) line. Note that only the social drinkers have significant increases in activity in the nonalcohol beverage contrast. The bottom row shows significant brain activity by group in the contrast of looking at the nonobject visual control compared with a "rest" task of viewing a cross. Note that both groups have increased activity across this comparison both 12 mm below and 28 mm above the AC-PC line. These results in the bottom row suggest that the group differences seen in the other contrasts are not a function of the failure of either group in general to activate the brain.

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Table 1. 
Subject Demographics*
Alcoholic Subjects Mean (SD)†Social Drinkers, Mean (SD)†
Sex, No.
Female22
Male88
Age, y29.9 (9.9)29.4 (8.9)
Alcohol Dependence Scale‡§11.6 (5.8)1.4 (1.9)
Days since last drink3.4 (2.2)6.8 (9.2)
Standard drinks/drinking day∥¶7.4 (3.9)2.0 (1.2)
Drinking days, %∥73.1 (19.6)15.2 (12.4)
CIWA-Ar#1.8 (2.0)0.6 (0.7)
Beck Anxiety Inventory2.4 (3.7)0.9 (1.4)
Beck Depression Inventory‡4.1 (4.7)0.8 (0.8)
OCDS∥**11.1 (5.1)2.0 (1.9)
Table 2. 
Brain Regions Activated by Group and by Condition*
Regions†PNo. of Voxels in ClusterCluster z Scorex, y, z Talairach Coordinates
Alcohol-Beverage
Alcoholic subjects
Anterior thalamus.021675.30, −6, 3
Left midfrontal gyrus‡.071343.98−57, 21, 30
Social drinkers
Alcohol-Visual
Alcoholic subjects
Social drinkers
Beverage-Visual
Alcoholic subjects
Social drinkers
Left midfrontal gyrus‡.08895.01−24, 36, 36
Alcohol-Rest
Alcoholic subjects
Anterior thalamus.0024396.280, −6, 3
Left midfrontal gyrus‡.022004.74−63, −3, 24
Right midfrontal gyrus‡.101164.0848, −3, 42
Social drinkers
Left inferomedial temporal lobe§.0032626.43−33, −27, −27
Right inferomedial temporal lobe§.0042465.3733, −30, −24
Right prefrontal cortex∥.13793.8848, 6, 33
Right orbitofrontal cortex¶.12803.7745, 33, −18
Beverage-Rest
Alcoholic subjects
Social drinkers
Right cerebellum.021165.6533, −30, −27
Left temporal lobe.0062205.59−33, −27, −27
Right prefrontal lobe4204.5954, 21, 21
Visual-Rest
Alcoholic subjects
Left prefrontal lobe.0033544.43−45, 3, 33
Right prefrontal lobe.031884.236, 30, −18
Left prefrontal lobe.111133.77−3, 57, −12
Social drinkers
Left temporal lobe.006836.18−33, −27, −27
Left prefrontal lobe.021594.93−30, 39, −15
Left temporal lobe.09884.41−45, −9, −24
Right prefrontal lobe.061024.2463, −6, 30
Left prefrontal lobe.011744.01−42, 21, 21
Right frontal lobe.13793.724, −12, 36
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Background  + Functional imaging studies have recently demonstrated that specific brain regions become active in cocaine addicts when they are exposed to cocaine stimuli. To test whether there are regional brain activity differences during alcohol cue exposure between alcoholic subjects and social drinkers, we designed a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) protocol involving alcohol-specific cues.

Methods  + Ten non–treatment-seeking adult alcoholic subjects (2 women) (mean [SD] age, 29.9 [9.9] years) as well as 10 healthy social drinking controls of similar age (2 women) (mean [SD] age, 29.4 [8.9] years) were recruited, screened, and scanned. In the 1.5-T magnetic resonance imaging scanner, subjects were serially rated for alcohol craving before and after a sip of alcohol, and after a 9-minute randomized presentation of pictures of alcoholic beverages, control nonalcoholic beverages, and 2 different visual control tasks. During picture presentation, changes in regional brain activity were measured with the blood oxygen level–dependent technique.

Results  + Alcoholic subjects, compared with the social drinking subjects, reported higher overall craving ratings for alcohol. After a sip of alcohol, while viewing alcohol cues compared with viewing other beverage cues, only the alcoholic subjects had increased activity in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the anterior thalamus. The social drinkers exhibited specific activation only while viewing the control beverage pictures.

Conclusions  + When exposed to alcohol cues, alcoholic subjects have increased brain activity in the prefrontal cortex and anterior thalamus—brain regions associated with emotion regulation, attention, and appetitive behavior.

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SUBSTANCE-induced stimulation and craving are key features of developing and maintaining an addictive disorder. In those seeking treatment for an addiction, substance-related environmental stimuli and craving are clinically important because of their ability to trigger relapse.1 Animal models of addiction consistently implicate key brain structures, such as the septum, amygdala, nucleus accumbens, and other regions that are part of the anterior paralimbic system.2-5 Several recent functional imaging studies in cocaine addicts have shown that these structures as well as the prefrontal cortex are activated by cocaine stimuli.6,7 There has been little brain imaging work done to date using alcohol, a more commonly abused substance, but one with an even greater burden on public health.8

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Alcohol, compared with other substances of abuse, has benefits and liabilities with respect to functional brain imaging research.8 Although with alcohol one can study easily both alcoholic and nonalcoholic control subjects (social drinkers), the degree of self-report of craving for alcohol is generally less than for other substances.9 We sought to test whether individuals could experience alcohol craving inside the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner, and if so, whether the amount of craving differed between alcoholic subjects and matched social drinkers. Furthermore, independent of potential differences in self-reported alcohol craving, we wondered whether specific brain regions would be differentially activated in alcoholic subjects while viewing alcohol cues compared with neutral beverage cues, and whether this activation differed in magnitude or location from that in social drinkers. Based on results from animal studies and those reported in cue-induced brain-imaging studies done in cocaine subjects, we hypothesized that alcoholic subjects would have increased activation in prefrontal cortex and anterior paralimbic structures during alcohol-specific cue presentations. To test this hypothesis, we used functional MRI (fMRI) to image neural activity during alcohol cue presentation in non–treatment-seeking alcoholic subjects and a control sample of social drinkers. Immediately before subjects viewed the images, they were given a sip of alcohol to maximize the interest in alcohol cues, following on the study cited by Modell and Mountz,10 who used this same method.

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Eleven non–treatment-seeking alcoholic subjects (3 women) (mean [SD] age, 31.7 [11.2] years) and 13 social drinking controls (5 women) (mean [SD] age, 30.7 [9.4] years) were initially recruited at least 12 days after participation in another alcohol-related study11 and offered $100 to participate in the fMRI study. The intent was to generate a usable data set of 10 matched pairs. Thus, social drinkers were recruited based on age and gender to match each previously scanned alcoholic subject. One alcoholic subject and 1 social drinker had large movement artifact (>3 mm), and their scans were not used for further analysis. Therefore, from these initial 11 scans, 10 non–treatment-seeking alcoholic subjects had usable data (2 women) (mean [SD] age, 29.9 [9.9] years). These subjects met DSM-IV12 criteria for current alcohol dependence, including criterion 4 (persistent desire or unsuccessful efforts to cut down or control drinking), and drank an average of 7 standard drinks per drinking day. Exclusion criteria included meeting DSM-IV criteria for any other substance abuse dependency disorder or any other Axis 1 disorder, and the inability to remain alcohol-free for at least 1 day. Subjects were given a urine drug screen to detect other substances of abuse and were not included if the drug screen was positive. They were recruited through advertisements in the local community (including newspaper, restaurant, and radio advertisements), signed written informed consent approved by the Medical University of South Carolina Institutional Review Board, and were screened using the Structured Clinical Interview for the DSM-IV.13 Additionally, 13 age- and sex-matched healthy adults who did not have a substance or alcohol abuse problem were recruited from the same study.11 Of the fMRI scans from these 13, 10 were deemed both usable (no excessive movement) and matched the alcohol cohort on a pairwise basis (2 women) (mean [SD] age, 29.4 [8.9] years). All subjects were medication-free for a minimum of 12 days before scanning. All subjects underwent a Breathalyzer test on the morning of the study and immediately before the MRI procedure and were not scanned if there was any detection of alcohol or any evidence of alcohol withdrawal.

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+ +
+ Procedures +
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+ +

On the day of the MRI scan, subjects were rated using the following instruments: Beck Depression Inventory,14 Beck Anxiety Inventory,15 Revised Clinical Institute Withdrawal Assessment Scale for Alcohol,16 Obsessive-Compulsive Drinking Scale,17,18 a timeline followback for drinking in the past 90 days,19 and a 5-item visual analog alcohol craving scale. All scans were performed between 6 and 10 PM.

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Alcohol and nonalcohol beverage picture cues were drawn primarily from the Normative Appetitive Picture System (Figure 1).20 To avoid repeating the same stimuli during the scanning sequence, additional similar pictures (27 of the 58 total) were selected from advertisements in several contemporary magazines (eg, Glamour, Cigar Afficionado) and scanned on a flatbed scanner. Visual control pictures were then created from the alcohol pictures in Adobe Photoshop (Adobe Systems Inc, San Jose, Calif) by various distortion effects (eg, blurring, smoothing), resulting in pictures that matched the alcohol cues in color and hue but lacked any object recognition. A 9-minute script for stimulus presentation was created in Superlab 1.68 (Cedrus Corp, San Pedro, Calif) on a Power Macintosh computer consisting of six 90-second epochs. Each epoch contained three 24-second blocks: 1 block each of alcohol (ALC), nonalcohol beverage (BEV), and visual control pictures (VIS) and one 18-second rest (REST) (cross-hair). Each 24-second block consisted of 5 individual pictures, each displayed for approximately 4.8 seconds. The 6 ALC blocks were each specific to a beverage type (beer, wine, or liquor), with 2 blocks per type. To control for time and order effects, the order of the individual pictures, the blocks within the epoch, and the epochs were all randomized. In addition, a 10-minute relaxation script was created, consisting of 20 scenic pictures drawn from the International Affective Picture System,21 each displayed for 30 seconds. These pictures were displayed during MRI scanning setup, tuning sequences and structural scan before the actual functional imaging study. The computer was connected to an MRI-compatible nonferromagnetic projector, which displayed the pictures on an MRI-compatible translucent screen placed at their feet on the scanner gantry. Subjects wore prism glasses, which enabled them to view the screen while supine and in the MRI scanner.

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Figure 1. 

Representative stimuli and a diagram of the functional magnetic resonance imaging alcohol-induction paradigm.

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On the evening of the scan, subjects completed self-assessment questionnaires (Beck Depression Inventory and Beck Anxiety Inventory) and were escorted into the MRI suite. They were fitted with prism glasses and a small plastic tube was placed in the corner of their mouth (for giving a sip of the subject's alcoholic beverage of choice as a taste cue but producing negligible blood alcohol levels) in a procedure similar to that used by Modell and Mountz.10 After subjects were positioned in the scanner, they were checked to ensure that they could view the cues. During initial scanner tuning and structural scanning, subjects were shown the relaxation pictures. For the fMRI sequence, subjects were initially rated while in the magnet for alcohol craving and anxiety level using visual analog scales, and were then given a sip of their preferred beverage and rated again. They were then shown 9 minutes of alternating visual cues concurrent with blood oxygen level–dependent image acquisition (Figure 1). Subjects were retrospectively rated for their beverage craving during the different stimuli (alcohol and nonalcohol beverage), and were taken out of the scanner. A Breathalyzer test was performed and they were given instructional material about the hazards of drinking, which they read during a 1-hour waiting period after the completion of the scan. They were then allowed to leave.

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+ Mri image acquisition +
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Subjects wore earplugs and head movement was restricted using inflatable cushions. Magnetic resonance imaging scans were performed in a Picker Edge 1.5-T MRI scanner (Marconi, Cleveland, Ohio) with actively shielded magnet and high-performance whole-body gradients. An initial high-resolution, 142-slice, 1-mm-thick, sagittal T1-weighted scan was acquired for later volumetric and coregistration analysis and to ensure that there were no large infarctions or tumors. A structural scan was then taken consisting of 15 coplanar coronal slices (5-mm-thick/2-mm gap) centered around the septum as determined on a sagittal scout image. After more tuning, the cue-induction paradigm was performed while also acquiring blood oxygen level–dependent-weighted coronal scans in the exact plane as before using a gradient echo, echo-planar fMRI sequence (flip angle, 90°; echo time, 40 milliseconds; repetition time, 3000 milliseconds; field of view, 27.0 cm; fifteen 5-mm-thick slices; and gap, 2.0 mm, with frequency selective fat suppression).

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+ Data analysis +
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Subject demographics (Table 1) and clinical rating scales were compared between groups using analysis of variance with post hoc t tests. Craving ratings during the fMRI procedure were analyzed using mixed-design analysis of variance, with group as the between-subjects factor and time as the repeated measure. Magnetic resonance imaging scans were transferred into ANALYZE format and then further processed on Sun workstations (Sun Microsystems, Palo Alto, Calif). Scans were checked using MEDx 3.0 (Sensor Systems Inc, Sterling, Va) for movement across runs, and then were coregistered to a mean image using automatic image registration.22 For all subjects, movement across the 9-minute study was less than 3 mm in all 3 axes.

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Table 1. 
Subject Demographics*
Alcoholic Subjects Mean (SD)†Social Drinkers, Mean (SD)†
Sex, No.
Female22
Male88
Age, y29.9 (9.9)29.4 (8.9)
Alcohol Dependence Scale‡§11.6 (5.8)1.4 (1.9)
Days since last drink3.4 (2.2)6.8 (9.2)
Standard drinks/drinking day∥¶7.4 (3.9)2.0 (1.2)
Drinking days, %∥73.1 (19.6)15.2 (12.4)
CIWA-Ar#1.8 (2.0)0.6 (0.7)
Beck Anxiety Inventory2.4 (3.7)0.9 (1.4)
Beck Depression Inventory‡4.1 (4.7)0.8 (0.8)
OCDS∥**11.1 (5.1)2.0 (1.9)
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Functional images were analyzed using 2 separate techniques—a within-subject technique that involved no spatial distortion, and a group analysis involving transformation into a common brain atlas. Both methods produced similar results, with alcoholic subjects activating more brain regions during presentation of the alcohol cues. Only the spatially transformed group analysis results are described.

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Scans were checked using MEDx for movement across runs, and were then motion corrected for movement if greater than 2 mm but less than 3 mm. Scans with less than 2-mm movement were not corrected for motion. There were 2 subjects (1 alcoholic subject and 1 social drinker) with greater than 4-mm movement in the initial 24 studies who were not included for final data analysis. Two alcoholic subjects required motion correction for movement of approximately 2.5 mm, which was corrected to a maximum movement of approximately 1.5 mm.22 We then only used a subject's coregistered data for data analysis if it showed less than 2-mm movement in all planes after coregistration. After corrections for motion, we spatially transformed each subject's scans into the Talairach Atlas and performed within-individual analyses as well as averaging brain activity at each time point by group and performing within-group and between-group comparisons of brain activity across conditions.

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Using the Statistical Parametric Mapping 99 module23 in MEDx 3.0, we transformed and spatially normalized,23 and transformed (input voxel dimensions, 2.1 × 2.1 × 7 mm, to output voxel dimensions, 3 × 3 × 3 mm) and smoothed (6 × 3 mm) the data. We next intensity-masked (40%) and intensity-normalized each person's data. At this stage, we performed a within-subject analysis of each person's brain activity while viewing the different cues. To test for group differences (alcoholic subjects and social drinkers) across the tasks, we generated a mean group image of brain activity at each time point. Thus, using the Tool Command Language scripting capabilities within MEDx 3.0, we averaged (for alcoholic subjects and social drinkers separately) all subjects' functional data to generate group data at each of the 180 time points.

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Using Statistical Parametric Mapping statistics in MEDx 3.0 on the group data, we then performed a cluster analysis (2-tailed z map threshold of P<.01, and spatial extent threshold of P<.05) to find brain regions where the group showed statistically more blood oxygen level–dependent-fMRI signal during the alcohol cue condition than during the control beverage cues.24 We assumed an uncorrected F threshold UFp>.99 to preserve as many voxels as possible for the cluster analysis. Only clusters showing a statistical weight (spatial extent threshold) of P<.05 were considered to be significantly activated. We used a delayed boxcar model, employed a high-pass filter to remove signal drift, cardiac and respiratory effects, and other low-frequency artifacts, and temporally smoothed the data.

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+ Results +
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+ +
+ Craving indexes +
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The average self-reported urge to drink alcoholic beverages on a 0 to 100 visual analog scale is shown for each group before and after the sip of alcohol, during the picture viewing (rated retrospectively), and then at the completion of the 9-minute study (Figure 2). At all time points, alcoholic subjects had a higher self-report of urge to drink alcohol (craving) (F1,18 = 10.20, P = .005) than social drinkers. In addition, craving ratings for the entire sample tended to show a modest, yet significant, increase over the course of the cue-induction procedures (F3,54 = 3.18, P = .03)

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Figure 2. 

Mean craving ratings and SEM before, during, and after scanning.

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+ Brain activity analysis +
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Brain regions that significantly differed across conditions within each group are listed in Table 2 and are depicted in Figure 3. We discuss them here in ascending order of specificity for addressing the issue of differential specific brain activation between alcoholic subjects and social drinkers.

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Table 2. 
Brain Regions Activated by Group and by Condition*
Regions†PNo. of Voxels in ClusterCluster z Scorex, y, z Talairach Coordinates
Alcohol-Beverage
Alcoholic subjects
Anterior thalamus.021675.30, −6, 3
Left midfrontal gyrus‡.071343.98−57, 21, 30
Social drinkers
Alcohol-Visual
Alcoholic subjects
Social drinkers
Beverage-Visual
Alcoholic subjects
Social drinkers
Left midfrontal gyrus‡.08895.01−24, 36, 36
Alcohol-Rest
Alcoholic subjects
Anterior thalamus.0024396.280, −6, 3
Left midfrontal gyrus‡.022004.74−63, −3, 24
Right midfrontal gyrus‡.101164.0848, −3, 42
Social drinkers
Left inferomedial temporal lobe§.0032626.43−33, −27, −27
Right inferomedial temporal lobe§.0042465.3733, −30, −24
Right prefrontal cortex∥.13793.8848, 6, 33
Right orbitofrontal cortex¶.12803.7745, 33, −18
Beverage-Rest
Alcoholic subjects
Social drinkers
Right cerebellum.021165.6533, −30, −27
Left temporal lobe.0062205.59−33, −27, −27
Right prefrontal lobe4204.5954, 21, 21
Visual-Rest
Alcoholic subjects
Left prefrontal lobe.0033544.43−45, 3, 33
Right prefrontal lobe.031884.236, 30, −18
Left prefrontal lobe.111133.77−3, 57, −12
Social drinkers
Left temporal lobe.006836.18−33, −27, −27
Left prefrontal lobe.021594.93−30, 39, −15
Left temporal lobe.09884.41−45, −9, −24
Right prefrontal lobe.061024.2463, −6, 30
Left prefrontal lobe.011744.01−42, 21, 21
Right frontal lobe.13793.724, −12, 36
+ +
Figure 3. 

Within-group Standard Parametric Mapping data by contrast. Brain regions that are significantly increased in one task compared with another are depicted in color for each group (alcoholic subjects [left] and social drinkers [right]) on representative transverse structural magnetic resonance imaging scans. Posterior brain regions that were not imaged and for which there are no dates are shaded in black. The threshold for determining significance is an extent cluster threshold of P<.05. The top row shows brain regions significantly increased while viewing alcohol cues compared with the beverage cues at the level of the anterior commisure (AC) (left image, 17; and 30 mm above the AC line, 28). The next 2 rows depict brain activity while viewing the alcohol or beverage cues compared with the visual control at 30 and 36 mm above the AC–posterior commisure (AC-PC) line. Note that only the social drinkers have significant increases in activity in the nonalcohol beverage contrast. The bottom row shows significant brain activity by group in the contrast of looking at the nonobject visual control compared with a "rest" task of viewing a cross. Note that both groups have increased activity across this comparison both 12 mm below and 28 mm above the AC-PC line. These results in the bottom row suggest that the group differences seen in the other contrasts are not a function of the failure of either group in general to activate the brain.

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+ +
+ General nonspecific activation +
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+ +

As would be expected, both groups showed areas of significant increases while viewing the visual control images (complex color shapes) compared with the rest (crosshair) images—largely in the anterior temporal and prefrontal cortex. The amount of voxels (655 for alcoholic subjects and 685 for social drinkers) that met the significance threshold was similar across the 2 groups. (Note that we did not acquire blood-flow data from the primary or secondary visual cortex.)

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+ Comparisons of beverage cues with the crosshair "resting" control +
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+ +

The alcohol group had no significant increases when viewing the nonalcohol beverage cues compared with the resting crosshair control. In contrast, the social drinkers had significant increases in 3 clusters—the cerebellum, the medial temporal cortex, and the prefrontal cortex.

+

Both groups displayed increases in brain activity when viewing the alcohol cues compared with the resting control images. Alcoholic subjects had increased activity in the anterior thalamus and bilateral prefrontal cortex. The control subjects showed increased activity in the medial temporal lobes and the right prefrontal cortex.

+
+ +
+ Comparisons of beverage cues with the nonobject visual controls +
+
+ +

These comparisons control for differences in color, pitch, and hue, and theoretically, the only thing that differs across this comparison are the identifiable objects (eg, beer mugs, coffee cups). Neither group had significant activations in the alcohol cues minus visual control comparison. There were no areas of significantly increased activity in the alcoholic subjects when comparing brain activity while viewing beverage cues compared with while viewing the visual controls. In contrast, the social drinkers had increased activity in the left prefrontal cortex with this comparison.

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+ +
+ Direct comparison of activity during alcohol beverage cues minus nonalcohol beverage cues +
+
+ +

This comparison is the most important and directly tests the study hypothesis. It directly compares the summation of all potential brain activity generated by the neutral (control) beverage cues and subtracts this from all the potential brain activity generated by the alcohol beverage cues. Theoretically, the brain regional activity remaining should be specifically related to the alcohol-specific content of the pictures.

+

There was no increased activity in this comparison in the social drinkers. In contrast, the alcohol group had increased activity in the thalamus and the prefrontal cortex.

+
+ +
+ Comment +
+
+ +

To our knowledge, this is the first report to use fMRI to investigate the brain regions associated with visual cues for alcohol. The results demonstrate that it is possible to combine fMRI and short time domains (24 seconds) to evaluate alcohol cue-induced brain activity in both alcoholic subjects and social drinkers. The brain regions that are activated by alcoholic subjects while viewing alcohol cues are in the anterior paralimbic system (thalamus) or cortical regions that are known to connect with this system. This anterior paralimbic cortex has long been associated with regulating appetitive behavior and emotion. These findings are likely important in understanding the neural aspects of craving and alcohol addiction. However, this initial study suffers from several limitations that bear on the interpretation of results.

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In this study, we had a relatively small sample size of mildly dependent non–treatment-seeking alcoholic subjects. Although we employed conservative approaches in the data analysis, and performed 2 distinct sets of data analysis, which generated convergent results (only the second analysis results are presented here), this study needs replication with larger samples.

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The regions activated in this study should not be interpreted as correlates of craving per se, but rather as brain areas that activate in alcoholic subjects during alcohol cue presentation. Thus, these results should not necessarily be construed as implying that these regions are causing, or mediating (enhancing or diminishing) craving. Directly proving that these regions (prefrontal cortex and anterior thalamus) actually mediate craving could be approached in several ways. One could more closely temporally link variations in subjective craving with specific regional activity changes. For example, in ongoing work, we are measuring subjective craving in real time during fMRI scanning and cue presentation, and plan to perform analyses directly investigating changes in regional brain activity that temporally correlate with subjective craving for alcohol. Alternatively, one could modify regional brain activity, either pharmacologically (eg, naltrexone) or with a physical intervention (eg, transcranial magnetic stimulation), and see if this directly changes both regional brain activity and craving.

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Because our blood oxygen level–dependent fMRI method repeatedly switched from control to task, we employed 1 standard set of visual cues and did not tailor the specific cues to each individual as has been done in some other craving and imaging studies. Individualized cues may increase the degree of craving, while sacrificing the generalizability of the task and control. While the majority of the visual alcohol cues used in this study have been standardized and tested in the Normative Appetitive Picture System,20 to our knowledge they have not been used previously in alcoholic subjects during functional brain imaging. Interestingly, while using taste stimulation alone, Modell and Mountz10 reported increased blood flow (by single-photon emission computed tomography imaging) in the basal ganglia, which correlated with the level of craving.10 Whether taste cues and visual cues of alcohol differentially stimulate different brain regions is open to further study. Our goal in this initial study was to maximally stimulate with several alcohol cues (taste and visual) to enhance our chances of detecting a brain activation effect. Our choice of control tasks (neutral beverages) was designed to mimic all visual aspects of the alcohol-specific cues. While alcohol beverage cues induced an urge to drink (craving) in some subjects, all alcoholic subjects started from a higher baseline of craving, which may have provided a "ceiling effect" on craving stimulation. Interestingly, some social drinking subjects reported craving for the nonalcoholic beverage pictures.

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One might argue that the differences seen in this study might represent, simply, directed attention. Although the cingulate and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex are involved in selective attention, no studies of selective attention have found anterior paralimbic activation.9,25,26 Nevertheless, future studies employing this paradigm along with a control study of selective attention would help differentiate the regions activated in this study from those commonly seen in mere selective attention. It would nevertheless continue to be significant that specific brain regions are involved in the enhanced "selected attention" for alcohol found in alcohol-dependent individuals. Cue-based research in addiction focuses on the evaluation of stimulus-generated physiological and psychological effects that may initiate a drinking bout or cause relapse. The "selected attention" paid to alcohol cues by alcoholic subjects may be the basis for the maintenance of alcohol dependence or the triggering of a relapse drinking episode.1

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Finally, we only imaged the anterior third of the brain and do not have data about changes in the visual cortex, which might be useful in interpreting some of the control tasks. While confining the brain regions under investigation helps to reduce the chance of a type II error, we cannot make statements about changes in brain regions where we did not scan.

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Some subjects had recently (within the last month) participated in a clinical laboratory study testing opiate antagonist effects on alcohol intake (8 days of ingestion). Regardless of whether they had received active or placebo medication in that short trial, many alcohol subjects were drinking and craving less at the time of the fMRI procedure than in their natural prestudy state.11 While no medication had been ingested for at least 12 days before the scan, the participation in this prior trial might have masked even more stark differences in cue-induced regional brain activity between the alcoholic subjects and social drinkers.

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This study has several important findings. It seems that the confining nature of the MRI scanner and the loud noises did not prevent us from performing alcohol cue stimulation. With both forms of image data analysis, alcoholic subjects had much more brain activation than social drinkers when exposed to alcohol-specific cues. Furthermore, the specific regions activated during alcohol-specific cues in alcoholic subjects are the prefrontal cortex and the anterior thalamus. Although the exact definition of craving is hotly disputed, it likely involves appetite drives and emotional changes like arousal. In this light, the brain regions activated by alcoholic subjects during alcohol cue stimulation may participate in these behaviors.

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Differences in the regions activated in the current study and those reported in cocaine abusers may be caused by several important variables. These variables may be related to the abused substance, the stimulation paradigm, or the scanning methods. Despite these differences, the current study results overlap with previous imaging studies in cocaine users, which used scripted cue-induced craving in cocaine subjects. For instance, Grant and colleagues,6 using visual presentations that are similar in design to the current study, found increased activation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in cocaine subjects while viewing cocaine stimuli. Childress and colleagues7 examined brain activity in 14 detoxified cocaine users and 6 healthy controls during presentation of cocaine-related videos. There was increased activation in the anterior cingulate and amygdala during the cocaine cues in the cocaine users but no differential activation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, thalamus, cerebellum and visual cortex between cocaine users and controls. Maas and colleagues27 used fMRI to measure brain activity in 6 subjects with a history of crack cocaine use and 6 matched controls. The cocaine-using group had significantly increased activity in the anterior cingulate and left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex while viewing drug-related scenes.

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Only more alcohol cue-induced brain imaging studies in alcoholic subjects will provide data to address the sensitivity and specificity of brain regional activation.

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This study suggests that changes in brain activity caused by tasting alcohol and viewing alcohol cues can be measured by an fMRI procedure. Alcoholic subjects, compared with social drinking controls, report higher rates of craving at baseline, after a taste of alcohol and while viewing alcohol-related cues. During alcohol cue presentations, alcoholic subjects have specific activation in the anterior thalamus and the prefrontal cortex. Future work is warranted to determine if this paradigm might be useful to better understand the pathophysiology of craving and addiction, to evaluate potential anticraving medications, or to predict relapse.

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Accepted for publication December 21, 2000.

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Funded in part by center grant AA10761-03, from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, Bethesda, Md, and grants from the National Alliance for Research in Schizophrenia and Depression, Great Neck, NY, and the Stanley Foundation, Bethesda (Dr George).

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Presented in abstract form at the annual meeting of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, Los Croabas, Puerto Rico, December 12, 1998.

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We thank Carrie Randall, PhD, James C. Ballenger, MD, and Layton McCurdy, MD, for their helpful comments, and Mary Radin for her assistance in the preparation of this article.

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Corresponding author and reprints: Mark S. George, MD, Radiology Department, Medical University of South Carolina, 171 Ashley Ave, Charleston, SC 29425 (e-mail: georgem@musc.edu).

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Original Article
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Neural Response to Alcohol Stimuli in Adolescents With Alcohol Use Disorder

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From the Psychology Service (Drs Tapert, G. G. Brown, and S. A. Brown), Radiology Service (Dr Frank), and Psychiatry Service (Drs Paulus and Meloy), Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System, and the Departments of Psychiatry (Drs Tapert, G. G. Brown, Paulus, and S. A. Brown and Mr Cheung), Radiology (Dr Frank), and Psychology (Ms Schweinsburg and Dr S. A. Brown), University of California–San Diego.

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Figure 1. 

Alcoholic beverage pictures task design and stimuli samples.

Figure 2. 

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) results during alcoholic beverage picture trials relative to nonalcoholic beverage picture trials. Orange indicates where teens with alcohol use disorder (n = 15) had more response than control subjects (n = 15) to alcoholic beverage pictures. Blue shows where controls had more response to alcoholic beverage pictures (group P<.05; clusters, >515 µL). Numbers refer to axial slice positions. The fMRI results are displayed on averaged anatomic brain maps.

Figure 3. 

Blood oxygen level–dependent (BOLD) response signal contrast in the right precuneus/posterior cingulate region during exposure to alcoholic beverage pictures relative to nonalcoholic beverage pictures plotted as a function of drinks consumed per month for adolescents with alcohol use disorder (n = 15; r = 0.76 [P<.001]).

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Table 1. 
Characteristics of Adolescent Participants*
AUD Group (n = 15)Controls (n = 15)P Value
Female, No. (%)6 (40)6 (40)>.99
Age16.96 (0.78)16.35 (1.02).08
School grades completed10.27 (0.96)9.73 (0.80).11
WISC-III Vocabulary scaled score12.53 (2.85)12.93 (2.28).68
Parent annual salary, × $1000101.93 (67.26)71.33 (29.21).12
White, No. (%)14 (93)11 (73).14
Family history negative, No. (%)†6 (40)6 (40)>.99
CBCL externalizing T score44.78 (4.77)45.08 (7.65).91
CBCL internalizing T score44.19 (5.49)42.68 (4.11).43
Beck Depression Inventory total score5.29 (5.11)2.20 (2.83).06
Spielberger State Anxiety T score‡45.84 (8.67)37.24 (4.51).002
Sleepiness before scanning§3.00 (1.20)2.67 (1.40).49
Sleepiness after scanning§3.87 (1.41)3.67 (1.35).69
No. of drinks per month49.80 (28.54)0.73 (2.05)<.001
Alcohol abuse/dependence symptoms, past 3 months2.53 (1.36)0.00 (0.00)<.001
Alcohol withdrawal symptoms, past 3 months2.47 (1.64)0.00 (0.00)<.001
DAQ reinforcement score2.48 (1.06)0.86 (0.10)<.001
DAQ strong desire score1.28 (0.35)0.81 (0.00)<.001
DAQ mild desire score2.55 (0.77)0.73 (0.09)<.001
Table 2. 
Regions Where Controls and Teens With AUD Showed Significant Differences in BOLD Response While Viewing Alcoholic Beverage Pictures Relative to Neutral Beverage Pictures*
Anatomic RegionBrodmann AreasTalairach Coordinates†Volume, µLEffect Size, Cohen d
xyz
AUD>Controls
Left medial frontal and paracentral gyri6,45L19P66S19299.21
Left dorsal cingulate and paracentral gyri6,31,242L22P52S8154.37
Left prefrontal and orbital gyri112L48A15I9006.83
Left superior and middle frontal gyri6,823L20A52S11585.85
Left inferior frontal gyrus4726L13A15I5575.46
Right inferior frontal gyrus‡4730R31A8I6005.55
Left ventral anterior cingulate and subcallosal cortex24,25,329L31A8I6004.48
Left parahippocampus and amygdala28,34,3526L3A18I10728.66
Right parahippocampus, amygdala, and uncus2819R5P25I9007.12
Left middle to inferior temporal and fusiform gyri20,3758L40P11I11584.64
Left middle to superior temporal gyri22,2161L15P3S9436.02
Left hypothalamusNA2L5P11I7729.69
Bilateral posterior cingulate and precuneus29,31,72L40P21S74177.27
Left cuneus and angular gyrus19,3926L78P28S25724.55
Right precuneus and cuneus7,195R75R42S22728.61
Right lateral precuneus1933R71P35S6863.67
Controls>AUD
Right middle frontal gyrus‡10,4637R38A21S5574.64
Right inferior frontal gyrus46,4554R38A7S11153.72
Table 3. 
Relationship Between Mild Desires to Drink and BOLD Response to Alcoholic Beverage Pictures in Adolescents With AUD*
Anatomic RegionBrodmann AreaTalairach Coordinates†Volume, µLCoefficient, β
xyz
Positive relationship (P<.05)
Left superior frontal gyrus69L5P66S158612.32
Right precentral gyrus623R15P66S6007.72
Right postcentral gyrus533R40P59S227210.44
Right postcentral gyrus254R26P45S5577.92
Right paracentral lobule52R36P56S11157.61
Right superior parietal lobule716R61P59S68614.28
Left fusiform gyrus3751L54P15I9438.71
Right fusiform gyrus3747R61P15I10299.21
Left lingual gyrus1912L54P1I6008.58
Right lingual gyrus1816R82P11I253013.45
Negative relationship (P<.05)
Left ventral anterior cingulate242L34A10S686−10.73
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Background  + Cue reactivity studies in alcohol-dependent adults have shown atypical physiological, cognitive, and neural responses to alcohol-related stimuli that differ from the responses of light drinkers. Cue reactivity and its neural substrates are unclear in youth. We hypothesized that teens with alcohol use disorder would show greater brain response than nonabusing teens to alcohol images relative to neutral beverage images in limbic and frontal brain regions.

Methods  + We tested the hypotheses in a cross-sectional functional magnetic resonance imaging study. Adolescents aged 14 to 17 were recruited from local high schools. Teens with alcohol use disorders (n = 15) and demographically similar infrequent drinkers (n = 15) met strict exclusion criteria (no left-handedness or neurological, other psychiatric, or other substance use disorders). Diagnoses were determined by means of structured and semistructured clinical interviews. Subjects were shown pictures of alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverage advertisements during blood oxygen level–dependent functional magnetic resonance imaging. Self-reports of craving were obtained before and after cue exposure.

Results  + Teens with alcohol use disorders showed substantially greater brain activation to alcoholic beverage pictures than control youths, predominantly in the left anterior, limbic, and visual system areas (P<.05; cluster threshold, 515 µL). The degree of brain response to the alcohol pictures was highest in youths who consumed more drinks per month and reported greater desires to drink.

Conclusions  + These results confirm previous studies by demonstrating an association between the urge to drink alcohol and blood oxygen use in areas of the brain previously linked to reward, desire, positive affect, and episodic recall. This study extends this relationship to adolescents with relatively brief drinking histories using visual alcohol stimuli, and suggests a neural basis for response to alcohol advertisements in youths with drinking problems.

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DRUG CRAVING is often described as the subjective experience of an intense desire for an addictive substance.1,2 It may occupy cognitive resources and influence substance use decisions,3 but it is difficult to measure objectively. Cue reactivity is an observable correlate of craving4 that has been demonstrated in alcohol-dependent adults5-7 through physiological changes such as increased heart rate or salivation on exposure to alcohol-related words, pictures, scents, tactile cues, or imaginal stimuli.6,8,9 Alcohol-dependent adults show difficulty shifting attention away from alcohol-related stimuli,10 and, consequently, substance cues can interfere with the deployment of effective coping responses.11,12 Although cue reactivity has not been studied in adolescents, substance-dependent youths show difficulty implementing coping skills when substance cues are salient.13

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Knowledge about the neural systems subserving cue reactivity and craving has expanded recently.14 Alcohol-dependent adults given small amounts of alcohol showed increased blood flow in the right caudate nucleus that was positively correlated with self-reports of alcohol craving.15 Left prefrontal16-19 and bilateral orbitofrontal cortices17,20-24 have commonly activated in response to substance cues among adults. Some studies have reported bilateral activation changes in the amygdala,16,17,21,22 but more have shown a left and bilateral anterior cingulate response that correlates with craving.16-18,20-22,25 The reward-related nucleus accumbens appears responsive to substance cues and is related to craving reports, bilaterally16,25 and on the left,26 although some studies could not precisely localize this small region. In the first functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study of pictoral alcohol cues, George and colleagues19 reported a thalamic and left prefrontal response to alcoholic relative to nonalcoholic beverage pictures (hereafter referred to as alcohol and nonalcohol pictures, respectively) among alcohol-dependent adults compared with matched control subjects. Our group previously studied brain responses of women aged 18 to 25 years to alcohol- and nonalcohol-related words.26 Alcohol-dependent young women demonstrated significantly more blood oxygen level–dependent (BOLD) response than controls during alcohol word presentation relative to neutral words in the anterior cingulate, left prefrontal cortex, bilateral insular gyri, and subcallosal cortex, which houses the nucleus accumbens. However, group differences were relatively modest.26

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To summarize, a sizable literature reports that adults with substance use disorders demonstrate atypical reactions to stimuli that have been conditioned to addictive substances.27 However, the brain regions reported to subserve cue reactivity have been somewhat inconsistent, due in part to differing imaging techniques, stimuli, and populations, as previously reviewed.26 Cue-induced brain changes have not been studied in adolescents, although substance-dependent youths report substantial levels of craving,28 posttreatment relapses among adolescents are associated with exposure to substance-related cues,29 and youths report exposure to alcohol cues through advertising an average of 30 times per month.30 To assess the neural substrates of cue reactivity in youth, we studied adolescents aged 14 to 17 years, used pictures instead of words to more directly elicit cue reactivity, and used personally relevant alcohol stimuli. It was hypothesized that adolescents with alcohol use disorders (AUDs) would exhibit more brain activity in response to alcohol cues relative to teens without drinking problems, particularly in anterior cingulate, prefrontal, orbitofrontal, and subcallosal cortices. In addition, we hypothesized that desires to drink would correlate with levels of activation.

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+ Methods +
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+ Participants +
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Recruitment flyers were distributed at local high schools. When a teen telephoned in response, a brief interview preliminarily ascertained eligibility, then the legal guardian was asked exclusionary questions. After a description of the study, written informed consent and assent, approved by the University of California–San Diego Institutional Review Board, were obtained from parents and adolescents. The teen was administered a 90-minute detailed screening interview, including the Family History Assessment Module screener,31 to assess family history of substance use and psychiatric diagnoses. We used the Customary Drinking and Drug Use Record32 to assess substance use and abuse/dependence criteria, and the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children to assess adolescent psychiatric diagnoses.33 The same measures were administered to the parent by a separate interviewer for corroboration. In cases of discrepancies, additional data were obtained or data were coded to represent the lower level of functioning or presence of problems.

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Exclusionary criteria were a history of a DSM-IV psychiatric or substance disorder other than AUD, neurological illness, head trauma with loss of consciousness for longer than 2 minutes, serious medical problems and learning disability; current use of medications that could affect the central nervous system; smoking more than 4 cigarettes per day; significant maternal drinking during pregnancy (≥4 drinks per occasion or ≥7 drinks per week); family history of bipolar I or psychotic disorders; inadequate English skills; sensory problems; left-handedness; and irremovable metal on the body. Because of high comorbidity with substance use disorders,34,35 teens meeting criteria for conduct disorder (n = 2) were not excluded.

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Participants with AUD (n = 15) met current DSM-IV criteria for alcohol abuse or dependence, and normal controls (n = 15) had very limited experience with alcohol or other drugs. Each group contained 6 girls and 9 boys with an average age of 16 years, mostly from upper middle-class families (Table 1). Based on neuropsychological tests administered the day of scanning, participants in both groups were above average intellectually. Youths with AUD typically drank 6 drinks each weekend night and had met criteria for alcohol abuse (n = 7) or dependence (n = 8) for 1 to 2 years. Youths with AUD reported higher levels of depressed mood and nervousness before scanning than controls, although all were in the reference range except 1 participant with AUD (Beck Depression Inventory score, 19; Spielberger Anxiety T score, 64). After excluding this participant, groups had similar Beck Depression Inventory scores. Subjects with AUD still showed more anxiety, although within the normal range (Spielberger Anxiety T score, 44).

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Table 1. 
Characteristics of Adolescent Participants*
AUD Group (n = 15)Controls (n = 15)P Value
Female, No. (%)6 (40)6 (40)>.99
Age16.96 (0.78)16.35 (1.02).08
School grades completed10.27 (0.96)9.73 (0.80).11
WISC-III Vocabulary scaled score12.53 (2.85)12.93 (2.28).68
Parent annual salary, × $1000101.93 (67.26)71.33 (29.21).12
White, No. (%)14 (93)11 (73).14
Family history negative, No. (%)†6 (40)6 (40)>.99
CBCL externalizing T score44.78 (4.77)45.08 (7.65).91
CBCL internalizing T score44.19 (5.49)42.68 (4.11).43
Beck Depression Inventory total score5.29 (5.11)2.20 (2.83).06
Spielberger State Anxiety T score‡45.84 (8.67)37.24 (4.51).002
Sleepiness before scanning§3.00 (1.20)2.67 (1.40).49
Sleepiness after scanning§3.87 (1.41)3.67 (1.35).69
No. of drinks per month49.80 (28.54)0.73 (2.05)<.001
Alcohol abuse/dependence symptoms, past 3 months2.53 (1.36)0.00 (0.00)<.001
Alcohol withdrawal symptoms, past 3 months2.47 (1.64)0.00 (0.00)<.001
DAQ reinforcement score2.48 (1.06)0.86 (0.10)<.001
DAQ strong desire score1.28 (0.35)0.81 (0.00)<.001
DAQ mild desire score2.55 (0.77)0.73 (0.09)<.001
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+ Structured Clinical Interview +
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Teens and parents were administered a structured clinical interview36 by separate psychometrists covering demographic, medical, academic, family, and social functioning information. Parents were asked about the teen's developmental history and familial socioeconomic status37 and administered the Child Behavior Checklist.38

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+ Substance Use and Diagnoses +
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Substance involvement and use disorder diagnoses were assessed with the Customary Drinking and Drug Use Record,32 which collects lifetime and past 3-month information on alcohol, nicotine, and other drug use and assesses DSM-IV abuse and dependence criteria,39,40 withdrawal symptoms, and other negative consequences of substance use. Strong psychometric properties have been demonstrated in adolescents.32,41 The Timeline Follow-back42 provided substance use patterns for the previous 30 days. All participants submitted urine samples for drug toxicologic screening.

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+ Neuropsychological Testing +
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A 2-hour neuropsychological test battery was administered by a trained psychometrist (A.D.S.). The battery covered attention, working memory, learning and memory, and executive, visuospatial, and language functioning. General intellect was estimated with the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-III Vocabulary subtest,43 which correlates highly with full-scale IQ.43,44

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The Beck Depression Inventory45 and state scale of the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory46 assessed mood at the time of scanning. The Stanford Sleepiness Scale measured alertness immediately before and after scanning with self-reported ratings (1 indicates alert; 7, almost asleep).47

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+ Drinking Urge +
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Alcohol craving was evaluated immediately before and after scanning with a 100-mm visual analog scale for rating the urge to drink48 and the Desires for Alcohol Questionnaire (DAQ).49 The DAQ yields the following 3 factors: reinforcing effects, strong desires to drink, and mild desires to drink.

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Several days before scanning, participants were asked for their preferred alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverage brands and what brands they had consumed in the past year to guide individualized beverage picture selection. Participants were asked to abstain from alcohol and other drugs for at least 48 hours before imaging. The most recent drinking reported was 72 hours before scanning, and no withdrawal symptoms were reported or evident in any participant the day of scanning. All imaging sessions occurred on Thursdays from 8 to 10 PM to maximize recovery from weekend binge drinking and maintain consistent circadian influence across subjects. Once subjects arrived for the single assessment session, Breathalyzer (Intoximeter, Inc, St Louis, Mo) and urine samples were collected for drug toxicologic screening and, for girls, pregnancy screening. No participant had a measurable breath alcohol concentration, and only 1 participant, who had disclosed recent marijuana use (3 days before), had positive findings in a urine sample.

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Teens underwent assessment by a trained bachelor-level psychometrist of the same sex (E.H.C. or A.D.S.). Throughout scheduling and the assessment session, adolescents were told about the imaging procedures and the importance of keeping as still as possible during scanning. This was boldasized again just before scanner entry by the MRI technologist. After lying in the scanner, a soft cloth was placed on the participant's forehead, which was then taped to the head coil to minimize head motion, and a response box was placed in the subject's right hand.

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The scanning protocol consisted of high-resolution structural imaging (inversion-recovery-prepared, T1-weighted, sagittally acquired 3-dimensional spiral fast spin echo50; 16 interleaves; echo-train length, 8; repetition time, 2000 milliseconds; inversion time, 700 milliseconds; echo spacing, 15.6 milliseconds; echo time, 15.6 milliseconds; field of view, 240 mm; in-plane resolution, 0.9375 × 0.9375 mm; through-plane resolution, 1.328 mm; 128 continuous slices; acquisition time, 8 minutes 36 seconds) and axially-acquired T2*-weighted spiral gradient recall echo imaging (repetition time, 3000 milliseconds; echo time, 40 milliseconds; flip angle, 90°; field of view, 240 mm; 20-21 axial slices covering the whole brain; slice thickness, 7 mm; reconstructed in-plane resolution, 1.875 × 1.875 mm; 138 repetitions; acquisition time, 6 minutes 54 seconds). Spiral imaging was used because it helps reduce the effects of motion on time series acquisitions.51,52

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During fMRI data collection, an alcohol pictures task was administered. This task sequentially presented 20 alcohol and 20 nonalcohol pictures matched by color, visual complexity, and presence of people. The images were selected from a bank of more than 200 advertisements scanned from youth-oriented popular magazines (eg, Rolling Stone, Spin, Sports Illustrated, and Cosmopolitan) or downloaded from the Internet. A personalized set of images was selected for each adolescent, on the basis of his or her alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverage preferences and experiences, to ensure familiarity with the stimuli. To maintain focus on the task without drawing attention to picture content, instructions consisted of the following: "Press 1 if the picture contains a person; press 2 if there is no person" (30% in each condition contained a person). The task alternated between 30-second blocks of each condition (10 trials per block; 2500-millisecond stimulus presentation and 500-second interstimulus interval), with fixation periods at the beginning, middle, and end (Figure 1 shows task design and stimulus samples).

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Figure 1. 

Alcoholic beverage pictures task design and stimuli samples.

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Data were processed and analyzed with the Analysis of Functional NeuroImages package.53 First, we applied to the time series data a 3-dimensional motion-correction algorithm that aligned each volume in the time series to a selected base volume54 and estimated 3 rotational and 3 displacement parameters for each participant. To determine whether bulk motion differed between groups, each subject's absolute mean for each of the 6 motion parameters across the time series was compared in 1-way analyses of variance (ANOVAs). Controls required significantly more motion correction for 2 parameters (roll, 0.05 vs 0.03 mm [P = .02]; left displacement, 0.04 vs 0.02 mm [P =.05]) and showed more variability in motion during the time series for 2 parameters (roll SD, 0.05 vs 0.04 [P = .04]; yaw SD, 0.08 vs 0.05 [P = .02]), although the magnitude of these differences was quite small. To estimate task-correlated motion, the 6 parameters were correlated with the task reference vector across the time series for each subject. The median correlations for the AUD group were −0.069, 0.122, −0.011, −0.006, −0.067, and −0.037; for controls, −0.054, 0.059, 0.003, 0.042, −0.135, and −0.032 for roll, pitch, and yaw rotations and superior, left, and posterior displacements, respectively. Task-correlated values were compared between groups using Spearman correlations (P>.18 for all).

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Next, the time series data were correlated with a set of 7 task reference vectors. These consisted of 1 seed reference function representing the alternating conditions during the time course of the task (depicted in Figure 1), and the same reference vector shifted in 1-second increments 6 times forward to account for delays in hemodynamic response,55 while covarying for linear trends and the estimated degree of motion (to control for spin history effects). Only the reference vector producing the highest correlation with the time course data was used, yielding fit coefficients for every subject in each voxel representing the correspondence between the observed and hypothesized signal. Each participant's imaging results were transformed into standard56 coordinates, and the functional map was resampled into isotropic voxels (3.5 mm3). We applied a spatial smoothing Gaussian filter (full width at half maximum, 3.5 mm) to manage individual variability in gyral structure. To test hypotheses, an independent-samples t test (α = .05, 2-tailed) compared groups on BOLD response contrast across the time series, essentially testing a group × condition interaction. Urge scores were correlated with BOLD response contrast for each voxel. Type I error was controlled by requiring that voxels surpass the specified α and compose clusters of more than 515 µL,57,58 yielding a voxelwise P of .00002 and a clusterwise P of .032.

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Response logging failed for 8 AUD group and 6 control participants. Using available data, groups did not differ between task conditions in reaction time (alcohol pictures, 805.76 vs 860.31 milliseconds; neutral pictures, 736.18 vs 840.83 milliseconds for AUD and control groups, respectively) or accuracy (alcohol pictures, 96% both groups; neutral pictures, 98% both groups). The AUD group reported significantly more desires to drink than controls for all 3 DAQ factors before and after scanning. However, no significant increases were found after scanning for either group on the DAQ or the visual analog scale scores. As a result, we averaged prescanning and postscanning DAQ scores for use in analyses.

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Throughout the brain, the AUD group showed significantly more BOLD response than controls to alcohol pictures relative to neutral beverage pictures, particularly in the left hemisphere, including frontal and limbic regions (P<.05; effect sizes, 3.67-9.69). This included hypothesized regions (ie, the ventral anterior cingulate, prefrontal cortex, orbital gyrus, and subcallosal cortex) and other areas (eg, the inferior frontal gyrus, paracentral lobule, parahippocampus, amygdala, fusiform gyrus, temporal lobe, hypothalamus, posterior cingulate, precuneus, cuneus, and angular gyrus). In contrast, controls showed more BOLD response to alcohol pictures relative to neutral pictures than the AUD group in 2 right frontal regions (P<.05; Table 2 and Figure 2). This analysis was rerun excluding the AUD participant with higher levels of depressed mood and anxiety. All regions listed in Table 2 remained significant except 2, and the AUD group showed more response to alcohol pictures in the left inferior parietal lobule (Brodmann area 39) than controls. The group × condition interactions were confirmed using the 3-dimensional ANOVA2 program of the Analysis of Functional NeuroImages,53 comparing signals from alcohol and nonalcohol picture conditions relative to fixation for both groups. All regions listed in Table 2 were confirmed, except for the right inferior frontal gyrus and right lateral precuneus.

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Table 2. 
Regions Where Controls and Teens With AUD Showed Significant Differences in BOLD Response While Viewing Alcoholic Beverage Pictures Relative to Neutral Beverage Pictures*
Anatomic RegionBrodmann AreasTalairach Coordinates†Volume, µLEffect Size, Cohen d
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AUD>Controls
Left medial frontal and paracentral gyri6,45L19P66S19299.21
Left dorsal cingulate and paracentral gyri6,31,242L22P52S8154.37
Left prefrontal and orbital gyri112L48A15I9006.83
Left superior and middle frontal gyri6,823L20A52S11585.85
Left inferior frontal gyrus4726L13A15I5575.46
Right inferior frontal gyrus‡4730R31A8I6005.55
Left ventral anterior cingulate and subcallosal cortex24,25,329L31A8I6004.48
Left parahippocampus and amygdala28,34,3526L3A18I10728.66
Right parahippocampus, amygdala, and uncus2819R5P25I9007.12
Left middle to inferior temporal and fusiform gyri20,3758L40P11I11584.64
Left middle to superior temporal gyri22,2161L15P3S9436.02
Left hypothalamusNA2L5P11I7729.69
Bilateral posterior cingulate and precuneus29,31,72L40P21S74177.27
Left cuneus and angular gyrus19,3926L78P28S25724.55
Right precuneus and cuneus7,195R75R42S22728.61
Right lateral precuneus1933R71P35S6863.67
Controls>AUD
Right middle frontal gyrus‡10,4637R38A21S5574.64
Right inferior frontal gyrus46,4554R38A7S11153.72
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Figure 2. 

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) results during alcoholic beverage picture trials relative to nonalcoholic beverage picture trials. Orange indicates where teens with alcohol use disorder (n = 15) had more response than control subjects (n = 15) to alcoholic beverage pictures. Blue shows where controls had more response to alcoholic beverage pictures (group P<.05; clusters, >515 µL). Numbers refer to axial slice positions. The fMRI results are displayed on averaged anatomic brain maps.

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To understand the main effect of condition, we studied each group separately in single-sample t tests. The AUD group showed greater response to alcohol pictures relative to neutral pictures in 21 regions, whereas they showed increased response to neutral beverages in just 2 regions (P<.05). Controls had more response to alcoholic beverage pictures in 5 locations, yet more response to neutral pictures relative to alcoholic beverage pictures in 16 regions (P<.05). To examine the main effect of group, we contrasted the BOLD response between the alcoholic beverage pictures and fixation conditions. Both groups showed considerably more response to the alcoholic beverage pictures than to the fixation cross, but the AUD group showed a more extensive response contrast. However, this contrast and the contrast between neutral pictures and fixation revealed some BOLD response in the AUD group during fixation blocks, perhaps indicating continued reactivity to alcohol stimuli.

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To test the relationship between self-reported desire to drink and brain response, the 3 DAQ factors (reinforcement, strong desires, and mild desires) were examined in regressions to predict the BOLD response contrast between the alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverage pictures for each group. Among those in the AUD group, the reinforcement factor did not predict variability in BOLD response contrast, but the strong desires factor predicted left temporal(β = 16.15) and right thalamic (β = −22.88) responses. The mild desires factor significantly and positively predicted 10 regions of enhanced BOLD response to alcoholic beverage pictures relative to neutral pictures in the AUD group (Table 3). Among controls, low reinforcement scores predicted more BOLD response contrast in the right posterior cingulate and temporal regions, and the strong and mild desires factors were unrelated to the BOLD response. To confirm these findings, we extracted each participant's signal intensity values from the regions that differed between groups (Table 2) and correlated these values with drinking and craving scores. For controls, only the following correlations were found: left temporal/fusiform BOLD signal contrast correlated with drinks consumed per month (r =0.56 [P = .03]), and left parahippocampal/amygdalar signal correlated with mild desires to drink (r =−0.55 [P = .03]). For the AUD group, 4 regions correlated positively with drinks per month (left inferior frontal, r = 0.51 [P = .04]; left paracentral lobule/dorsal cingulate, r = 0.59 [P = .02]; right precuneus/cuneus, r = 0.64[P = .01]; and right precuneus/posterior cingulate, r = 0.76 [P = .001]) (Figure 3), and 2 areas correlated negatively with reinforcement scores (right precuneus/cuneus, r =−0.73 [P = .002]; and right inferior frontal, r = −0.53 [P = .04]).

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Table 3. 
Relationship Between Mild Desires to Drink and BOLD Response to Alcoholic Beverage Pictures in Adolescents With AUD*
Anatomic RegionBrodmann AreaTalairach Coordinates†Volume, µLCoefficient, β
xyz
Positive relationship (P<.05)
Left superior frontal gyrus69L5P66S158612.32
Right precentral gyrus623R15P66S6007.72
Right postcentral gyrus533R40P59S227210.44
Right postcentral gyrus254R26P45S5577.92
Right paracentral lobule52R36P56S11157.61
Right superior parietal lobule716R61P59S68614.28
Left fusiform gyrus3751L54P15I9438.71
Right fusiform gyrus3747R61P15I10299.21
Left lingual gyrus1912L54P1I6008.58
Right lingual gyrus1816R82P11I253013.45
Negative relationship (P<.05)
Left ventral anterior cingulate242L34A10S686−10.73
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Figure 3. 

Blood oxygen level–dependent (BOLD) response signal contrast in the right precuneus/posterior cingulate region during exposure to alcoholic beverage pictures relative to nonalcoholic beverage pictures plotted as a function of drinks consumed per month for adolescents with alcohol use disorder (n = 15; r = 0.76 [P<.001]).

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Because individuals with family histories of AUD tend to respond abnormally to alcohol and show other neural anomalies,59-62 we compared brain responses to alcohol pictures between those in the AUD group with family histories that were positive (FHP) and negative (FHN) for AUD. The AUD-group teens with FHP (n = 9; 5 [56%] female) showed more BOLD response contrast between the alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverage pictures than the AUD-group teens with FHN (n = 6; 1 [17%] female), especially in the left posterior cingulate and prefrontal, orbital, and inferior temporal gyrus. Controls with FHP (n = 9; 3 [33%] female) showed more brain response to alcoholic beverage pictures relative to nonalcoholic beverage pictures than controls with FHN(n = 6; 3 [50%] female), particularly in the left paracentral, medial frontal, prefrontal, cuneus, and anterior cingulate areas. However, when comparing the 9 AUD-group teens with FHP and the 9 controls with FHP, the AUD group showed substantially more response to alcoholic beverage pictures throughout the brain. Similarly, the 6 AUD-group teens with FHN showed more brain response to alcohol pictures than the 6 controls with FHN, except in the right frontal pole and left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.

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In adolescence, sex differences in neuromaturation63-65 influence affective response66 and may relate to cue reactivity. We compared responses with alcohol pictures relative to nonalcohol pictures in boys and girls of the AUD and control groups. In the AUD group, girls (n = 6) showed more brain response than boys (n = 9) to alcohol pictures, particularly in the anterior cingulate and left prefrontal regions, whereas boys showed a strong response to alcohol pictures in the left orbital gyrus and bilateral paracentral gyri. No sex differences were apparent among controls.

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Our results supported the hypothesis that adolescents with AUD produce more brain activity in response to alcohol cues than teens without drinking problems. This was specifically supported in the ventral anterior cingulate and subcallosal, prefrontal, orbital, and limbic regions, areas previously associated with reward and drug craving. In addition, we found increased response in posterior regions that may be critical to visual association, episodic recall, appetitive functions, and the formation of associations. In teens with alcohol abuse/dependence, mild desires to drink alcohol were associated with enhanced BOLD response in frontal and visual regions and diminished response in the ventral anterior cingulate.

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These results are consistent with previous studies on alcohol and other drug cues. Like many neuroimaging studies of craving, we found an anterior cingulate response to substance cues among problem users.16-18,20-22,25,26,67,68 These findings also support studies that found subcallosal cortex/nucleus accumbens,16,25,26 orbitofrontal,17,20-24 left prefrontal,16-19,22,26,68 amygdala,17,21 temporal,17,23,67,69 and posterior cingulate16,22,23 responses. The most similar design to ours is the 2001 study by George and colleagues.19 Both studies found increased left prefrontal BOLD response in individuals with AUD during exposure to alcohol relative to nonalcohol pictures. Although our study did not replicate their thalamic activation, the hypothalamus of teens in our AUD group was more responsive to alcohol pictures than to nonalcohol pictures, whereas controls did not show such an effect.

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The present study found larger areas of brain activation to alcohol pictures than the study by George et al.19 Several dissimilarities between projects could account for these differences. First, youth tend to exhibit larger areas of BOLD response relative to adults across tasks70,71 owing to regional specialization that develops throughout adolescence. Second, our study used personalized stimuli instead of a standard picture series. Many youths have used only certain alcoholic beverage types, and we wanted to ensure previous exposure to beverage pictures to maximize cue reactivity. Third, our study examined the whole brain, demonstrating group differences in posterior regions. Fourth, the current study repeated images, using 40 images, whereas George et al19 used 56 pictures. This leaves the possibility that recognition might have affected results. Fifth, our pulse sequences collected data spirally in k-space, a technique that is less sensitive to motion artifact.51,52 Finally, the larger sample size resulted in more statistical power to detect subtler effects.

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These results confirm the findings of a recent study from our group26 in which alcohol-related cues appeared to provoke increased BOLD response in the nucleus accumbens region among college-age women with AUD. However, the magnitude of response in the present study is much larger and involved the visual system, possibly due to the pictoral stimulus modality and younger developmental stage of participants. The role of the visual system in the response of heavy drinkers to pictoral alcohol cues was not predicted, but it merits consideration. Feature-based visual attention may serve as the earliest stage of cortical response to visual stimuli and is linked to substantial BOLD response in visual brain regions.72 Because of personal experiences and affective responses, adolescents with AUD may have attended to a broader array of features in the alcohol images, involving more visual system neurons than were involved for controls. Future studies could examine this hypothesis using eye-movement measures. The response of the AUD group to alcohol pictures in the ventromedial region (Brodmann area 47) corresponds to findings of decision-making studies73,74 that showed the importance of this region for making selections based on reward contingencies.

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Several limitations of the current study warrant consideration. First, teens did not report increased craving after the alcohol pictures task, whereas the adults in the study by George et al19 did, suggesting that dynamic craving processes were not captured in the imaging sessions. Teens tend to drink in the absence of adults, so the MRI setting may have been antithetical to typical drinking situations, and youths may be less able to discriminate and report changes in craving than adults. Urge ratings were not collected during scanning, but 5 minutes before and after scanner entry. Second, adolescents with AUD had more extensive histories of other drug and nicotine use than did controls, although sex, ethnicity, and family history were comparable. Third, our use of personalized cues may diminish generalizability and comparability between participants, and it is possible that social aspects of some pictures produced different responses across participants. Within-subject designs are needed to compare the effects of individualized vs standard cues.75 Fourth, although all participants had some familiarity with the stimuli presented, teens with AUD may have had more experience with the alcohol stimuli, so results may represent differential recall effects.

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+ Conclusions +
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This fMRI study demonstrated that high school youths with alcohol abuse or dependence show widespread and intense brain activation in response to pictures of alcohol advertisements. These results suggest that, not only are liking and remembering alcohol advertisements associated with frequent drinking76 and expecting to drink more,77 but alcohol advertisements may have a strong effect on youths with established heavy drinking patterns as well as those with family histories of AUD, similar to how media depictions of aggression have detrimental effects on children with preexisting aggressive traits.78 For young drinkers, this neural response may indicate that advertisement content has been conditioned with drinking experiences, and may reflect increasing salience of alcohol advertisements as drinking escalates. Fortunately, encouraging youths to evaluate advertisements and critique the intentions of advertisers appears to help counter the negative influences.79,80 For teens in treatment for substance use disorders, research is needed to determine whether cue reactivity can be reduced and whether diminished response to cues predicts treatment success.

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Corresponding author: Susan F. Tapert, PhD, Psychology Service (116B), Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System, 3350 La Jolla Village Dr, San Diego, CA 92161 (e-mail: stapert@ucsd.edu).

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Submitted for publication August 23, 2002; final revision received February 6, 2003; accepted February 6, 2003.

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This study was supported by grants R21 AA12519 and R01 AA13419 from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, Bethesda, Md (Dr Tapert) and a Veterans Affairs Merit Grant (Dr Frank).

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This study was presented in part at the annual meeting of the Research Society on Alcoholism, June 25, 2001; Montreal, Quebec.

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We thank Lisa Eyler Zorrilla, PhD, Laura Santerre, Carmen Pulido, and Valerie Cestone for their contributions to this research.

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Choice selection and reward anticipation: an fMRI study

https://doi-org.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2004.05.011Get rights and content
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Abstract

We examined neural activations during decision-making using fMRI paired with the wheel of fortune task, a newly developed two-choice decision-making task with probabilistic monetary gains. In particular, we assessed the impact of high-reward/risk events relative to low-reward/risk events on neural activations during choice selection and during reward anticipation. Seventeen healthy adults completed the study. We found, in line with predictions, that (i) the selection phase predominantly recruited regions involved in visuo-spatial attention (occipito-parietal pathway), conflict (anterior cingulate), manipulation of quantities (parietal cortex), and preparation for action (premotor area), whereas the anticipation phase prominently recruited regions engaged in reward processes (ventral striatum); and (ii) high-reward/risk conditions relative to low-reward/risk conditions were associated with a greater neural response in ventral striatum during selection, though not during anticipation. Following an a priori ROI analysis focused on orbitofrontal cortex, we observed orbitofrontal cortex activation (BA 11 and 47) during selection (particularly to high-risk/reward options), and to a more limited degree, during anticipation. These findings support the notion that (1) distinct, although overlapping, pathways subserve the processes of selection and anticipation in a two-choice task of probabilistic monetary reward; (2) taking a risk and awaiting the consequence of a risky decision seem to affect neural activity differently in selection and anticipation; and thus (3) common structures, including the ventral striatum, are modulated differently by risk/reward during selection and anticipation.

Keywords

Decision-making
Expectation
Motivation
Ventral striatum
Neuroimaging
fMRI

1. Introduction

A variety of neurological and neuropsychiatric conditions have been associated with impairments in choice selection/decision-making and the anticipation of reinforcement information. Indeed, decision-making impairments have been noted in patients with lesions of the amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex (Bechara, Damasio, Damasio, & Lee, 1999; Bechara et al., 2000, Bechara et al., 2000), subarachnoid haemorrhage caused by ruptured aneurysms of the anterior communicating artery (Mavaddat, Kirkpatrick, Rogers, & Sahakian, 2000), frontal variant frontotemporal dementia (Rahman, Sahakian, Cardinal, Rogers, & Robbins, 2001), psychopathy (Mitchell, Colledge, Leonard, & Blair, 2002), and substance abuse (Bechara et al., 2001, Ernst et al., 2003; Grant, Contoreggi, & London, 2000; Paulus, Hozack, Frank, Brown, & Schuckit, 2003; Rogers & Robbins, 2001). These decision-making impairments are thought to contribute to the social and behavioral difficulties that characterize these patients (Bechara et al., 2000, Bechara et al., 2000; Rahman et al., 2001).
The study of decision-making from a cognitive neuroscience perspective is relatively recent. Decision-making can be considered a component of goal-directed action, one which may be informed by the subsequent processes of anticipation and feedback (experience of the outcome of actions). Decision-making per se refers to choice selection, and involves cue evaluation and response choice. A majority of neuroimaging studies of reward-related behaviors have focused on reward anticipation and reinforcement delivery. These studies cover a large range of rewards, including primary (e.g., taste, smell) and secondary (e.g., money, points) rewards. Among investigations of secondary rewards, findings have suggested a role in reward anticipation for ventral striatum (Breiter, Aharon, Kahneman, Dale, & Shizgal, 2001; Knutson, Fong, Adams, Varner, & Hommer, 2001b; Knutson, Fong, Bennett, Adams, & Hommer, 2003; O’Doherty, Deichmann, Critchley, & Dolan, 2002), amygdala (Breiter et al., 2001, Hommer et al., 2003, O’Doherty et al., 2002), and orbitofrontal cortex (Breiter et al., 2001, O’Doherty et al., 2002).
Fewer studies have focused on choice selection/decision-making, and these studies have almost exclusively examined secondary reinforcements (Elliott, Frith, & Dolan, 1997; Elliott, Dolan, & Frith, 2000; Ernst et al., 2002, Paulus et al., 2001, Rogers et al., 1999; Volz, Schubotz, & von Cramon, 2003). Their findings have suggested a role for inferior prefrontal cortex (Paulus et al., 2001), ventromedial and ventrolateral frontal cortex (Elliott et al., 2000, Ernst et al., 2002, Rogers et al., 1999, Volz et al., 2003), anterior cingulate (Elliott et al., 2000, Ernst et al., 2002), parietal cortex (Ernst et al., 2002, Paulus et al., 2001), and ventral striatum (Volz et al., 2003). However, these investigations of choice selection/decision-making have used block designs, preventing considerations of differential patterns of neural activity occurring during decision-making as opposed to anticipation of reward or response to feedback. For example, in a previous positron emission tomography study, we examined choice selection (i.e., decision-making) using a gambling card task (Ernst et al., 2002). In this study, confounds such as effects of contingency on anticipation and response to feedback could not be controlled. The purpose of the present study was to exploit rapid event-related fMRI to examine choice selection and reward anticipation separately in a single task.
We hypothesized that structures involved in computing and planning would be activated specifically during choice selection, and those structures associated with reward processes would be recruited during both choice selection and reward anticipation. The choice selection phase of the task made explicit the nature of the options (probability of occurrence and magnitude of gains) to obviate any learning effects. Probabilities were represented spatially (surface area of the visual cue proportional to probability), and magnitude of reward was given as a dollar amount. Subjects were asked to decide between two competing options, one with a “likely” small gain (safe option), and one with an “unlikely” large gain (risky option). The reward anticipation phase was designed to explicitly assess subjects’ expectations. During this phase, subjects were asked to rate how confident of winning they felt after executing their choice.
More specifically, we predicted that (i) the selection phase would recruit preferentially the brain structures that subserve spatial representation (occipito-parietal cortex) (Corbetta, 1993, Gitelman et al., 1999; Ungerleider, Courtney, & Haxby, 1998), computation (parietal cortex) (Dehaene, Spelke, Pinel, Stanescu, & Tsivkin, 1999), motivation based on the integration of value judgments of future outcomes (orbitofrontal cortex) (Bechara, Tranel, Damasio, & Damasio, 1996; Elliott, Rees, & Dolan, 1999; Ernst et al., 2002; Montague & Berns, 2002; Rolls, 2000), conflict or error monitoring (anterior cingulate) (Bush et al., 2002, Carter et al., 1998, Elliott et al., 1997, Ernst et al., 2002; Hadland, Rushworth, Gaffan, & Passingham, 2003; MacDonald, Cohen, Stenger, & Carter, 2000), and motor preparation (supplementary motor area and premotor cortex) (Cunnington, Windischberger, Deecke, & Moser, 2002; Ramnani & Miall, 2003; Roesch & Olson, 2003); (ii) the anticipation phase would engage prominently limbic structures, particularly the ventral striatum because of its central role in reward prediction (Schultz, 2002) and orbitofrontal cortex for holding the representation of incentive value of stimuli (Gottfried, O’Doherty, & Dolan, 2003; Schultz, Tremblay, & Hollerman, 2000); and (iii) the selection and anticipation of high-reward/risk choices relative to low-reward/risk choices would involve reward-related structures, particularly the ventral striatum (Breiter et al., 2001; Knutson, Adams, Fong, & Hommer, 2001a), orbitofrontal cortex (Arana et al., 2003; Berns, McClure, Pagnoni, & Montague, 2001; Critchley, Mathias, & Dolan, 2001), and anterior cingulate (Carter et al., 1998; Elliott & Dolan, 1998; Hadland et al., 2003, Knutson et al., 2001a), and modulate premotor areas (Roesch & Olson, 2003).

2. Methods

2.1. Sample

Twenty subjects participated in the study. Data of three subjects were excluded from analysis because of excessive movement (greater than 1.5 mm in any one direction). Subjects were recruited through newspaper advertisements and were financially compensated for their participation. Inclusion criteria were age between 20 and 40 years, absence of past and present psychiatric disorders on the basis of a psychiatric diagnostic interview [Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (Segal, Hersen, & Van Hasselt, 1994)], and absence of acute or chronic medical illnesses on the basis of medical history and physical examination. All subjects signed a consent form after having been explained the study in detail. The study was approved by the NIMH Institutional Review Board.

2.2. Task (Fig. 1)

The Wheel of Fortune task (WOF) is a computerized two-choice decision-making task involving probabilistic monetary outcomes. Subjects performed two versions of the task: a winning version, in which subjects could only win or not win; and a losing version, in which subjects could only lose or not lose. Because this study focuses on processes associated with rewards, only the winning version was analyzed. Subjects were instructed that they would take home up to US$ 50.00 of the money they won and that they should try to win as much money as possible. In each trial, subjects chose between two options, each with an assigned probability of winning a certain amount of money. If the computer randomly selected the same option as the subject, the subject won the designated amount of money; if the computer randomly selected the other option, the subject won nothing.
Three types of conditions were used to elicit behaviors of various degrees of risk seeking and risk averting. The conditions included selecting between (i) a 10% chance of winning US$ 7.00 and a 90% chance of winning nothing, versus a 90% chance of winning US$ 1.00 and a 10% chance of winning nothing; (ii) a 30% chance of winning US$ 2.00 and a 70% chance of winning nothing, versus a 70% chance of winning US$ 1.00 and a 30% chance of winning nothing; and (iii) two 50% chances of winning US$ 2.00 (i.e., if the computer selected the same 50% slice as did the subject, the subject won US$ 2.00; otherwise the subject won nothing). These combinations of probabilities and gains had been determined based on pilot data acquired outside the MRI context in healthy adults. The task was designed so that all possible options would be selected by most subjects and that the different options represented different degrees of reward/risk, i.e., by order of magnitude of reward/risk, 10% (US$ 7.00) > 30% (US$ 2.00) > 50% (US$ 2.00) > 70% (US$ 1.00) > 90% (US$ 1.00). We also used a control condition, which included all of the sensory-motor attributes of the monetary conditions, but lacked decision-making, anticipation of a gain, and response to gain. This control condition consisted of a wheel of fortune, like the active conditions. However, this wheel was of a single color (no slices), and subjects were told to select the color of the wheel. Therefore, the participant was not required to decide between two response options.
Each of the three monetary conditions was displayed as a two-slice wheel of fortune, with each slice representing a distinct option (Fig. 1a). Subjects were told to select one of the slices by its color (blue or magenta). The area of the slice matched the likelihood of winning (e.g., 10%) an explicit amount of money (e.g., US$ 7.00). Subjects were trained prior to the fMRI session on a real wheel of fortune, with a similar two-slice design. During training, subjects selected one slice; the wheel was spun; and the subject won the dollar amount paired with the selected slice, if the slice stopped under the pointer. Otherwise the subject won nothing. The subject was told that the computer version of the task operated under the same principle, except that the spinning of the wheel was not visible. The control condition was a monochromatic wheel, either blue or magenta, and subjects were asked to select the color of the wheel.
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Fig. 1. Visual displays used in the wheel of fortune task: (a) the four different types of wheels; and (b) the three processes occurring sequentially in the task, i.e., choice selection, reward anticipation, and feedback.

Subjects completed two runs of 8.8 min each. Each run comprised 46 trials, including nine 50/50 wheels, twelve 30/70 wheels, sixteen 10/90 wheels, and nine control wheels. Each trial lasted 10.5 s and was composed of three phases: a selection phase (3 s), an anticipation phase (3.5 s), and a feedback phase (4 s) (Fig. 1b). Inter-trial intervals were 1 s long. During the selection phase, participants viewed one type of wheel and were asked to select either the blue or the magenta slice by pressing the button corresponding to where the color was located (right or left). In the anticipation phase, subjects continued to view the wheel while a five-point rating scale appeared on the screen to prompt them to rate their level of confidence of winning (one unsure, five sure; button press). In the feedback phase, subjects were shown the dollar amount won (US$ 0 if not won), the cumulative dollar amount, and a five-point rating scale along which they were asked to rate how they felt (one worst, three neutral, and five best). In the control condition, participants were instructed to press the button whose color corresponded to the color of the monochromatic wheel during the selection phase. The control condition also presented the wheel during the anticipation phase, like in the active trials, but subjects were not asked to rate their level of confidence during the anticipation phase, since there was no outcome to expect. All responses were recorded on a five-key button-box in the fMRI scanner (MRI Devices; Waukesha, WI), and all button presses were done using the right hand.

2.3. fMRI

A General Electric Signa 3 Tesla scanner was employed. Head movement was restricted by the use of foam padding. Visual images were presented via Avotec Silent Vision Glasses (Stuart, FL) located directly above subjects’ eyes.
Gradient echo planar (EPI) images were acquired after sagittal localization and a manual shim procedure. EPI images were acquired in 23 contiguous 5 mm axial slices per brain volume positioned parallel to the AC–PC line. Images were acquired using echoplanar single shot gradient echo T2* weighting. The following imaging parameters were used: matrix was 64 mm × 64 mm; TR = 2000 ms; TE = 40 ms; field of view = 240 mm; voxels were 3.75 mm × 3.75 mm × 5 mm. After EPI acquisition, a high resolution T1 weighted anatomical image was acquired to aid with spatial normalization. A standardized magnetization prepared gradient echo sequence was used (180, 1 mm sagittal slices, FOV = 256, NEX = 1, TR = 11.4 ms, TE = 4.4 ms, matrix = 256 × 256, TI = 300 ms, bandwidth = 130 Hz/pixel, 33 kHz/256 pixels).

2.4. Analysis of the results

Because our aim was to study the neural correlates of processes occurring prior to reward delivery, only the choice selection and reward anticipation processes were examined.

2.4.1. Behavioral performance

Performance on the WOF is presented as means and standard deviations for selected options, ratings of confidence in outcome, and reaction times to button press in the selection and anticipation phases. Analysis of the distribution of the selected options, the levels of confidence, and reaction times across conditions was performed using repeated measures ANOVAs.

2.4.2. Imaging data

For each subject, reconstructed fMRI images were analyzed using Medx software for excessive motion. Data from subjects moving more than 1.5 mm in any plane were discarded. All subsequent analyses were conducted with SPM software (SPM99b, Welcome Department of Neurology) and other routines written in Matlab 5.3. Preprocessing of data included, in turn, correction for the sequence of slice acquisition, motion correction, spatial normalization to the Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) T1-weighted template image supplied with SPM99, and spatial smoothing (isotropic Gaussian kernel, FWHM = 8 mm). After preprocessing, fMRI images were visually inspected for quality of normalization procedure.
The analysis of the neuroimaging data was based on the assumption that the transform of neural signal to fMRI signal is linear and time-invariant, with a known impulse response function (Zarahn, 2000). This assumption has been shown to be acceptable for events of duration greater than 2 s (Buckner, 1998). At the individual subject level (i.e., time series), event-related response amplitudes were estimated using the general linear model (GLM) for each crossing of the 3 (three processes, selection, anticipation, feedback) × 6 (six conditions: 90, 10, 70, 30, 50 slices and monochromatic wheel) factorial design. In other words, each event (total number of events = 18 events: 3 processes × 6 conditions) was coded separately. The waveform used to model each type of event-related response in the GLM was a rectangular pulse of the duration of the event convolved with the synthetic hemodynamic response function provided by SPM. Contrast images were generated for each subject using pairwise comparisons of the event-related BOLD responses across event types. Prior to group-level analysis, each contrast image was divided by the subject-specific voxel time series means, yielding values proportional to percentage fMRI signal change. These normalized contrast images were then subjected to another level of smoothing with an isotropic gaussian kernel (FWHM = 11.4) to mitigate any non-stationarity in the spatial autocorrelation structure introduced by the previous step.
For all group-level analyses, a random effects model was employed to permit population-level inferences (Holmes & Friston, 1998). Two sets of analyses were conducted. In the first set of analyses, the selection phase and anticipation phase were analyzed in contrasts of monetary conditions (10/90, 30/70,50/50 monetary wheels) versus control condition (monochromatic wheel): [monetary selection > control selection], and [monetary anticipation > control anticipation].
The second set of analyses examined the modulation of activation by reward/risk. High-reward/risk events included the conditions when subjects chose the 10% probability of winning US$ 7 and the 30% probability of winning US$ 2. Low-reward/risk events included the conditions when subjects chose the 90% probability of winning US$ 1 and the 70% probability of winning US$ 1. To maximize the number of replications of the different event types, the 10 and 30% choice events were combined into a single high-reward/risk condition, and the 70 and 90% choice events were combined into a single low-reward/risk condition. Thus, the comparison of reward/risk amounted to a contrast of 10 and 30 versus 70 and 90 in both the selection and the anticipation phases.
We used a whole brain analysis, because we were interested in the overall patterns of activation. This is the most conservative approach and indicates the regions most tightly associated with the processes of choice selection and anticipation. For each comparison, a voxel-wise t-test map of the whole brain was computed using a statistical threshold set at P < 0.001 uncorrected. In addition, we included a region of interest analysis (ROI) for the orbitofrontal cortex, based on its widely recognized role in decision-making (Bechara et al., 1996, Elliott et al., 1999, Ernst et al., 2002; Montague & Berns, 2002; Rolls, 2000). We used four regions of interest (ROIs), including right and left medial ROIs [gyrus rectus and medial orbital gyrus; Brodmann area (BA) 11] and right and left lateral ROIs [lateral and posterior orbital gyri, orbital portion of the inferior frontal gyrus; BA 47 and 11] (London et al., 2004). The boundaries of these regions were ascertained from standard anatomical criteria on a single MNI template and applied to all normalized brains at the group level. Statistical threshold was set at P < 0.05 with small volume correction (Worsley et al., 1996).

2.5. Sample

Demographic characteristics in means (standard deviation) of the 17 participants (10 males and 7 females; 16 right-handed) who completed the study were age 28.9 (4.9) years, IQ 119 (13), and Hollingshead socioeconomic status 53 (30).

2.6. Cognitive performance

Subjects selected the low-reward/risk options 73.2% (26.6) of the time in the 90/10 condition and 78.7% (18.8) of the time in the 70/30 condition. These choices were significantly different from chance (t16 = 5.07, P = 0.000). Reaction time for the selection of low-reward/risk options (1377.3 ms ± 225.9) was significantly shorter than that of high-reward/risk options (1566.2 ms ± 259.7) (F1,15 = 6.53, P = 0.02). As expected, subjects were significantly less confident in winning after a high-reward/risk choice (10 and 30; mean rating = 2.18 ± 0.69) than after a low-reward/risk choice (70 and 90; mean rating = 3.52 ± 0.40) (F1,15 = 55.52, P < 0.0001).

2.7. fMRI: monetary conditions (10/90, 30/70, 50/50 wheels) versus control condition (monochromatic wheel)

2.7.1. Selection (Table 1, Fig. 2)

The results are consistent with our hypotheses that predicted activation of brain regions associated with attention, conflict monitoring, computation, and coding of probability/reward during selection. These regions included the left > right dorsal stream of visual processing (occipito-parietal pathway: BA 17, 18, and 40), the left prefrontal cortex, including dorsolateral prefrontal (BA 9), dorsal anterior cingulate (BA 32), and supplementary motor (BA 6) areas (Table 1, Fig. 2a).

Table 1. Regional activations in the comparison of choice selection between the monetary conditions and the control condition, and in the comparison of reward anticipation between the monetary conditions and the control condition

Selection: monetary > controlAnticipation: monetary > control
T (peak)k (cluster)x, y, z (mm)RegionsBASideT (peak)k (cluster)x, y, z (mm)RegionsBASide
Frontal
 5.872227−24, 4, 50gfd6Left4.224480, 20, 50gfd8Med
 5.46−8, 16, 52gfd6Left4.65−2, 6, 66gfs6Left
 4.68−38, 2, 34gfm9Left3.75910, 40, 14gc32Right
 4.75−6, 24, 42gc32Left4.32503−32, −24, 68gprc4Left
 4.59−8, 28, 36gc32Left4.31−24, −32, 72gpoc4Left
 4.460, 22, 42gc32Left4.19−20, −18, 72gprc3/1Left
 4.33−10, 32, 32gc32Left
 4.034, 24, 40gc32right
 3.774, 20, 42gc32right
 4.025628, 2, 46gfm6Right
 3.742−48, 24, 32gfm9Left

Parietal
 6.153965−32, −54, 44lpi40Left5.891968−24, −66, 56lps7Left
 4.4512544, −38, 42lpi40Right4.95−42, −44, 38lpi40Left
 4.6628726, −60, 42lpi40Right4.8−50, −40, 52lpi40Left

Temporal
 4.63153534, −56, −10gf37Left4.615040, 16, −30gts38Right

Insula
3.7365−34, 20, −4insLeft
5.28−26, 12, −20insLeft

Occipital
 6.633965−24, −96, −14gf18Left
 5.1−34, −88, 12gom18Left
 6.1153524, −94, −8goi17Right
 5.1136, −82, 12gom19Right

Striatum
4.831718, 6, −10naccRight
4.41365−10, 6, −14naccLeft

Midbrain
3.71−4, −14, −20sn/vtaLeft
Whole brain map threshold is set at P < 0.001 uncorrected. Coordinates are based on the MNI brain template. BA: Brodmann area; gc: cingulate gyrus; gf: fusiform gyrus; gfd: dorsal frontal gyrus; gfm: middle frontal gyrus; gfs: superior frontal gyrus; goi: inferior occipital gyrus; gom: middle occipital gyrus; gpoc: postcentral gyrus; gprc: precentral gyrus; gts: superior temporal gyrus; ins: insula; lpi: inferior parietal lobe; lps: superior parietal lobe; nacc: nucleus accumbens; sn/vta: substantia nigra/ventral tegmental area.
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Fig. 2. Contrast of [monetary selection > control selection]: (a) the t-statistic SPM glass brain maps (P < 0.001, uncorrected) (MNI brain template); (b) activation of the anterior cingulate. The cross hair point locates the peak activation in the left anterior cingulate with MNI coordinates of x = −6 mm, y = 24 mm, z =42 mm.

The ROI analysis showed that bilateral medial and lateral orbitofrontal cortex areas (BA 11 and 47) were activated during selection (Table 2).

Table 2. Orbitofrontal activations in the comparison of choice selection between the monetary conditions and the control condition, and in the comparison of reward anticipation between the monetary conditions and the control condition

Selection: monetary > controlAnticipation: monetary > control
T (peak)k (cluster)x, y, z (mm)BAT (peak)k (cluster)x, y, z (mm)BA
Lat left orbitofrontal cortex
 3.4723−50, 16, −2475.07184−26, 14, −2047
 3.34112−30, 28, −8473.48−34, 26, −247
3.46−38, 24, −247

Lat right orbitofrontal cortex
 3.4923742, 54, −847
 3.4430, 52, −1611
 3.4028, 50, −1211

Med left orbitofrontal cortex
 3.2929−20, 36, −14113.201−22, 22, −1411

Med right orbitofrontal cortex
 3.39428, 50, −1811
 3.381924, 50, −1411
Regions of interest (ROI) analyses: lateral (Lat) left orbitofrontal cortex (orbitofrontal cortex), Lat right orbitofrontal cortex, medial (Med) left orbitofrontal cortex, and Med right orbitofrontal cortex. Statistical threshold is set at P < 0.05 after small volume correction of the ROI.

2.7.2. Anticipation (Table 1, Fig. 3)

Ventral striatum, as predicted, was significantly activated during anticipation. Overall, regions activated during anticipation of a monetary reward more than during anticipation of a neutral outcome included bilateral nucleus accumbens (ventral striatum), left parietal cortex (BA 40, 7), left and medial prefrontal cortex (BA 6, 8), primary sensorimotor areas (BA 4, 3, 1), right anterior cingulate (BA 32), left insula, and left midbrain (Table 1, Fig. 3).
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Fig. 3. Contrast of [monetary anticipation > control anticipation]: (a) the t-statistic SPM glass brain maps (P < 0.001, uncorrected) (MNI brain template); and (b) activation of the ventral striatum. The cross hair point locates the peak activation in the right nucleus accumbens with MNI coordinates of x = 8 mm, y = 6 mm, z = −10 mm.

The ROI analysis showed that left lateral and medial orbitofrontal cortical regions (BA 47 and 11) were also activated during anticipation (Table 2).

2.8. Modulation by reward/risk ([high-reward/risk events: 10 and 30] > [low-reward/risk events: 90 and 70])

2.8.1. Selection (Table 3, Fig. 4)

As expected, right and left ventral striatum and right anterior cingulate regions (BA 24 and 32) were activated significantly more in high-reward/risk selections than in low-reward/risk selections. Other regions activated in this contrast included bilaterally, parietal cortex (BA 7, 40) and premotor cortex (BA 6), and, in the left hemisphere, cerebellum, fusiform gyrus, and ventral prefrontal cortex (BA 45) (Table 3, Fig. 4).

Table 3. Modulation by reward/risk: selection of high-reward/risk options > selection of low-reward/risk options

Selection: high reward/risk > low reward/risk
T (peak)k (cluster)x, y, z (mm)RegionsBASide
Frontal
 5.41574628, 14, 58gfs6Right
 4.354, 20, −6gc24Right
 4.848, 18, −8gc32Right
 4.0712, 32, −4gc24Right
 3.8520, 40, −2gc32Right
 3.8118, 52, 4gc32Right
 4.15209−42, 0, 26gprc6Left
 3.869−46, 40, 2gfi45Left

Parietal
 5.21539−38, −70, 42lpi7Left
 4.79227552, −38, 38lpi40Right
 4.6252, −48, 52lpi40Right

Temporal
 3.881658, −46, −16gf37Right

Insula


Occipital
 3.86539−34, −74, 26gos19Left
 4.41520−32, −88, 6gom18Left
 4.28−32, −82, −6goi18Left
 4.2−40, −86, −10goi19Left

Cerebellum
 4.2363−16, −84, −30cerebel.Left
 4.0111−42, −64, −34cerebel.Left

Striatum
 5.8857468, 6, −8naccRight
 5.44−12, 0, −8naccLeft
Coordinates are based on the MNI brain template. No brain areas were activated in the modulation of anticipation by high risk/reward. Whole brain map threshold is set at P < 0.001 uncorrected. BA: Brodmann area; cerebel: cerebellum; gc: cingulate gyrus; gf: fusiform gyrus; gfd: medial frontal gyrus; gfi: inferior frontal gyrus; gfs: superior frontal gyrus; goi: inferior occipital gyrus; gom: middle occipital gyrus; gos: superior occipital gyrus; gprc: precentral gyrus; lpi: inferior parietal lobe; nacc: nucleus accumbens.
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Fig. 4. Contrast of selection [high reward/risk > low reward/risk]: (a) the t-statistic SPM glass brain maps (P < 0.001, uncorrected) (MNI brain template); and (b) activation of the ventral striatum. The cross hair point locates the peak activation in the right nucleus accumbens with MNI coordinates of x = 8 mm, y = 6 mm, z = −8 mm.

The ROI analysis showed that the orbitofrontal cortex (BA 47), bilaterally but predominantly the right lateral region, was also more engaged in high-reward/risk than in low-reward/risk during the selection phase (Table 4).

Table 4. Modulation by reward/risk of the orbitofrontal cortex: selection of high-reward/risk options > selection of low-reward/risk options

Selection: high reward/risk > low reward/risk
T (peak)k (cluster)x, y, z (mm)BA
Lat left orbitofrontal cortex
 3.73164−44, 42, −247
 3.31−32, 56, −847

Lat right orbitofrontal cortex
 5.1332422, 16, −1847
 3.9522, 32, −847
 3.6226, 38, −447
 3.5426, 46, −447
 3.4828, 34, −447

Med left orbitofrontal cortex


Med right orbitofrontal cortex
 5.125714, 18, −1425
Regions of interest (ROI) analyses: lateral (Lat) left orbitofrontal cortex (orbitofrontal cortex), Lat right orbitofrontal cortex, medial (Med) left orbitofrontal cortex and Med right orbitofrontal cortex. Statistical threshold is set at P < 0.05 after small volume correction of the ROI. No areas in the orbitofrontal cortex were activated in the modulation of anticipation by high risk/reward.

2.8.2. Anticipation (Table 3, Fig. 3b)

In contrast to the selection phase, and to our predictions, no brain regions were significantly more activated in conditions of high-reward/risk choices (10 and 30) than in conditions of low-reward/risk choices (70 and 90). Similarly, the ROI analysis did not detect significant activation in the orbitofrontal cortex for this comparison.

3. Discussion

Knowledge of the neural systems involved in choice selection and reward anticipation is likely to be crucial for understanding the behavioral difficulties of some patients with frontal lesions and frontotemporal dementia. At present, the studies that have examined the neural substrates of decision-making (Paulus et al., 2001, Rogers et al., 1999; Verney, Brown, Frank, & Paulus, 2003; Volz et al., 2003) have used block designs, preventing evaluation of the neural responses to choice selection separately from those to anticipation of reward. Here, we used a paradigm in which the conditions are serially presented, and which is suited for rapid event-related fMRI designs. Paradigms such as the present one but also several others (Knutson et al., 2001a, Knutson et al., 2001b, Knutson et al., 2003; O’Doherty et al., 2002) carry the risk of having one process contaminated by the preceding process. Under our methodological assumptions, the level of contamination should be minimal. In addition, the advantage of using this type of paradigm is its ecological validity. Finally, the differential impact of our task manipulation (high-reward/risk choices relative to low-reward/risk choices) on the neural response during choice selection and anticipation of reward supports a different neural response to selection and to anticipation.
The results of this study were generally in line with our predictions. Overall, participants performed the task as expected. High-risk choices (low probability of high gains) tended to be avoided (Kahneman & Tversky, 2000), and the level of confidence in winning followed the probabilistic values of the cues. With regards to the fMRI data, two key findings emerged: (1) The selection phase predominantly recruited regions involved in visuo-spatial attention (occipito-parietal pathway), conflict monitoring (dorsal anterior cingulate), manipulation of quantities (parietal cortex), and preparation for action (premotor area), whereas the anticipation phase prominently recruited regions engaged in reward processes (ventral striatum). (2) The level of reward/risk associated with the participant’s choices had a differential influence on the neural responses during selection relative to anticipation. High-reward/risk conditions were associated with a greater neural response, in particular of the ventral striatum, during selection. However, this was not seen in anticipation.
Surprisingly, the orbitofrontal cortex was not among the regions activated in the whole brain analyses. However, using an a priori ROI approach, the orbitofrontal cortex, including both lateral and medial regions bilaterally (BA 11 and 47), was found to be significantly engaged in the selection process. Orbitofrontal cortex activation was also found during the anticipation process but only on the left side and to a lesser extent. Finally, selecting high-risk/reward options versus low-risk/reward options was associated with significant activation of the orbitofrontal cortex bilaterally. The greater orbitofrontal cortex involvement in selection, particularly for high-risk/reward options, rather than during anticipation, is consistent with other reports of its involvement in decision-making (Arana et al., 2003, Elliott et al., 1999, Elliott et al., 2000, Ernst et al., 2002, Rogers et al., 1999).

3.1. Selection phase

The cognitive processes involved in the selection phase include assessing the cue, particularly evaluating the spatial representation of probabilities; making a decision between two competing options, which involves the weighting of possible outcomes; and executing the selected course of action by pressing a button.
The activation pattern was consistent with the coding of these processes. The occipito-parietal activation maps the dorsal stream of visuospatial attention (Corbetta, 1993, Gitelman et al., 1999, Ungerleider et al., 1998), the dorsal anterior cingulate maps conflict monitoring, and the left premotor area maps motor preparation (Gitelman et al., 1999, Ungerleider et al., 1998). Although bilateral, the overall activation predominated on the left side. This left-sided engagement suggested that the task may rely on the analytical processing of information using language-based function rather than solely on the spatial image-based apprehension of the cues (Smith & Jonides, 1998). It was also consistent with the tendency toward left lateralization in mathematical tasks (Burbaud et al., 1999).
The left lateralization, however, contrasted with our previous work examining the neural substrates of decision-making using positron emission tomography paired with a gambling task (Ernst et al., 2002). In that study, right-sided prefrontal activation predominated. The gambling task (Bechara, Damasio, Damasio, & Anderson, 1994), however, differs fundamentally from the wheel of fortune task in the type of decisions it requires. Most notably, the decision-making in the gambling task was not based on a spatial representation of the value of the options, and did not involve the weighting of explicit dollar amounts. Outcomes in the gambling task could only be guessed upon learning the pattern of rewards and particularly punishments associated with specific options, whereas there was no learning effect in the wheel of fortune task, which presented explicitly the outcome value of each option. The gambling task involved a global rather than an analytical form of information processing, and global information processing seems to depend preferentially on right-sided structures (Hellige, 1996). A potentially greater reliance on verbal processing in the wheel of fortune could also account for preferentially left-sided activation, although we have no data to test this possibility.
The strong parietal activation was likely to reflect its role in computation (Dehaene et al., 1999) and in coding probability (Platt & Glimcher, 1999). Indeed, neuroimaging findings consistently have implicated the parietal cortex in mathematical computations (Dehaene et al., 1999), as well as in tasks probing how predictability modulates neural activity (Verney et al., 2003, Volz et al., 2003). The premotor cortical activation subserves preparation for action (Ramnani & Miall, 2003) or the selection of appropriate motor action based on target features (Corbetta, 1993).
The dorsal anterior cingulate, also known as the “cognitive cingulate” (Bush, Luu, & Posner, 2000), has been shown to be involved in processing reward magnitudes during the decision phase (Bush et al., 2002, Rogers et al., 2004) as well as monitoring competition and error detection (Bush et al., 2000). This area of the anterior cingulate maintains strong connections with lateral prefrontal cortex, parietal cortex, as well as premotor and supplementary motor areas (Devinsky, Morrell, & Vogt, 1995), which is consistent with the occipital–parietal–prefrontal pattern of activation associated with the selection phase. Of note, the affective rostral–ventral subdivision of the anterior cingulate was not significantly activated during the selection process, suggesting that the type of selection probed in this task did not involve strong emotional processing.
The relatively minor emotional involvement during the selection process seemed to be corroborated by the relatively weak activation of the orbitofrontal cortex during this phase, since this activation could be detected only after lowering the statistical threshold. The fact that the expected value of the stimuli, i.e., probability and magnitude of outcome, was clearly explicit could have minimized the recourse to heuristics or to the use of emotional learning to optimize choice selection. Although relatively less taxed than other structures, the orbitofrontal cortex was involved in the selection process bilaterally and both medially and laterally. Functional specialization of lateral and medial orbitofrontal cortex areas has been proposed in a number of studies, suggesting, for example, that lateral orbitofrontal cortex contributes to response suppression (Elliott et al., 2000) and medial orbitofrontal cortex to the integration of stimulus features into a value judgement of future outcomes (Arana et al., 2003). The present study was not designed to parse out response suppression versus representation of value. However, both of these processes may have been involved in the decision-making required by the wheel of fortune.

3.2. Anticipation phase

In contrast to the selection phase, the anticipation phase revolved around the expectation of a reward, but not around the relative weighting and computation of competing options or the resolution of conflicts. The ventral striatum has been shown to be particularly important in reward expectation (Schultz, 2002) and to be engaged in the anticipation of rewards in a number of neuroimaging studies. Activation of the ventral striatum has been associated with the prospect for higher monetary rewards (Breiter et al., 2001, Knutson et al., 2001a), pleasurable primary rewards delivered with greater unpredictability (Berns et al., 2001), and anticipation of a pleasant rather than unpleasant taste (O’Doherty et al., 2002). Consistent with these observations, the ventral striatum was prominently activated during the anticipation phase. In addition, the engagement of the parietal cortex during anticipation could be ascribed to the representation of the predictability of outcome (Platt & Glimcher, 1999; Verney et al., 2003, Volz et al., 2003). To a lesser degree than in the selection phase, the orbitofrontal cortex was also involved, but only on the left side.

4. Influence of high reward/risk on neural activation

In this study, effects of reward and risk could not be dissociated. The covariation of risk and reward was necessary to create competition between options, which was critical to elicit motivation and conflict between options. Higher reward was always associated with higher risk. Therefore, both the magnitude of the reward and the level of risk could have driven the activation of the ventral striatum and the right prefrontal cortex, which were the regions most strongly recruited during selection of high-reward/risk options. The behavioral data showed that low-risk options, despite their low-reward, were the preferred (most frequently chosen) options. Therefore, the selection of high-risk options was likely to be more effortful, conflictual, emotionally taxing, and arousing relative to low-risk options. Based on this interpretation, we expected behaviors associated with the selection of high-reward/risk to recruit more strongly structures coding for strength of reward, inhibition, and attention than behaviors associated with the selection of low-reward/risk options. Significant activations of bilateral ventral striatum and right-sided fronto-parietal cortex, including orbitofrontal cortex, in risky selections relative to safe selections were consistent with these predictions. The recruitment of the ventral striatum concured with its role in reward processes (Di Chiara, 1999; Wise & Rompre, 1989), in decision-making of individuals with lesions of ventromedial regions extending posteriorly to the ventral striatum (Bechara, Damasio, Tranel, & Anderson, 1998), and in the modulation of the execution of actions in response to cues in animal studies (Parkinson et al., 2002; Schoenbaum & Setlow, 2003). The right-sided prefrontal activation is consistent with its role in inhibition (Garavan, Ross, & Stein, 1999) and conflict processing (Manes et al., 2002).
In contrast to our predictions, activation of the ventral striatum was not greater in high-reward/risk anticipation than in low-reward/risk anticipation. This suggested that both low- and high-risk/reward conditions activated similarly the ventral striatum, which was significantly engaged during anticipation versus control. As already mentioned, anticipation is concerned mainly with the outcome (reward) and its prospect value (Kahneman & Tversky, 2000). Therefore, the absence of difference in ventral striatal activation suggested that the prospect values of the high-reward/risk and low-reward/risk options were comparable, or that their differential impacts on ventral striatum could not be detected. The prospect values of these options could be estimated roughly as the product of the probability of occurrence and magnitude of the reward: 0.65 for the high-reward/risk options (0.7 for the 10% chance of winning US$ 7 and 0.6 for the 30% chance of winning US$ 2) and 0.80 for the low-reward/risk options (0.9 for the 90% chance of winning US$ 1 and 0.7 for the 70% chance of winning US$ 1) (Kahneman & Tversky, 2000). The prospect value (PV) of the low-reward/risk options (PV = 0.80) was thus higher than that of the high-reward/risk options (PV = 0.65), which was consistent with the observed preference for selecting low-reward/risk options. How prospect values are computed in the brain, and particularly how they influence reward structures such as the ventral striatum, is currently unclear, even though previous neuroimaging studies evidence ventral striatal involvement in both reward (Breiter et al., 2001, Knutson et al., 2001a) and unpredictability (Berns, Cohen, & Mintun, 1997; Berns et al., 2001, Volz et al., 2003). Studies reporting greater ventral striatal activity during anticipation of larger monetary rewards utilized different designs, including notably the absence of a decision-making phase, and the lack of manipulation of the probability of outcome (Breiter et al., 2001, Knutson et al., 2001a, Knutson et al., 2003). In addition, Knutson et al., 2003, Knutson et al., 2001a embedded a reaction time task in the anticipation phase, which added an effect of “motivation for action” to a pure anticipation process. In this way, Knutson et al., 2001a, Knutson et al., 2003 probed structures that subserve efforts expended to receive a reward. Breiter et al. (2001) used three different spinners of different overall values: a good spinner associated with gains; an intermediate spinner with gains and losses, and a bad spinner with losses. All three spinners also contained a null outcome. Each spinner had three possible outcomes of equal likelihood of occurrence. Therefore, the neural activation associated with anticipation of outcome reflected the response to the overall value of the spinner and not to the combination of varying monetary values and varying probabilities of occurrence.

5. Conclusion

In summary, choice selection involved predominantly a neural circuit subserving cognitive processes associated with attending to and weighting spatially represented quantities. Structures implicated in emotion processing were overall not prominently involved in this phase. Ventral striatal activation was detected when subjects decided to select a high-reward/risk option over a low-reward/risk option, indicating that this reward-related structure contributed to the process of selection, albeit mostly during conflictual choices. Ventral striatum was also implicated in anticipation of both high-reward/risk and low-reward/risk options, but its activation did not differentiate between these options. These findings support the notions that (1) distinct, although overlapping, pathways subserve the processes of selection and anticipation in a two-choice task of probabilistic monetary reward; (2) taking a risk and awaiting the consequence of a risky decision seem to affect neural activity differently in selection and anticipation; and thus (3) common structures, including the ventral striatum, are modulated differently by risk/reward during selection and anticipation. Particularly, these results suggest that the nature of the function of the ventral striatum and that of the orbitofrontal cortex in these two different phases of a goal-directed action, selection and anticipation, need to be further studied. To date, no studies have examined these two processes concomitantly in a single experiment.

Acknowledgements

We thank the staff of the NIH MR Center for making this study possible, Harvey Iwamoto for his assistance in programming the task, and Andrea Hoberman, Leanne Montgomery, and Alison Merikangas for their help in running the study.

References

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+Brain region +a +

+Talairach coordinates +

+Significance of t + +max + (P) +b +

+Number of voxels +c +

+x +

+y +

+z +

Right cerebellum

36

-52

-36

-3.58 (0.0005)

1.2

Left DLPFC (Brodmann 47)

-39

20

-3

-3.20 (0.0014)

0.4

Right cerebellum

11

-61

-36

-3.11 (0.0018)

0.3

Left precuneus (Brodmann 30)

-10

-55

19

-3.28 (0.0011)

0.3

Right mesial frontal lobe (Brodmann 8)

5

23

31

-3.03 (0.0022)

0.2

Right mesial frontal lobe (Brodmann 8)

9

53

13

-3.11 (0.0018)

0.2

Left posterior-inferior lobe cerebellum

-32

-67

-40

-3.21 (0.0014)

0.2

Right middle temporal gyrus

47

-30

6

-3.18 (0.0015)

0.1

\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/ace/tests/weird_data/16085533.html b/ace/tests/weird_data/16085533.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5b96314 --- /dev/null +++ b/ace/tests/weird_data/16085533.html @@ -0,0 +1,2902 @@ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Instructed smoking expectancy modulates cue-elicited neural activity: A preliminary study - PMC + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Skip to main content + + + + + + +
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NIHPA Author Manuscripts logoLink to NIHPA Author Manuscripts
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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2009 Jan 30.
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+Published in final edited form as: Nicotine Tob Res. 2005 Aug;7(4):637–645. doi: 10.1080/14622200500185520 +
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Instructed smoking expectancy modulates cue-elicited neural activity: A preliminary study

+Stephen J Wilson +1, Michael A Sayette +1, Mauricio R Delgado +1, Julie A Fiez +1 +
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PMCID: PMC2633119  NIHMSID: NIHMS86240  PMID: 16085533 +
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Abstract

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In recent years, research applying functional neuroimaging to the study of cue-elicited drug craving has emerged. This research has begun to identify a distributed system of brain activity during drug craving. A review of this literature suggested that expectations regarding the opportunity to use a drug affected the pattern of neural responses elicited by drug cues. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we examined the effects of smoking expectancy on the neural response to neutral (e.g., roll of tape) and smoking-related (a cigarette) stimuli in male cigarette smokers deprived of nicotine for 8 hr. As predicted, several brain regions (e.g., the anterior cingulate cortex) exhibited differential activation during cigarette versus neutral cue exposure. Moreover, we found that subregions of the prefrontal cortex (i.e., ventromedial, ventrolateral, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices) showed cue-elicited activation that was modulated by smoking expectancy. These results highlight the importance of perceived drug use opportunity in the neurobiological response to drug cues.

Introduction

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Drug craving remains a construct of central interest to addiction researchers. Efforts to elucidate craving have been improved in recent years with the advent of functional neuroimaging technologies. Methods such as positron emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) provide a means for directly investigating the neural substrates of craving in humans. Within the past decade, brain imaging studies examining craving have proliferated. The majority of these studies have measured the blood flow response in individuals addicted to drugs while they are presented with drug-related stimuli designed to elicit craving (e.g., pictures of drug paraphernalia). Thus far, a distributed system of brain regions has been associated with cue-elicited urge, including medial temporal lobe structures (amygdala, hippocampus, parahippocampus), orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) (Franken, 2003; Hommer, 1999; See, 2002; Wilson, Sayette, & Fiez, 2004).

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It has been demonstrated behaviorally that craving may be modulated by the context associated with cue presentation, including whether participants anticipate using the drugs to which they are being exposed (i.e., perceived drug use opportunity; Wertz & Sayette, 2001b). When instructed that drugs are available for consumption during an experiment, individuals produce distinct affective (Carter & Tiffany, 2001; Sayette et al., 2003) and physiological (Carter & Tiffany, 2001; Lazev, Herzog, & Brandon, 1999; Zinser, Fiore, Davidson, & Baker, 1999) responses, and report substantially higher craving (Carter & Tiffany, 2001; Droungas, Ehrman, Childress, & O'Brien, 1995; Juliano & Brandon, 1998; Sayette et al., 2003) than when instructed that drugs are not available for an extended period of time. For instance, smokers told that they could smoke soon showed greater attentional bias to smoking-related words than did smokers told they could not (Wertz & Sayette, 2001a).

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To date, neuroimaging studies of craving have not explicitly manipulated perceived drug-use opportunity, making it difficult to assess the degree to which regions observed in previous studies may respond to the perception of drug availability as opposed to other factors affecting craving. (Participants in a study by Grant and colleagues [1996] were told that they would be allowed to self-administer the cocaine presented to them following completion of experimental procedures in order to increase craving elicited during drug cue exposure. However, drug availability was not of central interest in the study.) One factor that has varied across cue exposure studies has been the treatment status of participants. We have suggested that treatment status affects drug use opportunity (Wertz & Sayette, 2001b). Presumably, those seeking treatment (i.e., abstinence) do not plan on using the drug, whereas active users participating in studies intend to use the drug as soon as possible. Consistent with this position, individuals enrolled in drug treatment programs exhibit responses consistent with low expectations of drug use opportunity, whereas those not in treatment exhibit responses consistent with high expectations of drug use opportunity (Wertz & Sayette, 2001b).

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These effects appear to extend to neuroimaging data, with distinct neurobiological responses elicited by drug cue presentation, particularly in subdivisions of prefrontal cortex (PFC), determined by whether or not the individuals under study are undergoing treatment. In a review of neuroimaging studies of drug cue reactivity in humans, we observed that activation of DLPFC and OFC have been reported almost exclusively by studies in which participants were active drug users (Wilson et al., 2004), whereas other regions associated with cue-elicited craving are seemingly unaffected by treatment status. For instance, activation of the ACC—the region most frequently found in previous studies—is approximately equally distributed across studies employing actively using and treatment-seeking participants. We have since located four more recent neuroimaging studies examining drug cue exposure (Brody et al., 2004; Grüsser et al., in press; Kilts, Gross, Ely, & Drexler, 2004; Myrick et al., 2004). Of these studies, one exclusively recruited participants actively using drugs (Myrick et al., 2004) and one recruited only users in treatment (Grüsser et al., in press). The results of these studies generally conform to previously observed patterns and do not alter conclusions drawn in the prior review (Wilson et al., 2004).

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Because treatment status represents just one way to affect perceived drug use opportunity, we also posited that other contexts might yield different effects (Wilson et al., 2004). Specifically, the pattern of cue-elicited neural activity in treatment seekers may differ from that produced in actively using addicts who are explicitly told that they may not use drugs for a long period of time. In the former case, individuals are attempting to quit (i.e., they are abstinence-seeking) and presumably do not intend to consume drugs, whereas in the latter circumstance individuals desire to use (i.e., they are abstinence-avoidant) but are prevented from doing so by situational constraints (Tiffany, 1990). Both of these conditions are ones in which drug use opportunity is absent. For abstinence-seekers, this perception is internally motivated, whereas it is imposed externally for abstinence-avoiders. These distinct states could conceivably influence the neural activity observed during drug cue exposure in different ways.

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The aim of this preliminary fMRI study was to begin to examine the impact of perceived smoking opportunity on the neural response to drug cues in abstinence-avoidant smokers. Based on our prior review (Wilson et al., 2004), we predicted that the ACC would exhibit cue-elicited activation independent of perceived smoking opportunity. We also hypothesized that cue-evoked activation of DLPFC and OFC would be modulated by smoking expectancy.

Method

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Participants

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A total of 22 right-handed, male, native-English-speaking cigarette smokers participated in the experiment (mean age=24.4 years, SD=4.9). All participants reported smoking 20–40 cigarettes/day for at least 24 continuous months (mean cigarettes/day=21.6, SD=2.7). Participants were recruited through advertisements in local newspapers. Exclusionary criteria included dependence on any drug other than nicotine or caffeine, illiteracy, or medical conditions that ethically contraindicated nicotine administration. Our decision not to exclude caffeine-dependent participants is consistent with most studies in this area. Nonetheless, research suggests that caffeine consumption can influence neural activity as measured by fMRI (e.g., Laurienti et al., 2002). We did not assess caffeine consumption in our participants and thus cannot evaluate the degree to which it may have influenced our results.

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Written informed consent was obtained from all participants. Participants were paid for participation, and all procedures were approved by the institutional review board of the University of Pittsburgh. Data from two participants were excluded from all analyses because of excessive head motion during scanning; subsequent analyses are reported on the remaining 20 participants.

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Participants were invited to participate in a 2-hr study. They were randomly assigned to one of two experimental conditions. Half of the participants were told they would be able to smoke during a break at the midpoint of the experimental session (Instructed-Yes; n=10). The other half were told they could not smoke during the experimental session and would have to wait approximately 2 hr before smoking (Instructed-No; n=10). Age, number of cigarettes smoked per day, years smoking, number of quit attempts, and years of education were similar across instructed smoking expectancy conditions (p values >.05; Table 1).

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Table 1.

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Participant demographic characteristics (means with standard deviation).

+
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Instructed-Yes
(n=10)
Instructed-No
(n=10)
Age (years)24.1 (4.3)25.3 (5.9)
Cigarettes/day21.3 (2.2)22.0 (3.4)
Years smoking7.8 (1.9)8.1 (4.8)
Number of quit
attempts
3.4 (4.9)1.0 (1.2)
Education (years)13.4 (1.7)13.1 (1.3)
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Cue exposure procedure

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Participants completed two cue exposure runs (Figure 1), during which they were asked to hold and look at either (a) stimuli designed to elicit minimal changes in craving (i.e., neutral objects) or (b) stimuli designed to elicit robust increases in craving (one of their own cigarettes). Each cue exposure run began with a 48-s resting baseline epoch during which no objects were held. After the initial rest period, the first cue of the run was placed in the participant's left hand and instructions identifying the object were delivered over an intercom system. After 74 s, the object was removed. A second resting baseline epoch lasting 74 s followed removal of the object. The second cue of the run and identifying instructions were then presented and the object was held for 74 s. Participants were explicitly instructed to passively view each of the objects while they held them by looking at a reflection of their hand in a mirror positioned above their head. This mirror was adjusted prior to the onset of each scanning run for each participant to ensure that he could clearly see the reflection of his hand. Cues were presented in a fixed order. During the first cue exposure run, participants were presented with a small yellow notepad (neutral object) and a white plastic golf ball (neutral object). This run allowed participants to acclimate to the task. During the second run, participants were presented with a roll of black electrical tape (neutral object) and one of their cigarettes (craving-eliciting object).

+

Figure 1.

+

Figure 1

+ +

Schematic diagram of the cue exposure procedure. During each cue exposure run, subjects completed the following sequence: an initial 48-s resting baseline epoch during which no objects were held, presentation of first object for a period of 74 s, a second 74-s resting baseline epoch, followed by the second object presented for 74 s. Neutral object 1 (notepad) and neutral object 2 (plastic golf ball) were presented during run 1. Neutral object 3 (roll of electrical tape) and cigarette were presented during run 2.

Urge rating assessment

+

Participants verbally rated their urge to smoke on a scale from 0 (“absolutely no urge to smoke at all”) to 100 (“strongest urge to smoke I've ever experienced”). Urge ratings were provided immediately before the start of each of the two cue exposure runs. Participants also rated their urge at the completion of each run. Thus, four urge ratings were obtained from each participant. Ideally, each of these ratings would have been obtained during stimulus exposure (i.e., while participants were holding each object); however, we decided to assess urge preceding each run (urge #1 and urge #3) rather than during exposure to the first object of the run in order to avoid eliciting unwanted neural activity and because of practical constraints (e.g., difficulty communicating with participants over scanner noise). Urge ratings obtained at the completion of each run (urge #2 and urge #4) occurred after fMRI data acquisition had terminated and while participants were still holding the second object of the run.

Procedure

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Participants who responded to the advertisements completed a preliminary screening interview over the phone. Eligible participants visited the lab for three sessions: a more thorough screening assessment (session 1), a session in which abstinence instructions were provided (session 2), and the experimental session (session 3). Sessions 2 and 3 were conducted 8 hr apart on the same day. During session 1, participants provided an expired-air carbon monoxide (CO) sample (CO #1), which was used to verify smoking status. Session 2 occurred 8 hr before the experimental session, during which subjects returned to the laboratory to smoke one of their cigarettes. After the subject smoked the cigarette, a second CO sample was obtained (CO #2) to provide a baseline for comparison with levels obtained at the start of the experimental session. Subsequently all participants were instructed not to drink alcohol or use tobacco products or other drugs for the 8 hr before they arrived at the laboratory to participate in the experiment. Participants then presented their packs of cigarettes and lighters to the experimenter and were permitted to leave the laboratory. Experimental sessions were scheduled to begin between 16.00 hr and 18.00 hr. To check compliance with deprivation instructions, participants reported the last time they smoked a cigarette and a third CO sample was obtained (CO #3). For the third CO assessment, samples exceeding half of the CO #2 value or 16 parts per million resulted in exclusion from the study.

+

Immediately before scanning began, participants were given instructions regarding whether they would be permitted to smoke during the experimental session. Because all participants were informed that the experimental session would last for 2 hr, Instructed-No participants expected a significant delay before having the opportunity to smoke (Juliano & Brandon, 1998). For Instructed-Yes participants, smoking expectancy instructions were delivered in a room close to that housing the MRI scanner by an experimenter standing in front of a sign designating the room as a “smoking area for research purposes” (actual smoking took place outside). This approach was used to enhance the likelihood that these participants would anticipate the opportunity to smoke almost immediately after cigarette cue exposure (i.e., that they would be able to smoke after a short trip down the hall). At this point, participants completed the first of two cue presentation runs. Participants then completed a guessing task involving monetary gains or losses (Delgado, Nystrom, Fissell, Noll, & Fiez, 2000) for approximately 45 min (data from this task are not presented herein).

+

Participants then completed the second cue presentation run. While holding the cigarette during the second run, Instructed-Yes participants were told that in 40 s they would be removed from the scanner and would be permitted to immediately smoke the cigarette they were holding. Instructed-No participants were told they would be removed from the scanner in 40 s but would not be able to smoke the cigarette they were holding. Following self-reported craving assessment, all participants were removed from the scanner for a brief break (about 5 min), and participants who were told they would be permitted to smoke were escorted outside, where they were permitted to smoke a cigarette at their own pace. Afterward, participants were returned to the scanner to complete approximately 45 additional minutes of the guessing task (data not presented) and were then debriefed.

fMRI data acquisition and processing

+

Participants were scanned using a conventional 1.5-T GE Signa whole-body magnet and standard radio frequency coil. A structural series of 36 contiguous oblique-axial slices (3.75×3.75×3.8 mm voxels) parallel to the AC-PC line was collected using a standard T1-weighted pulse sequence. Functional images were acquired in the same plane as the structural series with coverage limited to the 20 center slices using a T2*-weighted one-shot spiral pulse sequence (TE=35 ms, TR=1500 ms, FOV=24 cm, flip angle=70°). fMRI data analysis was conducted using the Neuroimaging Software package (NIS 3.5), developed at the University of Pittsburgh and Princeton University, as implemented in the Functional Imaging Software Widgets graphical computing environment (Fissell et al., 2003). Following reconstruction, single-subject data were corrected for motion using Automated Image Registration (AIR 3.08; Woods, Cherry, & Mazziotta, 1992) and adjusted for drift between runs. After stripping to remove skull, structural images from each participant were coregistered to a common reference anatomy (Woods, Mazziotta, & Cherry, 1993). To form a composite dataset for group-level statistical analyses, functional images were transformed into the same space, globally mean-normalized to minimize differences in image intensity between participants, and smoothed using a three-dimensional Gaussian filter (6-mm FWHM) to account for between-subject anatomical differences. Group-based statistical images were visualized and transformed into standard stereotaxic space (Talairach & Tournoux, 1988) using the Analysis of Functional NeuroImages software package (AFNI 2.6; Cox, 1996).

fMRI data analysis

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The set of coregistered functional data was used in all voxel-based statistical analyses, although single-subject data were inspected to confirm consistency of results across subjects. The fMRI signal averaged over the final 48 s of cue exposure for each object was the blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) response of interest. The initial 26 s of each object exposure epoch was removed to allow for stabilization of responses corresponding to instruction delivery. The first cue exposure run allowed participants to acclimate to holding the objects while in the MRI scanner and was not included in analyses.

+

To isolate regions of interest, we performed a voxel-wise mixed-model analysis of variance (ANOVA) with instruction set (Instructed-Yes vs. Instructed-No) as a between-subjects variable and cue (neutral vs. cigarette) as a repeated-measures variable. One objective of this analysis was the localization of regions that exhibited preferential activation by the cigarette cue (main effect of cue). For cue main effects, the voxel-wise significance threshold was set at a p value of less than .005 (uncorrected for multiple comparisons). Main effect regions of activation comprising fewer than five contiguous voxels were not considered significant, to reduce the risk of false positives (Forman et al., 1995).

+

In addition to an examination of cue main effects, the primary analytic objective was the identification of regions that demonstrated differential activation during cue exposure as a function of perceived drug use opportunity (instruction set×cue interaction). Given the exploratory nature of this study and the findings from our review pointing to DLPFC and OFC as regions most influenced by perceived drug use opportunity (Wilson et al., 2004), we chose a liberal voxel-wise alpha of p less than .01 (uncorrected for multiple comparisons) and spatial extent threshold of three or more contiguous voxels for detecting an interaction between instruction set and cue. To determine the nature of the interaction for regions meeting these criteria, we examined the effects of cue (neutral vs. cigarette) separately for each instructional group. We did not have specific a priori hypotheses regarding interaction effects occurring outside of DLPFC and OFC and, because our threshold does not provide adequate protection against Type I errors across the whole brain, activations falling beyond these regions are reported for completeness but are not a focus of discussion.

Results

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Self-reported urge

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A 2 (instruction)×4 (time) repeated-measures ANOVA, with the four urge ratings as a repeated-measures variable, revealed a main effect of time, F(3, 54)=24.9, p<.001. Urge ratings rose over time for both groups (mean urge ratings collapsed across groups: urge #1=60.5 [SD=21.8]; urge #2=61.4 [SD=22.9]; urge #3=71.2 [SD=25.4]; urge #4=74.4 [SD=23.3]). The instruction set main effect and the instruction set×time interaction were not significant. Though in the expected direction, the increase in urge during cigarette cue presentation for Instructed-Yes participants was not significantly higher than it was for Instructed-No participants.

Imaging data

+

Main effect of cue

+

Regions exhibiting a main effect of cue are summarized in Table 2. Several brain regions exhibited differential activation during cigarette versus neutral cue exposure, including multiple sites in the occipital, temporal, and parietal cortices; the posterior cingulate gyrus; thalamus; lentiform; and insula. Of particular relevance, significantly greater BOLD signal during cigarette relative to neutral cue exposure was detected in a large cluster in the anterior cingulate extending to medial frontal gyrus (BA 32/8).

+
Table 2.
+

Anatomical regions exhibiting a main effect of cue.

+
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Talairach coordinates
+
Anatomical regionBroadmann's areaxyzAverage F ratio
Cigarette>neutral
L ACC/superior frontal gyrus32−443815.02
R posterior cingulate gyrus234−432916.36
L superior/middle temporal gyrus21−50−23−123.81
R superior/middle temporal gyrus2156−28−320.99
L inferior parietal lobule39−54−682412.59
L superior occipital gyrus19−41−772914.06
L middle occipital gyrus18−26−96516.85
R cuneus1823−100−112.91
R fusiform gyrus23−96−1211.24
Neutral>cigarette
L cingulate gyrus24−14−143911.33
R cingulate gyrus2420−173813.03
L cingulate gyrus31−19−343911.4
R middle occipital gyrus1931−65611.6
L precuneus7−14−743511.77
L lingual gyrus/cuneus17/18/19−20−78515.46
L insula13−40−7−212.9
L thalamus−7−341213.07
R thalamus4−10013.05
L lentiform nucleus−19−13515.54
R lentiform nucleus21−9720.09
+ +

Note. Brodmann's areas and stereotaxic coordinates are given for local maxima of activation cluster in Talairach and Tournoux (1988) atlas space. ACC, anterior cingulate cortex; L, left; R, right.

Instruction set×cue interaction

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We were interested principally in identifying regions exhibiting an instruction set×cue interaction. Significant effects were observed in multiple areas in prefrontal, temporal, and occipital cortices, as well as in the parahippocampus. Several patterns underlying these interactions were found (summarized in Table 3). As predicted, significant interaction effects were found in bilateral DLPFC (middle/inferior frontal gyri, BA 9/46), ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC; medial frontal gyrus, BA 10), and left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC; inferior frontal gyrus, BA 47) (Figure 2). VMPFC and VLPFC are closely related to the medial and lateral sectors of OFC, respectively (Krawczyk, 2002).

+
Table 3.
+

Anatomical regions exhibiting a significant instruction set×cue interaction.

+
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Talairach coordinates
+
Anatomical regionBrodmann's
area
YNxyzAverage F ratio
L inferior frontal gyrus (DLPFC)9⇩ns−4862512.6
R middle frontal gyrus (DLPFC)9⇩ns30353712.05
R middle frontal gyrus (DLPFC)46⇩ns4618219.31
R superior frontal gyrus10ns⇧35591410.39
R middle frontal gyrus10⇩⇧3752−29.88
L inferior frontal gyrus (VLPFC)47⇩ns−4727−59.88
L superior frontal gyrus (VMPFC)10⇧ns−857−79.22
R precentral gyrus6⇧ns7041610.64
L middle temporal gyrus21⇧ns−67−7−112.41
R superior temporal gyrus22⇩ns487−610.32
L parahippocampal gyrus⇩ns−23−16−1010.31
L cuneus19ns⇧−8−963116.27
L inferior/middle occipital gyrus19/18⇩ns−36−68−611.44
+ +

Note. Brodmann's areas and stereotaxic coordinates are given for local maxima of activation cluster in Talairach and Tournoux (1988) atlas space. DLPFC, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex; L, left; N, Instructed-No group; ns, not significant; R, right; VLPFC, ventrolateral prefrontal cortex; VMPFC, ventromedial prefrontal cortex; Y, Instructed-Yes group. ⇧, significantly greater activation during cigarette relative to neutral cue exposure; ⇩, significantly greater activation during neutral relative to cigarette cue exposure.

Figure 2.
+

Figure 2

+ +

A priori regions of interest exhibiting a significant instruction set×cue interaction. DLPFC, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex; VLPFC, ventrolateral prefrontal cortex; VMPFC, ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Images are right–left reversed.

Discussion

+

The present study examined neural activity elicited by cigarette cue exposure in male cigarette smokers. Several brain regions exhibited differential activation during cigarette relative to neutral stimulus presentation independent of whether or not participants expected to smoke during the study. Activation patterns in visual (lingual gyrus, cuneus), posterior parietal, and auditory (temporal) cortices (Mersulam, 1998) suggest that visuospatial and auditory processing resources were recruited to a greater extent by the cigarette cue than by the neutral cue. In contrast, we observed comparatively greater activation of regions associated with memory-related processing (parahippocampus, posterior cingulate; Duzel et al., 2003; Maddock, Garrett, & Buonocore, 2001) and control of movement (globus pallidus; DeLong, Crutcher, & Georgopoulos, 1985) during neutral cue exposure than during cigarette cue exposure. Such “negative activations” have been reported in numerous studies (e.g., Bonson et al., 2002; Childress et al., 1999; Daglish et al., 2001; Due, Huettel, Hall, & Rubin, 2002; Kilts et al., 2001, 2004; Tapert, Brown, Baratta, & Brown, 2004) and may reflect more unconstrained mental processing involving retrieval (e.g., daydreaming; Binder et al., 1999) during neutral cue presentation than during cigarette cue presentation. Alternatively the neutral objects may have engaged greater memory resources and elicited more extensive physical manipulation than the cigarette cue because they were more novel to smokers than was the cigarette.

+

Of particular interest, significantly greater activation of the ACC occurred during cigarette cue exposure than during neutral cue exposure, regardless of perceived drug availability. As mentioned earlier, the ACC is the most frequently reported region of activation in studies of human drug craving that have, thus far, not directly manipulated perceived drug use opportunity. Thus the ACC appears to contribute to aspects of cue-elicited craving that are not robustly affected by perceived opportunity to consume, such as assessment of the motivational value associated with drug cues based on an extensive drug use history (Bush, Luu, & Posner, 2000; See, 2002). A recent study by Brody and colleagues (2004) found that cigarette smokers treated with bupropion exhibited less cue-elicited activation of the ACC than did untreated smokers. However, the majority of treated participants did not achieve abstinence (i.e., they had “diminished usage”) and were not required to abstain before participation. Thus the extent to which this group anticipated the opportunity to smoke after the study is unclear, making it difficult to ascertain the impact of drug use expectancy versus other treatment-related factors (e.g., direct pharmacological actions of bupropion) on cue-evoked ACC activation in this study.

+

The primary aim of this preliminary study was to identify regions exhibiting cue-elicited activation that was modulated by instructed smoking expectancy. Consistent with hypotheses, we found that activation of regions within OFC and DLPFC was sensitive to smoking expectancy. Specifically, cigarette cue exposure was associated with increased activation of VMPFC (i.e., medial OFC; Krawczyk, 2002) relative to neutral cue exposure, only when smoking was imminent. In contrast, we observed less activation of VLPFC (i.e., lateral OFC) during cigarette cue presentation than during neutral cue presentation among participants who were expecting to smoke. Similarly, we observed significantly less cigarette-elicited activation of DLPFC in participants expecting to smoke during the study.

+

These findings suggest that OFC and DLPFC are sensitive to perceived drug use opportunity (Wilson et al., 2004). However, the precise manner in which responses in these regions are affected by drug use expectancy are complex and appear to depend on several factors. One potential factor is the time delay before smokers can satisfy their craving by smoking. In the present study, abstinence-avoidant smokers anticipating either a relatively short (40 s) or long (over 1 hr) delay were presented with one of their cigarettes. Relative to neutral cue presentation, this paradigm resulted in cigarette-elicited increases in medial OFC and decreases in lateral OFC only among participants expecting to smoke soon. This finding may reflect explicit representation of drug use expectancy or the processing of drug cues as predictors of reward by medial OFC, with a concomitant decrease in the need for lateral OFC-mediated inhibitory control, given that smoking was expected to occur almost immediately after cigarette exposure (Elliott, Dolan, & Frith, 2000; London, Ernst, Grant, Bonson, & Weinstein, 2000; Volkow & Fowler, 2000). Consistent with this notion, the majority of previous studies reporting drug cue-elicited activation of OFC found increases falling within more lateral portions of OFC in actively using participants who presumably anticipated waiting until leaving the experiment before having the opportunity to consume drugs (i.e., participants presumably would try to inhibit responses typically elicited by cue exposure; Bonson et al., 2002; Brody et al., 2002; Myrick et al., 2004; but see Wrase et al., 2002). (Wang et al. [1999] found significant cue effects in OFC using a region-of-interest analysis but did not distinguish between medial OFC and lateral OFC in their report. Tapert et al. [2003] found cue-elicited activation of both medial and lateral OFC in a study recruiting adolescents [aged 14–17 years]. This finding is consistent with other data suggesting that reward-related activation of medial and lateral OFC may behave differently in younger versus older populations [May et al., 2004].) Moreover, Grant and colleagues (1996) found significant cue-evoked activation of medial OFC in active cocaine abusers who were told they would be allowed to self-administer the cocaine presented to them following completion of experimental procedures.

+

We found that DLPFC, like OFC, responded differentially to the smoking-related and neutral cues only in smokers expecting an opportunity to smoke almost immediately, exhibiting less activation to the cigarette than to the neutral stimulus. As noted, the majority of studies recruiting actively using addicts have reported activation of DLPFC to be increased by drug cues, whereas studies involving treatment-seeking addicts generally fail to find cue effects in DLPFC. Thus we speculate that processes mediated by DLPFC are recruited particularly in abstinence-avoidant addicts who anticipate a delay between cue exposure and drug use. In contrast, DLPFC resources appear not to be called upon (or are actively suppressed) in two distinct conditions: When abstinence-avoidant users anticipate almost no delay between cue presentation and drug consumption (as in the present study) or when those undergoing cue exposure are abstinence seeking.

+

The primary aim of the present study was to examine the effects of smoking expectancy on the neural response to a cigarette cue. We reported previously that treatment status, a proxy for drug use opportunity, appears to significantly influence responses to drug-related stimuli in the prefrontal cortex (Wilson et al., 2004). The present study, which found significant expectancy effects in OFC and DLPFC, suggests that drug use expectancy can affect the way in which smoking-related information is processed in these regions.

+

While promising, these initial findings should be interpreted cautiously because of several study limitations. First, interaction effects were obtained at a fairly liberal statistical threshold, which did not correct for multiple comparisons. Thus, although our confidence in these results is strengthened by the identification of a priori regions of interest, these data must be considered preliminary. Future research with larger samples would be useful to increase our confidence in this pattern of findings. Second, although we successfully identified OFC and DLPFC as regions modulated by smoking expectancy, the observed patterns of effects were fairly complex. We have attempted to account for both points of convergence and points of discrepancy between the current dataset and data from our prior review (Wilson et al., 2004) through a consideration of factors (e.g., delay, motivation regarding future drug use) that may affect how perceived opportunity influences cue reactivity. Nevertheless, these interpretations await direct empirical investigation. Third, despite being in the expected direction, predicted effects of expectancy on self-reported urge failed to reach significance. Consequently, the relationship between the observed effects of the smoking expectancy on neural activity and the subjective experience of craving is unclear. Fourth, aspects of the cue exposure procedure used in the present study may have influenced the observed pattern of cue-elicited neural responses. Specifically, participants were asked to hold a cigarette while they lay supine in an MRI machine. Because we did not assess the affective state of participants during cue exposure, we cannot determine the extent to which anxiety or arousal associated with this procedure may have influenced the study results. Fifth, the objects were presented in a fixed order across participants; as such, we cannot rule out effects specific to the order of cue presentation. Finally, we restricted the sample to males based on research demonstrating that male and female smokers differ in their responses to smoking-related stimuli and nicotine administration (e.g., Perkins et al., 2001). We sought to reduce the possibility of introducing such variance given the relatively small sample size. Whether our findings generalize to female smokers awaits direct investigation.

+

Despite these limitations, the present findings highlight the importance of perceived drug use opportunity as an area of investigation for addiction researchers using functional neuroimaging to study cue reactivity. Further, our data generate intriguing and testable hypotheses regarding the complex and context-dependent contributions of subregions of PFC to drug craving and addiction. Future research examining the influence of perceived drug use opportunity and other contextual variables on cue-elicited neural activity has the potential to refine and extend contemporary neurobiological models of addiction and craving in which the PFC is featured prominently (e.g., Goldstein & Volkow, 2002; Jentsch & Taylor, 1999; London et al., 2000).

Acknowledgments

+

This research was supported by grants from the University of Pittsburgh F.I.R.P. and from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to M.A.S. (DA10605) and J.A.F. (DA14103), and by a Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship to S.J.W. The authors thank Erik Reichle, Jason Chien, Susan Ravizza, Elizabeth Tricomi, Kate Fissel, and Walter Schneider for helpful discussion. This paper is based on a master's thesis completed by S.J.W. Portions of these data were presented at the annual meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society (San Francisco, April 2004).

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Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry logoLink to Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry
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. 2006 Nov 6;78(6):610–614. doi: 10.1136/jnnp.2006.095869 +
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A widespread distinct pattern of cerebral atrophy in patients with alcohol addiction revealed by voxel‐based morphometry

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PMCID: PMC2077939  PMID: 17088334 +
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Abstract

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Background

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Patients with alcohol addiction show a number of transient or persistent neurological and psychiatric deficits. The complexity of these brain alterations suggests that several brain areas are involved, although the definition of the brain alteration patterns is not yet accomplished.

Aim

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To determine brain atrophy patterns in patients with alcohol dependence.

Methods

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Voxel‐based morphometry (VBM) of grey matter (GM) and white matter (WM) was performed in 22 patients with alcohol dependence and in 22 healthy controls matched for age and sex.

Results

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In patients with alcohol dependence, VBM of GM revealed a significant decrease in density (p<0.001) in the precentral gyrus, middle frontal gyrus, insular cortex, dorsal hippocampus, anterior thalamus and cerebellum compared with controls. Reduced density of WM was found in the periventricular area, pons and cerebellar pedunculi in patients with alcohol addiction.

Conclusions

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Our findings provide evidence that alcohol addiction is associated with altered density of GM and WM of specific brain regions. This supports the assumption that alcohol dependence is associated with both local GM dysfunction and altered brain connectivity. Also, VBM is an effective tool for in vivo investigation of cerebral atrophy in patients with alcohol addiction.


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Alcoholism can affect the brain and behaviour in a variety of ways, and multiple factors can influence these effects. A key goal of brain imaging in the research of alcoholism is to detect changes in specific brain regions. Previous studies using different imaging techniques have revealed a general reduction of brain sizes as well as a consistent association between heavy alcohol consumption and regional brain damage. Various cortical regions and parts of the cerebellum have been suggested to be predominantly involved in alcohol‐associated brain atrophy. Several neuroimaging studies have recently described global and regional brain atrophy in patients with alcohol dependence in both cross‐sectional and longitudinal imaging studies.,,,, Neuropathological studies conducted on the brains of deceased patients as well as findings derived from neuroimaging studies of the brains of living patients, point to increased susceptibility of frontal brain systems to alcoholism‐related damage., Neuropathological studies have also demonstrated substantial changes in different brain regions such as parts of cerebral cortex, basal forebrain, thalamus and hypothalamus.

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Since previous imaging studies applying conventional volumetry focused on preselected brain regions,, the particular pattern of alcohol‐associated brain tissue alterations is not completely established.

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Voxel‐based morphometry (VBM) is a recently introduced automated method of indirect volumetry, which allows the investigation of the entire brain without restriction to a priori defined regions of interest. In recent years, VBM has been successfully applied in characterising structural brain differences in a variety of diseases including schizophrenia, autism, Alzheimer's disease and dementia with Lewy bodies.

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The purpose of this study was to investigate the altered density of grey matter (GM) and white matter (WM) in the whole brain of patients with alcohol addiction and to reveal the atrophy pattern and alteration of different brain regions induced by chronic alcohol consumption in order to provide evidence for a preferential vulnerability of some brain regions with respect to the toxic effects of alcohol.

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Materials and methods

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Subjects

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Patients (n = 22; mean age 53.6 years, range 31–69 years; 14 men and 8 women) with alcohol addiction who were admitted to the Department of Psychiatry, Innsbruck University Hospital, Innsbruck, Austria, were included in this study. The following exclusion criteria were applied: history of illicit drug misuse or dependency, history of severe benzodiazepine misuse, liver cirrhosis, major psychiatric disorders (other than alcohol addiction) as defined by the International classification of diseases, 10th revision, history of severe brain injury, neoplastic brain processes, history of vascular brain alterations, Wernicke encephalopathy as defined by clinical operational criteria and general contraindications for magnetic resonance investigation. In all, 22 age‐ and sex‐matched healthy subjects (mean age 53.7 years, range 31–73 years; 14 men and 8 women) without a history of alcohol misuse served as controls. Patients were investigated after alcohol abstinence of at least 10 days. All patients included in this study had a drinking history of >10 years. The range of daily alcohol consumption was between 180 and 310 g/day and the number of smokers was 17 of 22. The level of education was not significantly different between both groups (patients, mean (SD) 9.7 (2.6) years; controls, 10.1 (2.3) years).

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Alcohol addiction in patients was assessed according to the International classification of diseases, 10th revision, diagnostic criteria. Patients underwent neurological and general medical examination and laboratory testing to exclude other causes of possible brain alterations. The investigation included chest radiography, ECG, chemistry profile, complete blood count, thyroid function tests, vitamin B12 level, folic acid level and syphilis serology. Patients were scanned within the framework of their routine diagnostic investigation and controls gave their informed consent for this research project. The MRI data acquisition protocol was approved by the local ethics committee of the Medical University Hospital Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria.

Data acquisition, pre‐processing and analysis

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All participants were scanned on the same 1.5 T Siemens Symphony MRI scanner using a T1‐weighted fast low‐angle shot three‐dimensional sequence with a repetition time of 9.7 ms, an echo time of 4 ms, a matrix size of 256×256 and a field of view of 230 mm, yielding sagittal slices with a thickness of 1.5 mm and an in‐plane resolution of 0.98×0.98 mm. These raw images were pre‐processed using the optimised protocol described by Good et al and analysed using SPM2 software (Welcome Department of Neurology, London, UK) implemented in Matlab V.6.5 (Mathworks, Sherborn, Massachusetts, USA).

Customised template creation

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The study group‐specific template was created to minimise the scanner‐specific bias by averaging all images from the study‐specific subject group, after being normalised using an affine‐only procedure. Probability maps were obtained by segmenting the individual normalised images into GM, WM and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), averaging and smoothing with an isotropic Gaussian kernel of 8 mm full‐width at half‐maximum.

Segmentation

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The optimised VBM protocol includes two segmentation steps: (1) segmentation was performed in native space and non‐brain tissue removed automatically by modulation with an individually derived brain‐tissue mask; and (2) segmentation was performed after applying the normalisation parameters to the original whole‐brain images, including, once again, removing of non‐brain tissue followed by reslicing onto a voxel size of 1×1×1 mm.

Normalisation

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The spatial normalisation parameters were estimated by matching the native spaced individual GM image with the study‐specific GM template.

Modulation

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Voxel values of the segmented images were multiplied with the Jacobian determinants to convert the GM segments into measures of absolute GM volume, as opposed to relative GM volume following spatial normalisation.

Smoothing

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Finally, all modulated images were smoothed with a 10 mm full‐width at half‐maximum Gaussian kernel.

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Statistical analyses were performed with SPM2 using the general linear model‐based on the Gaussian field theory. The global mean voxel values and the total intracranial volumes (obtained by summing up GM, WM and CSF voxels) were used as confounding covariates in an analysis of covariance to focus on the regional differences in GM. The significance level was set at p<0.05 false discovery rate corrected for multiple comparisons across the entire brain volume.

Results

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Patients with alcohol addiction demonstrated lower volumes of GM (patients: mean (SD) 569.4 (63.5) ml; controls: mean (SD) 631.9 (62.75) ml; p = 0.002) and WM (patients: mean (SD) 435.5 (61.2) ml; controls: mean (SD) 470.1 (68.9) ml; p = 0.085), as well as increased CSF volumes (patients: mean (SD) 712.7 (137.7) ml; controls: mean (SD) 565.7 (93.2) ml; p = 0.001). Total intracranial volumes were equal in both groups (patients: mean (SD) 1717.6 (205.6) ml; controls: mean (SD) 1667.7 (202.8) ml; p = 0.423).

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Table 1 presents GM statistics for different brain regions. Significantly reduced GM volumes (p<0.001) in patients with alcohol addiction have been found in the right and left anterior and dorsal parts of the thalamic region as well as in the left thalamic nucleus medialis as compared with controls (table 1, fig 1). Right and left dorsal hippocampus (p = 0.005 and p<0.001, respectively) and cerebellum (p = 0.003) also showed significantly reduced GM volumes in patients as compared with controls (table 1). In patients, precentral gyrus (Brodmann area 6) and middle frontal gyrus (Brodmann area 9) were significantly (p<0.001) altered in both hemispheres. Furthermore, area 46 (middle frontal gyrus) showed reduced volume in the left hemisphere (p<0.001). The insular region (Brodmann area 13) was found to be altered in the right hemisphere (p<0.001) as compared with controls.

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+Table 1 Reduced grey matter volumes in patients with alcohol addiction: anatomical locations, Brodmann areas, z scores and p values (false discovery rate corrected for multiple comparisons across the entire volume).

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LocationBAPeak coordinates (mm)Cluster sizez Valuep Value
xyz
Thalamus
 Right6−131582326.27<0.001
 Left−7−131582326.27<0.001
Dorsal hippocampus
 Right32−34−582323.840.005
 Left−28−45−482324.74<0.001
Precentral gyrus
 Right657−73438456.21<0.001
 Left6−57−11312765.13<0.001
Middle frontal gyrus
 Right945123238455.17<0.001
 Left9−4116288895.31<0.001
 Left46−4427259674.68<0.001
Insula
 Right1342−191048704.74<0.001
 Left13−372075183.820.005
Cerebellum
 Right40−47−5120484.040.003
 Left−42−48−512754.020.003
+ +
+

BA, Brodmann areas; MNI, Montreal Neurological Institute.

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Peak coordinates are given in MNI space (http://www.bic.mni.mcgill.ca).

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graphic file with name jn95869.f1.jpg

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Figure 1 Areas of significant grey and white matter decrease in patients with alcohol addiction relative to healthy controls. Results are illustrated as statistical parametric map blobs superimposed on the slices of a T1‐weighted mean picture in standard stereotactic space from all 44 study participants. The left side of the figure is the left side of the brain. Threshold was set at p>3.31 (peak). (A) Thalamus, insula; (B) middle frontal gyrus, precentral gyrus; (C) cerebellum; (D) brainstem; (E) dorsal hippocampus.

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Table 2 presents the VBM results of WM. Patients with alcohol addiction showed significant volume loss (p = 0.001) in the entire periventricular WM (anterior, central and posterior parts) and reduced volume of the pons (p<0.001) and cerebellar pedunculi (p<0.001).

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+Table 2 Reduced white matter volumes in patients with alcohol addiction: anatomical locations, Brodmann areas, z scores and p values (false discovery rate corrected for multiple comparisons across the entire volume).

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+++++++++ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
LocationBAPeak coordinates (mm)z Valuep Value
xyz
Pons2−35−485.11<0.001
Cerebellum
 Pedunculi mediales/inferiores
  Right657−7346.21<0.001
  Left6−57−11315.13<0.001
+ +
+

BA, Brodmann areas; MNI, Montreal Neurological Institute.

+

Peak coordinates are given in MNI space (http://www.bic.mni.mcgill.ca).

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An additional analysis focusing on gender differences was also performed despite the smaller number of female participants. Age and gender were included as confounding covariates. At a p<0.05 level after correction for multiple comparisons, no significant regional differences were detected.

Discussion

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In this study, we investigated the distribution patterns of brain atrophy in patients with alcohol addiction using VBM, which allows the analysis of regional GM and WM partitions without predefining regions of interest. This method provides the possibility to analyse complex patterns of brain atrophy also in those brain regions that are difficult to investigate using anatomically based methods of volumetry. Previous studies have shown that VBM is more sensitive in detecting subtle changes in brain volume than conventional methods of volumetry.,, To minimise methodological bias, we used an optimised protocol based on the creation of study‐specific templates and the modulation of the segmented GM partitions to compensate for volume changes in brain normalisation.

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One of the most intriguing findings of this study is the pronounced decrease in GM volumes in the thalamus of patients with alcohol addiction. These data are consistent with several previous reports on the involvement of thalamic neuronal circuits in different behavioural changes in patients with alcohol dependence. On the other hand, our data contradict those of a previous study demonstrating reduced thalamic volume only in subjects with Korsakoff's syndrome but not in subjects with chronic alcoholism using conventional MRI volumetry. In contrast with that, George et al have shown that patients with alcohol addiction, when exposed to alcohol cues, have increased brain activity in the prefrontal cortex and anterior thalamic regions, which are associated with regulation of emotions, attention and appetitive behaviour. The most recent study on this issue has shown a significant role of the thalamus in processing cue‐related information and in controlling alcohol‐related behaviour. The reduction of GM volumes found in this study may suggest functional insufficiency of thalamic regions that are responsible for altered behavioural patterns occurring in patients with alcohol addiction.

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The analysis of our data suggests alcohol‐induced alterations of the posterior hippocampus as well. Although previous neuropathological studies failed to prove alcohol‐associated neurodegeneration of the hippocampus in human brains, animal models have demonstrated that binge drinking of ethanol can produce necrotic neurodegeneration in the areas of the brain most closely associated with the hippocampus. Our findings support the hypothesis of involvement of the hippocampus in the brain of patients with alcohol addiction. There exists ample evidence of possible mechanisms underlying the effect of alcohol on the hippocampus. The hippocampus is the area with the greatest increase in lipofuscin deposition in neurons as a result of chronic alcohol consumption. Further, the fatty acid ethyl esters produced in the brain from ethanol are known to be particularly damaging to the hippocampus.

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Our data are further consistent with the previous findings on involvement of frontal cortical areas in the brain of patients with alcohol addiction. Numerous neuropsychological studies demonstrated substantial deficits in frontal executive functions in patients with alcohol dependence.,, Our results suggest substantial volume reduction in the middle frontal gyrus and precentral gyrus, although no changes were detected in other frontal regions. These findings support previous reports on decreased glucose metabolic rates in middle frontal regions in patients with alcohol addiction and a reduction of γ aminobutyric acid A/benzodiazepine receptors in superior medial parts of the frontal lobes.

+

A significant decrease in WM volumes in the pons and cerebellum in the our study is consistent with the previous results that have shown the alcohol‐associated degeneration of pontine and cerebellar WM in patients with alcohol addiction,,, whereas in healthy subjects these regions have been shown to remain stable across the entire age span in both men and women. The significant decrease in periventricular WM found in our study is also consistent with previous data; however, the analysis and interpretation of these changes in VBM studies is difficult because of the possible bias due to partial volume effects.

+

Even low‐to‐moderate consumption of alcohol was associated with brain atrophy in a study of middle‐aged men. Ethanol can increase the release of arachidonic acid from cell membranes and cause oxidative stress in the brain by increased cyclo‐oxygenase activity. Furthermore, hydroxyethyl free radicals derived directly from ethanol are nearly as damaging as hydroxyl radicals. There is also evidence from animal studies that alcohol causes cell death. Rats fed a liquid diet containing moderate amounts of ethanol for 6 weeks had a 66.3% decrease in the number of new neurons and a 227–279% increase in cell death in the dentate gyrus as compared with rats fed an alcohol‐free diet.

+

In general, our data support the previous assumption that the regional reduction of GM volumes may result from alcohol‐induced neuronal loss, whereas global brain shrinkage might be caused by loss of WM. Furthermore, our results support previous findings on alteration of selected regions of the frontal cortex and cerebellum in patients with alcohol addiction and suggest the involvement of the anterior thalamus, posterior hippocampus, insular cortex and periventricular WM in alcohol‐associated brain damage. A causal relationship between alcohol consumption and regional brain atrophy still demands further research, whereas VBM seems to represent a tool of choice for in vivo detection of the brain areas predisposed to alcohol‐induced damage.

Abbreviations

+

CSF - cerebrospinal fluid

+

GM - grey matter

+

VBM - voxel‐based morphometry

+

WM - white matter

Footnotes

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Competing interests: None declared.

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Articles from Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry are provided here courtesy of BMJ Publishing Group

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Atypical involvement of frontostriatal systems during sensorimotor control in autism

  • a Department of Psychiatry (MC 913), University of Illinois at Chicago, 912 S. Wood St., Suite 235, Chicago, IL 60612-7327, USA
  • b Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Abstract

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder involving dysmaturation of widely distributed brain systems. Accordingly, behaviors that depend on distributed systems, such as higher level cognition and sensorimotor control, are compromised in the disorder. The current study investigated alterations in neural systems underlying sensorimotor disturbances in autism. An fMRI investigation was conducted using saccadic and pursuit eye movement paradigms with 13 high functioning individuals with autism and 14 age- and IQ-matched typically developing individuals. Individuals with autism had reduced activation in cortical eye fields and cerebellar hemispheres during both eye movement tasks. When executing visually guided saccades, individuals with autism had greater activation bilaterally in a frontostriatal circuit including dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, caudate nucleus, medial thalamus, anterior and posterior cingulate cortex, and right dentate nucleus. The increased activation in prefrontal–striatal–thalamocortical circuitry during visually guided saccades indicates that systems typically dedicated to cognitive control may need to compensate for disturbances in lower-level sensorimotor systems. Reduced activation throughout visual sensorimotor systems may contribute to saccadic and pursuit disturbances that have been reported in autism. These findings document that neurodevelopmental disturbances in autism affect widely distributed brain systems beyond those mediating language and social cognition.

Keywords

  • Autism;
  • Neuroimaging;
  • Eye movement;
  • Attention;
  • Frontostriatal systems

1. Introduction

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder with multiple associated neurological impairments. MRI morphometry and postmortem studies have revealed altered gray matter volume and abnormal cell density and size in several cortical and subcortical regions (Bailey et al., 1998, Kemper and Bauman, 1998, Courchesne et al., 2001, Casanova et al., 2002 and Sparks et al., 2002). Recent MRI studies of autism have documented abnormal white matter growth (Filipek et al., 1992, Herbert et al., 2004 and Hendry et al., 2006), which might disrupt organization of long fiber tracts that are essential for integrating activity across brain regions for supporting adaptive behavior. These findings suggest that autism may affect the organization of both local neural circuitry and the functional organization of distributed brain systems.

Widely distributed dysmaturation in complex functional brain systems is a pattern that could explain the diverse clinical manifestations, and their variability, in autism. This would include disturbances in sensorimotor as well as higher cognitive functions and social behaviors, because all are dependent upon effective functional organization across widely distributed brain regions for their integrity. Because neural systems mediating sensorimotor behaviors, such as postural control and eye movements, are well understood, and the input and output to these systems are amenable to precise control and measurement, sensorimotor assessments are well suited to the task of delineating neurophysiological deficits in complex brain systems in autism.

Impairments in postural control have been documented using quantitative laboratory methodology (Molloy et al., 2003 and Minshew et al., 2004). Eye movement abnormalities have been also reported in individuals with autism. The relevant brain circuitry supporting eye movements includes cortical eye fields and cerebellum that translate sensory information to motor commands, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex that provide top–down higher-cognitive control of attention and eye movements, and striatum and brainstem which initiate eye movements. Individuals with autism have robust deficits in the voluntary or endogenous control of saccades. This has been observed as a difficulty inhibiting saccades to targets when instructed to do so, and a reduced accuracy of saccades made to remembered locations (Minshew et al., 1999 and Goldberg et al., 2002). An fMRI study from our group demonstrated that the abnormality in memory-guided saccades was related to reduced recruitment of prefrontal cortex during task performance (Luna et al., 2002). Less robust deficits in visually guided, reflexive saccadic eye movements also have been reported. While the peak velocity and latency of visually guided saccades appear to be unimpaired, a mild dymetria (overshooting and undershooting) of saccades has been observed (Takarae et al., 2004b). These findings indicate that brainstem circuitry mediating reflexive saccadic eye movements is relatively intact in this population, but that cerebellar functions may be compromised. Smooth pursuit eye movement deficits have been also documented in laboratory studies of individuals with autism (Takarae et al., 2004a). The neurological basis of disturbances in visually guided pursuit and saccadic eye movements remains to be established, particularly with regard to whether they are caused by regional or systems-level dysfunction, and whether there are any compensatory or fundamental alterations in brain circuitry supporting these behaviors in individuals with autism.

The current study examined brain activation during execution of visually guided saccades and smooth pursuit tracking in high functioning individuals with autism and age- and IQ-matched typically developing individuals. The aim was to define the neural basis of abnormalities in the sensorimotor control of eye movements that were observed in previous laboratory studies.

2. Methods

2.1. Participants

Participants included groups of 17 individuals with autism and 19 typically developing individuals that were matched on age and Full-Scale IQ. Four subjects with autism and five typically developing subjects were excluded because of excessive head movement during imaging studies. Mean ages of the remaining participants were 24.5 ± 7.7 years old (range: 17–44) for the autism group and 26.6 ± 7.8 years (range: 18–40) for the typically developing control group, t(25) = 0.68, n.s. All participants were given the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-III to assess general intellectual functioning. The mean Full-Scale IQ score was 105.9 ± 12.3 (range: 87–129) for the autism group, and 110.3 ± 13.7 (range: 90–138) for the control group, t(25) = 0.87, n.s. The Verbal and Performance IQ scores were 107.5 ± 11.5 and 103.1 ± 12.5 in the autism group and 108.5 ± 12.0 and 110.9 ± 14.4 in the control group.

The diagnosis of autism was established according to DSM-IV criteria using two structured research diagnostic instruments, the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (Lord et al., 1994) and the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule-General (Lord et al., 2000). Diagnosis was confirmed independently by expert clinical opinion (Nancy J. Minshew or Diane L. Williams of the Pittsburgh CPEA Subject Core). Individuals with autism were excluded if they had an associated disorder known to cause autistic features such as fragile X syndrome or tuberous sclerosis. None of the participants with autism had comorbid ADHD.

Potential control participants were screened with a questionnaire, which they or their parents completed, to rule out a personal history of psychiatric or neurological disorder, family history of autism, and first-degree relatives with any neuropsychiatric disorder considered to have a genetic component. This information was confirmed by telephone review of the completed questionnaire and personal interview. Screening tests were used to rule out learning disabilities as evidenced by significant disparities in Verbal and Performance IQ scores or academic achievement scores significantly below IQ expectations.

No participants were taking medications known to affect cognitive or oculomotor abilities at the time of testing, including methylphenidate, amphetamines and anti-epileptic medications, and none had a history of head injury, birth injury or seizure disorder. Informed consent was obtained from all participants, with children and adolescents providing informed assent along with the consent of their parent or guardian. Far visual acuity of all participants was normal or corrected to at least 20/40. The study was approved by the Institutional Review Boards of the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Illinois at Chicago.

2.2. Tasks

2.2.1. Visually guided saccade task

A white circle subtending 1.0° of visual angle was presented against a homogeneous dark gray background and displaced every 750 ms in 4° steps along the horizontal plane (0°, ± 4°, ± °8 positions). The direction of target movement (right or left) was randomly assigned and thus unpredictable except at the ± 8° locations after which the target always moved back toward the center of the screen. This saccade condition alternated with a central fixation condition in 30 s blocks for a total paradigm duration of 8.5 min. Stimuli were projected onto a rear projection screen that participants viewed from an angled mirror fixed to the head coil.

2.2.2. Smooth pursuit task

The target (white circle with a diameter of 1°) moved at an average speed of 10°/s along the horizontal meridian. Target velocity varied in a sinusoidal fashion moving between ± 10°. This pursuit condition also alternated with a central fixation condition in 30 s blocks for 8.5 min.

2.3. Procedures

Before fMRI studies, all participants performed pursuit and saccade tasks in the laboratory setting to evaluate and verify their ability to perform oculomotor tasks (Takarae et al., 2004a and Takarae et al., 2004b) (Table 1). Eye movements were not monitored during scans as in several other clinical fMRI studies (Keedy et al., 2006) because of the lack of a technical capacity to obtain high resolution data in scanners, especially to accurately quantify pursuit eye movements, when these studies were initiated. However, all participants had performed the tasks consistently in a cooperative manner in the laboratory and were extensively trained with the tasks prior to the scans. Participants were also retrained in the tasks immediately before beginning the imaging studies, at which time task comprehension and cooperation were reconfirmed. Participants spent approximately 20 min in a mock scanner to gain familiarity with the noise and confinement of an MRI scanner before beginning imaging studies.

Table 1. + Eye movement measures during visually guided saccade and visual pursuit tasks obtained in laboratory studies prior to brain imaging investigations

Control (n = 14)Autism (n = 13)
Visually guided saccades with 10° targets
Gain0.96 (0.06)0.91 (0.08)
Latency (ms)211 (31)216 (30)

Visual pursuit
Gain at 8°/s0.90 (0.05)0.86 (0.09)
Gain at 16°/s0.89 (0.06)0.84 (0.10)

Means and standard deviations are listed. No group differences are statistically significant.

Full-size table

2.4. MRI parameters

The fMRI studies were performed on a 1.5 Tesla Signa whole body MR scanner (General Electric Medical Systems, Milwaukee, WI) with echo-planar imaging (EPI) capability (Advanced NMR Systems, Inc., Wilmington, MA) at the University of Pittsburgh. Gradient-echo echo-planar imaging, sensitive to blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) effects (Kwong et al., 1992), was performed using a commercial head RF coil. Acquisition parameters were as follows: TE = 50 ms; TR = 3 s; flip angle = 90°; single shot; full k-space; 128 × 64 acquisition matrix with a field of view (FOV) = 40 × 20 cm2, generating an in-plane resolution of 3.125 mm2. Fourteen oblique 5 mm slices with 1 mm gap, parallel to the AC–PC line, were acquired to cover the whole brain with the exception of the most posterior dorsal/posterior parietal lobe and the base of the frontal lobe and cerebellum. For registration of the functional data, T1 weighted images were acquired of the whole brain with 3D gradient echo imaging with TR = 25 ms, TE = 5 ms, 30° flip angle, 256 × 256 × 192 acquisition matrix, FOV = 24 × 18 cm2, 1.5 mm thick axial slices with no gap.

2.5. Image analysis

FIASCO software (Functional Imaging Analysis Software-Computational Olio) (Eddy et al., 1996) was used to correct for signal drift and head movement. Correction for head motion was performed in three dimensions using a two level optimization algorithm to estimate rotation and translation values. For each subject, only volumes with displacement of less than 1.5 mm from the median head position over the time series were included in statistical analyses. The numbers of images that met this criterion were similar across groups for both tasks, P's > 0.3.

The T1 structural images were rotated so that the AC–PC plane in the structural images was parallel to the AC–PC plane in functional images. Structural images were then co-registered with maps of brain activation obtained from each individual subject. Both image sets were then transformed into Talairach coordinate space (Talairach and Tournoux, 1988) for group comparison using Analysis of Functional NeuroImages software (Cox, 1996). A modest Gaussian filter with sigma of 0.5 mm (1.2 mm FWHM) was then applied to individual functional maps. The time series data were shifted by 6 s to compensate for delay in the BOLD response before statistical analysis for activation effects. Voxels were selected for statistical analyses if they were in the brain of at least 75% of cases in both groups. Maps of within-group activation for each task were created using Fisher's method (Lazar et al., 2002) for visual inspection in order to help interpret significant group differences.

In order to quantify between-group differences in brain activation, F-statistic maps were created in the following way. Voxel-wise chi-square values from the within-group activation maps were divided by corresponding degrees of freedom appropriate for each group. The ratio of chi-squares (divided by degrees of freedom) from each within-group map were used to compute F values in order to identify significant between group differences in task-related activation. For instance, to identify brain areas that were more active in the autism group than in the control group during the VGS task, the voxelwise chi-square to degrees of freedom ratio for the autism group from the VGS task was divided by the chi-square to degrees of freedom ratio for the control group from the same task. The resulting F maps were resampled to 2 mm × 2 mm 2 mm space before statistical thresholds were applied.

A contiguity threshold for the whole brain (Forman et al., 1995) was used (minimum of 67 contiguous voxels, each with a group difference effect significant at the P < .005 level). This procedure maintained an experiment-wise Type 1 error rate of P < .025. Since F tests are 1 tailed tests, this threshold was applied separately to determine whether activation was greater or less in the autism group than the control group.

3. Results

3.1. Visually guided saccades

Both groups had robust activation in frontal and supplementary eye fields, posterior parietal cortex, visual cortex, and cerebellum during the visually guided saccade task. However, individuals with autism had significantly reduced less activation bilaterally in frontal and supplementary eye fields, posterior parietal cortex and cerebellar hemispheres compared to typically developing individuals (Fig. 1, Fig. 2 and Fig. 3).

Full-size image (62 K)

Fig. 1. Group level activation during the visually guided saccade task. The autism group showed more pronounced activation in DLPFC during this task while the control group had higher activation in cortical eye fields. (FEF: frontal eye field; DLPFC: dorsolateral prefrontal cortex; PPC: posterior parietal cortex; SEF: supplementary eye field).

Full-size image (51 K)

Fig. 2. Brain regions that showed statistically higher task-related activation during the visually guided saccade task in the autism group compared to the control group (ACC: anterior cingulate cortex; PCC: posterior cingulate cortex; DLPFC: dorsolateral prefrontal cortex).

While individuals with autism had less activation in these sensorimotor areas, they had greater activation bilaterally in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, anterior and posterior cingulate cortex, medial thalamus, caudate nucleus, and right dentate nucleus. These differences all stemmed from greater task-related activation in the autism group, except for posterior cingulate cortex, where typically developing individuals showed lower activation during the saccade than fixation condition while individuals with autism did not. Location of peak activation and volumes of significantly activated tissue in brain areas of interest are presented in Table 2.

Table 2. + Brain regions showing statistically greater task-related activation in individuals with autism or matched typically developing control participants

Visually guided saccadesLeft hemisphere
Right hemisphere
Volume (mm3)Peak zXYZVolume (mm3)Peak zXYZ
Control > autism
Frontal eye field/superior precentral sulcus7044.0323− 15552964.46− 37− 1748
Supplementary eye field/superior frontal gyrus2964.125− 352804.75− 1− 1148
Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex/middle frontal gyrus1764.59412628–––––
Posterior parietal cortex/intraparietal sulcus8564.3725− 75363525.20− 21− 5144
Precuneous3204.343− 57322403.96− 10− 6742
MT/V5/inferior temporal gyrus1123.8955− 63− 85525.44− 46− 67− 6
Cerebellar hemispheres3924.8627− 85− 2210404.94− 15− 83− 28
Autism > control
Frontal eye field/inferior precentral sulcus3444.954711381203.84− 411130
Pre-supplementary motor area/superior frontal gyrus1603.8531164–––––
Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex/middle frontal gyrus4484.713357205684.66− 216718
Anterior cingulate cortex/cingulate sulcus1204.031139324724.65− 22934
Posterior cingulate cortex/cingulate sulcus2565.887− 47262804.26− 1− 2726
MT/V5/inferior temporal gyrus724.6853− 616–––––
Medial thalamus1364.261− 174963.40− 1− 134
Caudate nucleus1204.684116884.27− 5116
Dentate nucleus–––––1284.74− 13− 60− 25
Visual Pursuit
Control > autism
Frontal eye field/superior precentral sulcus4964.8441− 17462404.60− 35− 1152
Pre-supplementary motor area/superior frontal gyrus2164.28217662084.28− 71564
Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex/middle frontal gyrus2483.303522441604.73− 353344
Posterior parietal cortex/intraparietal sulcus12725.0845− 583611204.06− 44− 5448
Precuneous5684.581− 69327284.77− 1− 7342
Anterior cingulate cortex/cingulate sulcus–––––643.31− 14316
Cingulate motor area/cingulate sulcus724.2831340643.40− 1940
Posterior cingulate cortex/cingulate sulcus–––––1363.56− 1− 3738
MT/V5/inferior temporal gyrus–––––1283.49− 51− 67− 12
Cerebellar hemispheres13764.6919− 73− 2224885.68− 39− 63− 28
Autism > control
Posterior parietal cortex/intraparietal sulcus2724.0727− 5542–––––
MT/V5/inferior temporal gyrus1763.6243− 7963044.38− 47− 61− 2
Caudate nucleus–––––803.61− 9720

This table shows the z value for the peak activation in a priori regions of interest, its corresponding coordinates in Talairach stereotaxic space, and the volume of tissue in regions of interest in which there was statistically greater activation in one group relative to the other. Since clusters of activation identified by the contiguity threshold sometimes extended beyond pre-determined regions of interest, reported volumes of activation in regions of interest are in some cases less than the cluster volume required to identify significant effects. F values computed during the analyses were converted to equivalent z values to allow direct comparisons with other studies.

Full-size table

3.2. Smooth pursuit

During the pursuit task, individuals with autism had less activation than typically developing individuals bilaterally in the frontal eye fields, posterior parietal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, cingulate motor area, and lobules VI and VII of the cerebellar hemispheres (Fig. 2, Fig. 4 and Fig. 5). Individuals with autism also demonstrated less activation in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, precuneus, and the pre-supplementary motor area. The right caudate nucleus was activated more during the pursuit task in individuals with autism than in typically developing individuals. Small areas in left posterior parietal cortex were also more activated in individuals with autism, but they were anterior and superior to areas showing greater activation in typically developing individuals.

Full-size image (58 K)

Fig. 4. Group level activation during the smooth pursuit task. The control group had higher activation in cortical eye fields and cerebellar hemispheres during this task. (FEF: frontal eye field; PPC: posterior parietal cortex; SEF: supplementary eye field).

Full-size image (48 K)

Fig. 5. Brain regions that showed statistically higher task-related activation during the smooth pursuit task in the control group compared to the autism group (Pre-SMA: pre-supplementary motor area; FEF: frontal eye field; DLPFC: dorsolateral prefrontal cortex; PPC: posterior parietal cortex).

4. Discussion

The current study provides new evidence about disturbances in widely distributed neural systems supporting sensorimotor processes in autism. During both saccade and pursuit eye movement tasks, individuals with autism showed reduced activation across several neocortical and subcortical brain areas that support sensorimotor functions. This indicates that a widely distributed dysfunction rather than localized pathology is the likely explanation for previously reported visuomotor disturbances in autism. Importantly, these observations suggest that neurophysiological disturbances in autism extend outside the neural systems related to the classic triad of diagnostic symptoms (impairments in social interactions and language, and stereotypical behaviors) and point to a pattern of dysmaturation that affects the organization of brain systems in a more generalized way.

During the visually guided saccade task, both typically developing control participants and those with autism showed significant activation in sensorimotor areas, including frontal and supplementary eye fields and cerebellar hemispheres as reported in typically developing subjects performing similar tasks in previous studies (Luna et al., 1998, Rosano et al., 2002 and Nitschke et al., 2004). Activation in these areas was reduced in individuals with autism. Coordinates of the peak activation we observed in these regions of interest were similar to those in other published studies (Supplementary Table 1 online).

The most notable difference during this task, however, was the greater activation of rostral frontostriatal circuitry in individuals with autism, including bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, caudate nucleus, and medial thalamus. The right dentate nucleus was also more active, suggesting increased activity in cerebello-thalamic circuitry as well as frontostriatal systems. Regions in this frontostriatal and cerebello-thalamic circuitry are typically involved in the execution of intentional behaviors based on internalized representations and cognitive plans rather than automatic responses to external sensory stimuli (Sweeney et al., 1996, DeSouza et al., 2003 and Nitschke et al., 2004).

One possible interpretation of the increased activation in frontostriatal circuitry during visually guided saccades is that individuals with autism may make saccades to unpredictable targets in a more intentional manner, rather than as an automatic reflexive response to target appearance as is typical in typically developing individuals. This could account for the greater dependence on the rostral frontostriatal pathways that are known to support saccades made on the basis of internally generated plans (Sweeney et al., 1996, DeSouza et al., 2003 and Nitschke et al., 2004). However, when saccades are based on voluntary decisions, response latencies increase considerably relative to reflexive saccades, typically by more than 100 ms, in both typically developing individuals and individuals with autism (Munoz et al., 1998 and Luna et al., 2002). Studies of visually guided saccades in individuals with autism do not indicate any such increase in response latency (Minshew et al., 1999, van der Geest et al., 2001 and Takarae et al., 2004b), and saccade latencies obtained in the laboratory for participants in the present study were also in normal range (Table 1). Thus, findings with regard to saccade reaction times do not suggest that individuals with autism utilize a voluntary strategy to perform visually guided saccades. Rather, their reflexive visually guided saccades appear to be generated with greater reliance on brain systems that are typically specialized to support higher cognitive functions.

Increased activation in frontostriatal circuitry might occur to provide compensatory input to sensorimotor areas whose function appears to be compromised. Previous studies have shown that when a motor pathway is compromised by disease, an alternative circuitry that performs a related function can be recruited to compensate for dysfunction in the primary circuitry. This has been demonstrated in Parkinson's disease (Sabatini et al., 2000) and cerebellar degeneration (Wessel et al., 1995), where atypical or additional brain areas can be recruited to support performance of manual motor tasks. Similar findings have been reported in autism where non-motor areas can be recruited during manual motor tasks (Müller et al., 2001 and Allen et al., 2004). Compensation could occur in the form of increased effort to maintain attention during the tasks. However, increased activation in the frontostriatal system was not observed during the pursuit task which has higher demands for sustained attention, suggesting that the finding does not represent general difficulty maintaining attention to visual information. In fact, the opposite pattern of reduced activity relative to typically developing subjects was seen in individuals with autism during the pursuit task.

We recently reported reduced prefrontal activation in autism using an oculomotor delayed response task in which saccades are made to remembered locations without sensory guidance (Luna et al., 2002). This task typically recruits robust dorsolateral prefrontal activation in typically developing individuals (Sweeney et al., 1996 and Brown et al., 2004). Our findings in autism with the oculomotor delayed response task suggested an impairment in the ability of prefrontal cortex to support working memory systems. A more recent study by Haist et al. (2005) used a covert attention task in which eye movements need to be suppressed via endogenous control and reported that multiple areas in prefrontal cortex showed reduced activation in autism. This study provides additional evidence that when eye movements are under endogenous controls, prefrontal cortex was less active in individuals with autism. These findings, combined with observations from the present study, illustrate a pattern of prefrontal function in autism in which reduced task-related activity is observed during tasks that require endogenous cognitive control, while greater activity is seen during sensorimotor tasks where exogenous sensory information elicits reflexive discrete shifts of attention and gaze with much lower cognitive load. This pattern of activation may be analogous to that seen in other domains in autism, where circuitry subserving basic functions can be enhanced relative to deficits in more complex abilities (Minshew et al., 1997, Belmonte and Yurgelun-Todd, 2003 and Just et al., 2004).

If rostral frontostriatal systems are required to provide ongoing compensatory support for sensorimotor systems involving exogenous shifts of attention and gaze, as suggested by their enhanced function during our visually guided saccade task, this could potentially have an adverse neurodevelopmental impact on the functional specialization in prefrontal systems. The impact of such compensatory reorganization could interact with disorder-related neocortical abnormalities, such as intrinsic local circuit pathology or disturbances in long fiber tracts (Casanova et al., 2002 and Herbert et al., 2004), to alter the course of maturation in prefrontal systems (Luna et al., 2007). However, it remains to be determined whether the increased activation we observed during the visually guided saccade task is compensatory in nature. Its selective presence during the saccade task is consistent with this possibility. However, while atypical recruitment of prefrontal circuitry could represent a functional compensation for disturbances in sensorimotor systems in other brain areas, it is also possible that they could be a direct result of neurodevelopmental perturbations in the intrinsic organization of prefrontal circuitry or even alterations in the rostral/caudal pattern of thalamocortical innervation.

The increased activation within prefrontal systems was not present during pursuit tracking. In this context, it is important to note that pursuit of predictable target motion, as examined in the present study, is fundamentally different from making visually guided saccades to unpredictable targets in its cognitive requirements as well as in motor output. Sustained visual tracking depends primarily upon the ability to modulate the pursuit response in relation to an internal representation of predicted target speed and trajectory. In contrast, the saccade task elicits discrete reflexive responses to unpredictable target displacements with less requirement for endogenous control. Thus, the reduced prefrontal activation during the pursuit task in individuals with autism might in part reflect a deficit in executing behavior based on internal representations as has been reported in neuropsychological studies of the disorder (Hill, 2004) and in our previous work with oculomotor tasks assessing spatial working memory (Luna et al., 2002).

Consistent with the idea that individuals with autism have difficulty executing motor responses requiring the establishment and use of internal representations, the autism group had less activation than the control group in areas involved in motor learning during the pursuit task. They had reduced activity in pre-supplementary motor area, cingulate motor area, and cerebellar hemispheres, all of which are known to support the acquisition of skilled motor responses (Picard and Strick, 2001, Pierrot-Deseilligny et al., 2002, Floyer-Lea and Matthews, 2004 and Simo et al., 2005). Deficits in implicit sequence learning and initiating responses to predictable target sequences have been reported in autism (Mostofsky et al., 2000 and Rinehart et al., 2001). Thus, dysfunction in the neural circuitry supporting motor learning may play a role in pursuit eye movement deficits in autism. In addition to the areas involved in the acquisition of skilled motor responses during pursuit, individuals with autism showed less activation in frontal and parietal eye fields and cerebellum that are central to the sensorimotor control of pursuit tracking (Keller and Heinen, 1991 and Krauzlis, 2004). Dysfunction in sensorimotor abilities supported by these integrated brain regions was seen during both the saccade and pursuit tasks.

It is widely recognized that a complex pattern of brain dysmaturation occurs in autism. The current study documents reduced activation in sensorimotor areas during eye movement tasks, which indicate that neural system deficits in autism extend beyond brain areas mediating language and social cognition. While some models of autism have proposed hemisphere or lobe specific pathophysiology, the present study demonstrates that brain disturbances exist throughout multiple brain regions to include both neocortical and subcortical regions. Thus, our findings are not consistent with hemisphere or lobe specific pathology. In contrast to previous reports that rostral frontostriatal circuitry is less activated during tasks that rely on planning and behaviors based on internal representations (Luna et al., 2002), in the present study, rostral frontostriatal circuitry showed an atypical increase in activity during simple sensorimotor tasks that elicit automatic reflexive motor responses. These findings are consistent with a model of autism which characterizes the disorder as having a pathophysiology involving a complex brain dysmaturation that affects the general architecture of widely distributed functional brain systems and their functional specialization. This type of dysmaturation would have greatest impact on complex behaviors supported by functional integration within widely distributed systems, providing an overarching model to explain how higher cognitive processes and basic sensorimotor control would be compromised in autism, and why more complex cognitive abilities are selectively affected in the disorder (Minshew et al., 1997).

Acknowledgement

This research was funded by a NICHD/NIDCD University of Pittsburgh-Carnegie Mellon University-University of Illinois at Chicago Collaborative Program of Excellence in Autism HD 35469, NS33355, MH01433, and by grants from the Edith L. Trees Charitable Trust and the National Alliance for Autism Research (now Autism Speaks).

Appendix A. Supplementary data

+

The table below lists Talairach coordinates for oculomotor areas reported in previously published studies. When multiple clusters were reported or multiple task comparisons were made, ranges of coordinates from group analyses were listed. Signs of x coordinates were changed if the study used the neurological convention to match the current study.

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How Do We Empathize with Someone Who Is Not Like Us? A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

Claus Lamm1, Andrew N. Meltzoff2, and Jean Decety1

1The University of Chicago

2The University of Washington

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ABSTRACTSection:
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Previous research on the neural underpinnings of empathy has been limited to affective situations experienced in a similar way by an observer and a target individual. In daily life we also interact with people whose responses to affective stimuli can be very different from our own. How do we understand the affective states of these individuals? We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to assess how participants empathize with the feelings of patients who reacted with no pain to surgical procedures but with pain to a soft touch. Empathy for pain of these patients activated the same areas (insula, medial/anterior cingulate cortex) as empathy for persons who responded to painful stimuli in the same way as the observer. Empathy in a situation that was aversive only for the observer but neutral for the patient recruited areas involved in self–other distinction (dorsomedial prefrontal cortex) and cognitive control (right inferior frontal cortex). In addition, effective connectivity between the latter and areas implicated in affective processing was enhanced. This suggests that inferring the affective state of someone who is not like us can rely upon the same neural structures as empathy for someone who is similar to us. When strong emotional response tendencies exist though, these tendencies have to be overcome by executive functions. Our results demonstrate that the fronto-cortical attention network is crucially involved in this process, corroborating that empathy is a flexible phenomenon which involves both automatic and controlled cognitive mechanisms. Our findings have important implications for the understanding and promotion of empathy, demonstrating that regulation of one's egocentric perspective is crucial for understanding others.


INTRODUCTIONSection:
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A growing number of neuroimaging studies document a striking overlap in the neural underpinnings of the first-hand experience of pain and its perception in others (see Jackson, Rainville, & Decety, 2006, for a review). This overlap is most consistent in areas coding affective–motivational aspects of pain, such as the anterior and mid-cingulate cortex and anterior insula (AI) (e.g., Lamm, Batson, & Decety, 2007; Singer et al., 2004). In addition, areas processing the sensory-discriminative aspect of pain also seem to be activated by the perception of pain in others (e.g., Cheng et al., 2007, 2008; Bufalari, Aprile, Avenanti, Di Russo, & Aglioti, 2007; Lamm, Nusbaum, Meltzoff, & Decety, 2007; Moriguchi et al., 2007). These findings lend credence to the idea that empathy draws upon automatic somatic and somatosensory resonance between other and self, offering a possible (yet only partial) route to understanding the mental states of others (Decety & Meyer, 2008; Decety & Grèzes, 2006; Decety & Jackson, 2004). This resonance seems to rely upon the perception–action coupling mechanism which underpins processes such as emotional contagion (Preston & de Waal, 2002).

An important gap in the neuroscientific investigation of empathy is that previous work exclusively created affective situations that could have been experienced in a similar or identical way by both the observer and the afflicted person (the target). Therefore, our knowledge about how we empathize with people who are not like us is limited. This question is of high ecological validity, as many everyday situations require understanding others whose experiences, attitudes, and response tendencies are different from our own. The question of how we empathize with dissimilar others is also interesting on a theoretical level because it stresses the cognitive component of empathy. This component is perhaps unique to humans and possibly apes (De Waal, 2006; Decety & Lamm, 2006), and crucially relies upon the awareness of self–other distinction and executive functions—including controlled attention for activating relevant representations and keeping them in an active state while inhibiting irrelevant ones. For instance, a recent fMRI study demonstrated that physicians who practice acupuncture activate dorsolateral and medial prefrontal cortex, and not the pain matrix (as control participants did), when they are visually presented with body parts being pricked by needles, and that this activation correlates with decreased activation of the AI (Cheng et al., 2007). Similarly, perceiving stimuli which are painful and aversive for the self but known to be nonpainful for the target (such as surgery performed on an anesthetized body part) recruited areas involved in self–other distinction and prefrontal cortex underpinning affective appraisal (Lamm, Nusbaum, et al., 2007).

The aim of the current study, therefore, was to examine the neural response to situations in which the observer is requested to empathize with a person who is not like her or him, as opposed to a person sharing one's own bodily experience. To this end, we created situations that the observer and the target shared, and contrasted them with situations in which the symmetry between observer and target was broken. This was implemented by presenting pictures of two groups of targets experiencing needle injections or being touched by a soft object (a Q-tip). One group of targets responded to these situation in the same way the participants would respond to them (similar patients, responding with pain to injections, and with no pain to touch), whereas the second group reacted in an opposite, nonshared way due to a neurological dysfunction (dissimilar patients, who responded with pain to soft touch, and with no pain to injections). Participants were instructed to imagine the feelings of the targets in order to share and evaluate their affective states. The valence of the shared feelings could therefore be either neutral (in the case of nonpainful stimulations) or negative (in the case of painful stimulations).

An increasing number of social neuroscience studies suggest that the experience of empathy is a flexible phenomenon, which is malleable by a number of motivational, situational, and dispositional factors (Hein & Singer, 2008; Decety & Lamm, 2006; Hodges & Wegner, 1997). Empathic responses can be generated even in the absence of direct perception of the other's emotional response, by means of imagery, perspective-taking, and other types of top–down control. Therefore, we predicted that empathy for dissimilar targets would rely upon areas overlapping with those involved in empathy for similar targets. Hence, empathy for pain triggered by a neutral stimulus was expected to activate areas crucial during empathy for pain (AI, cingulate cortex; see Jackson, Rainville, et al., 2006, for a review). In addition, neural circuits involved in self–other distinction and executive function are predicted to subserve perspective-taking and the regulation of the observer's egocentric response tendencies (Decety, 2005). For the former, stronger responses in dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) were predicted, as this region is related to adopting the perspective of dissimilar others (e.g., Mitchell, Macrae, & Banaji, 2006); increased activation was also expected for the right temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) (Corbetta, Patel, & Shulman, 2008; Decety & Lamm, 2007). Inhibition of egocentric affective responses was predicted to recruit right inferior frontal cortex (rIFC), as this area plays an important role in response inhibition and cognitive control (e.g., Brass, Derrfuss, Forstmann, & Von Cramon, 2005; Aron, Robbins, & Poldrack, 2004). Using effective connectivity analyses, we explored whether this inhibition was achieved by stronger functional interactions with neural networks associated with affective coding. Notably, we expected neural and behavioral effects to be strongest in situations where stronger pre-established emotional response tendencies existed in the observer, that is, in participants watching dissimilar targets undergoing needle injections.

In order to test these predictions, we performed an event-related fMRI study. Functional segregation fMRI analyses were used to localize the brain areas involved in sharing the target's affect. In addition, select effective connectivity analyses assessed the neural interaction between these areas and trait measures of perspective-taking were correlated with hemodynamic responses to assess brain–behavior relationships more specifically.


METHODSSection:
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Participants

Twenty-four right-handed healthy volunteers aged between 19 and 34 years participated in the fMRI study. An independent group of 23 participants was recruited for an eye-tracking control study (age range = 20–35 years, 23 right-handed, 12 men). All participants gave informed written consent; were paid for participation; and reported no history of neurological, psychiatric, or major medical disorder and no current use of psychoactive medications. The study was approved by the local Ethics Committees (The University of Chicago and University of Oregon, where scanning was performed), and conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Sample size for the MRI study was chosen based upon general statistical power considerations for fMRI studies (Murphy & Garavan, 2004; Desmond & Glover, 2002) and upon power estimates from previous studies using similar designs (Lamm, Batson, et al., 2007; Lamm, Nusbaum, et al., 2007; Jackson, Brunet, Meltzoff, & Decety, 2006; Jackson, Meltzoff, & Decety, 2005; Singer et al., 2004). One participant was excluded due to a general lack of activation in task-related areas and behavioral data suggesting lack of compliance with task instructions, resulting in a final sample size of 23 participants (age M = 24.522, SE = 0.893; 12 women).

Experimental Design

Participants watched color photographs of human left hands or right upper arms either being touched by a Q-tip or receiving an injection using a hypodermic needle (Figure 1). Stimuli had been validated in a behavioral study with n = 115 participants confirming that needle injections are perceived as considerably painful. Participants were instructed to share the affect of the targets by vividly imagining the pain (or nonpain) caused by the displayed situations. According to the cover story, the photographs had been taken from two different groups of targets. Neurological patients (dissimilar others) ostensibly suffered from a rare neurological disease causing pain when touched by a soft object (such as a Q-tip), but experienced a touch-like sensation and no pain when being pricked by a needle. Normal patients (similar others) also suffered from a disease (Tinnitus aurium), but this disease was unrelated to their somatosensation and nociception. Therefore, they reacted to needle injections with pain and to being touched by a Q-tip with touch and no pain. Hence, the design implemented in this study was a 2 × 2 factorial design, with the factors target (dissimilar and similar patient) and stimulus (needle and Q-tip). Crucially, depending upon the target, identical stimuli could have either painful or nonpainful consequences. Also, because the goal of this study was the observation of pain in others, at no point did the participants themselves receive any painful stimulation.


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Figure 1. Sample stimuli used in the study. Inserts “painful” and “nonpainful” were not presented to participants and are provided for illustrative purposes.


Stimuli were presented in blocks of 12 trials, with block order being counterbalanced across participants. An instruction screen at the beginning of each block showed a picture of the patient, which informed participants about the group of patients the following 12 photographs had been taken off. A trial consisted of a photograph of a hand or an arm displayed for a duration varying between 2 and 5 TRs (2420 and 6050 msec; mean duration 3 TRs) followed either by a response screen or a white fixation cross on black background (interstimulus interval [ISI]). ISIs were randomly varied between 2 and 5 TRs (mean duration = 2.5 TRs). Stimulus and ISI durations were varied to optimize extraction of task-related event-related responses versus responses related to unspecific effects such as stimulus perception or orienting (e.g., Ecker, Brammer, David, & Williams, 2006). Responses either required rating the amount of pain felt by the target using a visual analog scale (VAS) or a forced-choice matching task (see below). Thirty trials were run for each of the four conditions (15 trials for each body part). Design efficiency was optimized by generating various trial sequences (with randomly varied stimulus duration, condition order, ISI duration, and response requests) and their associated design matrices. Regressors in these matrices were convolved with the canonical hemodynamic response function (hrf) and tested for collinearity between regressors (i.e., the four task conditions, as well as between stimuli and responses) and the efficiency of the target contrasts (Henson, 2007).

In addition, it was assessed whether the conscious perception of needle injections into others is sufficient to trigger a response in areas of the so-called pain matrix (Derbyshire, 2000), or whether attention to the affective consequences of the stimulation is required. This was investigated in a separate scanning run (henceforth called automaticity localizer) in which needle injections and Q-tip stimuli were presented (for 800 msec) with the instruction to pay close attention to the physical characteristics of the photographs in order to indicate whether a certain photograph deviated from the other ones by some unspecified unusual attribute (such as a missing tip of a needle, which was the case in 3 out of the 90 stimuli). Finally, primary and secondary somatosensory areas involved in the perception of normal touch were individually localized in a separate scanning run (labeled touch localizer). This run consisted of 12 blocks in which either the left hand or the right upper arm where repetitively touched (frequency 2 Hz) for a duration of 20 sec. A rest baseline of equal length but with no stimulation was interspersed between blocks, with block order randomly alternating and counterbalanced.

Dispositional and Behavioral Measures

Three self-report dispositional questionnaires were filled in several weeks before the fMRI experiment and with participants being blind to the experiment's purpose: the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (Davis, 1994), the Emotional Contagion Scale (Doherty, 1997), and the Empathy Quotient (Baron-Cohen & Wheelwright, 2004). The Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) is the most widely used self-report measure of dispositional empathy. Importantly, it contains a perspective-taking subscale which was of particular interest in this study (see below). The Emotional Contagion Scale (ECS) assesses the susceptibility to other's emotions from afferent feedback generated by mimicry, using questions such as “I clench my jaws and my shoulders get tight when I see the angry faces on the news.” The Empathy Quotient (EQ) was used as an alternative assessment of dispositional empathy.

Behavioral measures during scanning included pain ratings using a VAS (with scores ranging from 0 = no pain to 100 = very severe pain) and a forced-choice matching task (see Figure 2, response collection). Responses were requested randomly for 50% of the trials. The VAS measured the amount of pain imagined by participants, and response time was determined as the time from scale onset until first movement of the cursor. In the forced-choice matching task, the patient's face was shown either expressing pain or a neutral expression. Participants had to decide whether the displayed expression matched the target's affective state as imagined during the preceding stimulus presentation. The rationale for using two different response types as well as response omissions was to decrease response preparation during performance of the pain imagery task—such as preparing the VAS response already before stimulus offset.


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Figure 2. Block and trial structure used in the fMRI experiment.


After scanning, emotional responses in the four experimental conditions were assessed using a procedure proposed by Batson, Early, and Salvarini (1997). Participants were shown two trials of each condition (counterbalanced across participants) and rated the degree to which they experienced 14 emotional states while imagining the target's pain (e.g., alarmed, concerned, compassionate, distressed; 0 = not at all, 6 = extremely). Ratings of emotional states were aggregated by calculating empathic concern and personal distress indices (Batson et al., 1997 for details). Indices were analyzed using repeated measures ANOVAs with factors target, stimulus, and index. Behavioral data and dispositional measures were analyzed using SPSS 15.0 for Windows (SPSS, Chicago, IL), and STATISTICA 5.1 for linear contrasts (Stat Soft, Tulsa, OK), with a p = .05 significance threshold for all analyses.

MRI Scanning

MRI data were acquired on a 3-Tesla Siemens Magnetom Allegra equipped with a standard quadrature head coil. Changes in BOLD signal were measured using a T2*-weighted single-shot echo-planar imaging (EPI) sequence (repetition time [TR] = 1210 msec, echo time [TE] = 30 msec, flip angle = 80°, 20 axial slices/volume with 5 mm slice thickness and 0.5 mm interslice gap, in-plane resolution = 3.125 × 3.125 mm2, 64 × 64 matrix, FOV 200 × 200 mm2, ascending interleaved slice acquisition, whole-brain coverage excluding lower parts of the cerebellum in some participants). The effective temporal resolution was increased to 605 msec (1/2 TR) by synchronizing half of the acquisition onsets with stimulus onset and the other half with ½ TR after stimulus onset (Miezin, Maccotta, Ollinger, Petersen, & Buckner, 2000). Each run was preceded by several dummy scans ensuring steady-state magnetization conditions. Stimulus presentation and response collection were performed using the Presentation software (Neurobehavioural Systems, Albany, CA). Visual stimuli were presented using a back-projection system and a button box recorded the responses of subjects, which were entered using their dominant right hand. For the experimental conditions, three runs separated by short breaks and with 535 TRs per run were performed, with 333 volumes acquired for the automaticity localizer and 332 volumes acquired for the touch localizer run.

MRI Analyses

Image processing was performed using SPM5 (Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience, London, UK), implemented in MATLAB 7 (Mathworks, Sherborn, MA). Preprocessing included, in the following order, slice-timing correction (reference slice including superior–inferior center of the AI), correction for head motion (realignment to mean image volume, using the default unwarp and realign function to account for susceptibility–movement interactions in orbito-frontal regions), normalization from the mean realigned and unwarped EPI image to the EPI template provided in SPM5 (normalization performed using default SPM parameters), and smoothing using a 6-mm FWHM isotropic Gaussian kernel. Event-related responses were assessed by setting up fixed effects general linear models for each subject. Regressors of interest modeling the experimental conditions (separately for hand and arm stimuli), the instruction display and the response epochs were set up and convolved with the canonical hrf. All models included a high-pass filter with a cutoff at 128 sec in order to remove scanner drifts. The three runs were concatenated for all analyses, with run-specific effects considered in the model as regressors of no interest.

Analyses of Functional Segregation (Localization)

Following model estimation, contrasts were calculated for each subject to assess differences between conditions. In addition, signal changes in relation to the implicitly modeled fixation baseline were assessed. The resulting first-level contrast images were entered into second-level random effects (rfx) analyses to assess differences between conditions with population inference. Activation differences against baseline were interpreted using a voxel-level threshold of p = .05 and a spatial extent threshold of k = 20, corrected for multiple comparisons using random field theory. The more subtle activation differences between conditions were assessed using a voxel-level threshold of p = .001 and k = 20 (uncorrected for multiple comparisons). Selection of an appropriate statistical threshold in functional neuroimaging is a controversially discussed problem (e.g., Poldrack et al., 2008). The chosen thresholding approach is in line with a multitude of other studies assessing empathy for pain (Lamm, Batson, et al., 2007; Lamm, Nusbaum, et al., 2007; Jackson, Brunet, et al., 2006; Jackson, Rainville, et al., 2006; Singer et al., 2004, 2006; Jackson et al., 2005), which show highly replicable and well-segregated activations in the pain matrix. Our threshold therefore enables direct comparability of results, and it also reflects our experience with the effect sizes typically encountered in social neuroscience paradigms. Note, though, that in all analyses without correction for multiple comparisons, we do not have quantified control over the amount of false positives.

Whether trait perspective-taking skills correlated with hemodynamic responses in dmPFC and rIFC was assessed by correlating parameter estimates of clusters in these regions from the contrasts No Pain: Dissimilar > Similar and Pain: Dissimilar > Similar with (mean-normalized) scores of the perspective-taking subscale of the IRI. We predicted higher response inhibition and self–other distinction, indexed by dmPFC and rIFC, to be correlated with higher perspective-taking skills.

Significant clusters were anatomically labeled using structural neuroanatomy information and probabilistic cytoarchitectonic maps provided in the Anatomy Toolbox (version 1.4; Eickhoff et al., 2005) and the Anatomic Automatic Labeling toolbox (Tzourio-Mazoyer et al., 2002). For brain regions not covered by these toolboxes, a brain atlas (Duvernoy, 1991) was used. Nomenclature for activations in cingulate cortex was based on a recent review of cingulate anatomy and function (Vogt, 2005). Caret5 (Washington University; http://brainmap.wustl.edu; Van Essen et al., 2001) was used to visualize SPMs on the surface of cerebral cortex for SI Figure 1.

Exploratory data analyses showed stronger behavioral and neural responses to stimuli showing hands (irrespective of the target group). Because the efficiency of the current event-related design was particularly high due to the high temporal resolution, the variation of stimulus durations, and the optimization of design efficiency (Ecker et al., 2006; Miezin et al., 2000), we restricted analyses to trials showing hand stimuli (n = 15 per condition). This also applied to the behavioral analyses.

Analyses of Effective Connectivity (PPI)

Although functional segregation analyses inform about whether a brain area is active during an experimental paradigm, the goal of effective connectivity analyses is to assess whether the influence two neural networks exert over each other is modulated by certain psychological factors (Friston et al., 1997). To this end, psychophysiological interaction (PPI) analyses determine whether the effective connectivity between a seed region and all other voxels in the brain is changed by an experimental condition of interest. Based upon the hypothesis that dmPFC and rIFC would be involved in empathizing with dissimilar others, we explored PPIs for volumes of interest (VOIs) in these areas. rIFC was assessed for its crucial role in response inhibition and action decoding (Aron et al., 2004), whereas dmPFC has been specifically associated with perspective-taking and reasoning about dissimilar others (D'Argembeau et al., 2007; Mitchell et al., 2006). Given the central role of the right AI in empathy for pain, we explored whether connectivity of this region with other areas associated with affective coding and interoceptive awareness would increase (Decety & Lamm, 2006; Jackson, Brunet, et al., 2006; Jackson, Rainville, et al., 2006). All VOIs were defined as a 6-mm-radius sphere, with the center of this sphere being the individually determined local maximum closest to the respective cluster maximum determined by the rfx main effect of the segregation analysis (i.e., mean of all four conditions > baseline). The reason for using the mean activation instead of the more specific contrast No Pain: Dissimilar other > Similar other was because the latter would have biased the PPI analyses to areas found to be active during that contrast. The significance threshold for VOI extraction was set to p = .001, k = 5 (uncorrected). In case no significant voxels were detected, no VOI data were extracted for that participant. Given the scarcity of effective connectivity analyses in the domain of empathy for pain, PPI analyses were of a rather exploratory nature, which is one reason for using a more liberal threshold than for the segregation analyses. As a safeguard against false positives, results were only interpreted for areas showing significant responses in the functional segregation analyses (which also substantially reduced the number of statistical comparisons). Also, given the results of the functional segregation analyses, which did not reveal higher activation in any of the a priori expected areas, PPI analyses were restricted to the contrast No Pain: Dissimilar > Similar.

PPI analyses were performed in the following way: (a) extraction of the time-series data of the first eigenvariate of the seed VOI (high-pass filtered and mean corrected, BOLD-deconvolved to get an estimate of the actual neural response; Gitelman, Penny, Ashburner, & Friston, 2003); (b) generating a vector contrasting the time series of the estimated neural response for the targeted conditions (representing the interaction between the psychological and physiological factors, i.e., the PPI regressor), a second vector representing the main effect of the selected contrast (the psychological variable, i.e., the P regressor), and a third vector representing the VOI time course (the physiological variable, Y regressor); and (c) forward-convolving these regressors with the canonical hrf in order to estimate the effects of the PPI regressor. The resulting statistical parametric maps (SPMs) showed clusters for which connectivity differed in the chosen conditions.

Tracking of Eye Movements

Averting the gaze from aversive situations is a potential emotion regulation strategy. This strategy has been associated with activation in brain areas that are also related to perspective-taking and self–other distinction (van Reekum et al., 2007). In our paradigm, overcoming one's egocentric aversive response when watching needle injections into dissimilar others might have been achieved by averting the gaze. In order to exclude this interpretation and to make sure that activations in our study were not confounded by different eye gaze patterns, we performed a control study using eye tracking outside of the MRI scanner. This study was performed with an independent group of participants to avoid habituation and practice effects. Eye movements were recorded with a Tobii T120 eye tracker (Tobii Technology AB, Danderyd, Sweden) using a 120-Hz data sampling rate and an automatic calibration procedure using 9 calibration points. Stimulus presentation (visual angle, luminance, and screen resolution) and the experimental paradigm were kept as similar as possible to the fMRI paradigm. Eight randomly permuted blocks (four for each patient group) with eight randomly permuted stimuli were presented, with stimulus duration being 2 sec, resulting in a total of 16 trials per conditions. Data were analyzed using Tobii Studio (v 1.1.12), using the in-built automatic fixation detection algorithm (Tobii Fixation Filter, detection radius 35 pixels on a screen with a resolution of 1280 × 1024 pixels). Circular areas of interest (AOIs) with a radius of 64 pixels were drawn centered on the points where the needle penetrated or where the Q-tip touched the skin. Fixation duration for these AOIs was determined for the last 1500 msec of image display. The first 500 msec were discarded because eye movements during this interval were related to moving the gaze from the centrally located fixation cross preceding each task stimulus to the stimulus of interest itself (i.e., the contact point between needle/Q-tip and hand). A repeated measures ANOVA was performed to assess differences in fixation durations between conditions. In addition, we used heat map, gaze plot, and bee swarm visualizations to explore the dynamics of eye movements and to assess patterns that might have been missed by the AOI analysis. These analyses visualized fixation times for all aspects of the picture [heat maps and the temporal sequence of registered fixations (gaze plots)], and dynamically visualized all gaze changes from stimulus onset until offset as a movie (bee swarm).


RESULTSSection:
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Behavioral Results and Dispositional Measures

Pain ratings using the VAS were in line with the actual affective states of the targets [Figure 3; significant interaction Target × Stimulus: F(1, 22) = 1891.558, p < .001, partial η2 = 0.989]. Injections into dissimilar others were rated as significantly more painful than the equally painless stimulations (Q-tip) of similar others [linear contrast No pain: Dissimilar vs. Similar: F(1, 22) = 10.687, p = .004, partial η2 = 0.486]. Analysis of response times revealed that response time was longest for needle injections into dissimilar others, whereas response times for painful stimuli did not differ [significant interaction Target × Stimulus: F(1, 22) = 5.520, p = .028, partial η2 = 0.201; linear contrast No pain: Dissimilar vs. Similar: F(1, 22) = 4.09, p = .055, partial η2 = 0.186; injection into dissimilar other (M ± SE) = 1366 ± 56 msec, touch of similar other = 1224 ± 79 msec]. No significant differences (either for ratings or for response times) were obtained when contrasting painful stimulation of dissimilar with painful stimulation of similar others.


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Figure 3. Pain, personal distress, and empathic concern ratings (mean plus standard error of the mean, SE) for the four different conditions.


When matching the facial expression associated with the emotional state of a patient to its actual affective state (forced choice matching task), the percentage of incorrect answers was significantly higher for dissimilar others—in particular, for the needle injections (Likelihood ratio test, p = .044; similar other injection = 3%, touch = 0.6% vs. dissimilar other injection = 8.7%, touch = 2.69%). Also, response times in the matching task were longer for needle injections into dissimilar others [interaction Target × Stimulus: F(1, 22) = 11.402, p = .003, partial η2 = 0.341; mean ± SE of response times, similar other injection = 1595 ± 103 msec, touch = 1679 ± 355 msec; dissimilar injection = 2090 ± 767 msec, touch = 1679 ± 287 msec].

Empathic concern (EC) and personal distress (PD) triggered by witnessing the patients' affective states were higher for painful stimulations (i.e., touch of dissimilar others, injections into similar others; Figure 3, right-hand side). Although EC for matched stimulation consequences did not differ between targets, PD was higher during injections into dissimilar others [significant three-way interaction Target × Stimulus × Scale: F(1, 23) = 11.442, p = .003, partial η2 = 0.342; post hoc linear contrast PD injection dissimilar other vs. touch similar other: F(1, 22) = 10.459, p = .001, partial η2 = 0.63].

Dispositional measures (SI Table 1) were well within published norms and comparable to previous neuroimaging studies (e.g., Lamm, Batson, et al., 2007; Lamm, Nusbaum, et al., 2007).

fMRI Results
Functional Segregation (Localization)

The first step was to determine whether activation patterns associated with empathy for pain experienced by similar others was consistent with previous studies. This was clearly the case, as the contrast Pain > No Pain: Similar others revealed signal changes in large parts of the pain matrix involved in the first-hand experience of pain, such as bilateral anterior insular cortex, medial cingulate cortex (MCC) and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), as well as various sensorimotor areas. This consistency check enabled us to assess differences between the target groups.

Dissimilar > similar targets

Brain activity triggered by empathizing with the pain of a target that is dissimilar to the observer was assessed using the contrast Pain > No Pain: Dissimilar (i.e., Q-tip touch vs. needle injection into a dissimilar target). This revealed clusters which vastly overlapped with those found for Pain > No pain: Similar, including key structures of the pain matrix such as bilateral AI, MCC and ACC, medial dorsal and ventrolateral premotor areas, inferior and superior parietal cortex, as well as thalamus and striatum (Figure 4). In order to determine whether these areas showed stronger activation than during pain empathy for similar others, we calculated the contrast Pain: Dissimilar > Similar (i.e., Q-tip touch of dissimilar vs. needle injection into similar target). This contrast revealed no significant differences, even when lowering the threshold to p = .005, k = 5 (uncorrected).


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Figure 4. Significant clusters in selected brain regions from the contrast Pain > No Pain: Dissimilar others. Thresholded activation (p = .001, k = 20, uncorrected) is overlaid on sagittal views of a high-resolution structural brain scan in standard stereotactic space (MNI). Red numbers indicate slice number in x/y/z direction.


Subsequently, we assessed the neural network involved in overcoming one's emotional response to an aversive stimulus that is neutral for the other using the contrast No pain: Dissimilar > Similar (i.e., needle injection into a dissimilar patient vs. a Q-tip touching a similar patient; note that both conditions are equally nonpainful). This contrast revealed higher activation in several cortical and subcortical areas, including dmPFC, rIFC, bilateral AI, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), dorsal and ventrolateral striatum (head of the caudate and pallidum), inferior parietal lobule (supramarginal gyrus), and a number of occipital areas involved in visual processing (Table 1 and Figure 5).

Data table
Table 1. Significant Differences from the Functional Segregation Contrast No Pain: Dissimilar > Similar Other


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Figure 5. Significant clusters in selected brain regions from the contrast No Pain: Dissimilar > Similar others. Bars show mean and 90% confidence interval of parameter estimates for the respective condition (against baseline). See text for abbreviations and Figure 4 for other specifications.


Similar > dissimilar targets

The contrast Pain: Similar > Dissimilar other (i.e., needle injection into similar patient vs. Q-tip touch of dissimilar patient) assessed which areas showed stronger responses during empathy for pain in similar patients. It revealed significant clusters in the contralateral (right) postcentral gyrus (primary somatosensory cortex), supplementary motor area and right dorsolateral premotor cortex, MCC and cingulate motor area, left fronto-insular cortex, and in various other cortical and subcortical areas (SI Table 2). Notably, activation in the contralateral postcentral gyrus substantially overlapped with independently determined clusters related to hand somatosensation (touch localizer; SI Figure 1).

Automaticity localizer

The automaticity localizer showed no activation in any area of the pain matrix, not even at a very liberal threshold of p = .05 (uncorrected for multiple comparisons, no extent threshold; contrast Injection > baseline). The only significant clusters (both for the needle and Q-tip stimuli) were located in visual cortical areas such as bilateral medial and lateral occipital cortex and superior parietal cortex.

Brain–behavior correlations

The correlation of perspective-taking scores with parameter estimates from the contrast No Pain: Dissimilar > Similar revealed a significant cluster in rIFC, with peak coordinates x/y/z = 50/4/22, and a (peak) correlation of r = .62. No significant correlations were observed in other areas identified in this study, including the cluster in dmPFC. The same applies to correlation analyses using parameter estimates from the contrast Pain: Dissimilar > Similar.

Functional Integration—PPI Analyses

PPI analyses were performed for the individually identified VOIs listed in SI Table 3. PPIs for the contrast No Pain: Dissimilar > Similar for dmPFC showed connectivity increases almost exclusively with occipital (medial and lateral) and superior parietal areas, and no modulation of connectivity with areas specifically associated with affect processing and pain empathy. In contrast, rIFC's connectivity increased with dACC, right AI, the periaqueductal gray, and the putamen (Figure 6). Connectivity of the right AI increased with other affect-encoding areas, such as dACC, left AI, the periaqueductal gray, and the striatum (caudate and putamen; Figure 7).


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Figure 6. Significant changes in effective connectivity (contrast No Pain: Dissimilar > Similar others) between the seed region in the right inferior frontal cortex and the shown clusters (threshold p = .001, k = 5, uncorrected). See text for abbreviations and Figure 4 for other specifications.



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Figure 7. Significant changes in effective connectivity (contrast No Pain: Dissimilar > Similar others) between a seed region in the right anterior insula and the shown clusters. See text for abbreviations and Figure 4 for other specifications.


Eye Movements

In all four conditions, participants spent the majority of time (on average, about 1200 msec of the analyzed 1500 msec) looking at those parts of the stimulus depicting the object penetrating or touching the target's hand (SI Table 4, SI Figure 2). The main effects of the repeated measures ANOVA were nonsignificant (ps > .227), but the interaction was [F(1, 21) = 7.831, p = .011, partial η2 = 0.272; data of one participant had to be excluded due to equipment failure]. This interaction was driven by fixation time for injections into similar others being disproportionately longer than those for Q-tip touch, as compared to dissimilar targets (SI Table 4). Note though that differences between conditions were generally very small (around 50 msec from the mean across all conditions), indicating that in no condition did participants spend considerably different amounts of time averting their gaze from the object. Note, in particular, that needle injections into dissimilar others did not result in reduced fixation times when compared to nonpainful touch of similar others [linear contrast F(1, 21) = 0.263, p = .613]. In addition, qualitative analyses of the dynamics of eye movements did not indicate any other differences between conditions.


DISCUSSIONSection:
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Previous neurophysiological explorations of empathy were limited to situations in which affective stimuli triggered the same response in both the observer and the target. This paradigm cannot address the question of how we understand someone who is not like us, and whose affective responses are not matched to our own. We investigated this question by reversing the stimulus–response mapping of target and observer, preventing the latter to infer the targets' mental and affective states by using a direct perception–action coupling mechanism. On the contrary, participants had to rely upon perspective-taking and other cognitive mechanisms of top–down executive control in order to understand the sensations and feelings. Although we expected such effects irrespective of the affective state of the target, we predicted that cognitive control would be more pronounced for more firmly established response tendencies—such as when observing someone else receiving an injection which would be aversive and painful for the observer, but not for the target.

The behavioral and hemodynamic results are largely in line with these predictions. Painful stimulation of dissimilar others with an object that was neutral for the observer resulted in extensive activation of the pain matrix, in particular in areas coding affect such as the bilateral AI, MCC, and ACC. This indicates that sharing the painful affective state of dissimilar targets relies upon neural mechanisms that are also at play when empathizing with the pain of similar others. Contrary to our expectations, though, areas involved in self–other distinction or cognitive control did not show higher activation during empathy for pain. We speculate that this and the considerable overlap in activations results from a mechanism enabling direct affective sharing with dissimilar others in situations where no strong emotional response mappings have been established. In the current paradigm, this was the case for touch by a Q-tip, which is of neutral valence for the observer. Notably, the behavioral indices also did not reveal any differences when the two target groups underwent painful stimulation. However, although generally similar processes might be at play during empathy for pain, a distinction between the two different target groups is still taking place as indicated by higher hemodynamic activation in a number of areas when empathizing with the pain of similar others (see also below). Differences in the timing of the neural responses to the pain of the two target groups might not be adequately captured by the relatively low temporal resolution of hemodynamic measures, an issue we are currently addressing by a high-density event-related potential study. In addition, future investigations should vary the degree and quality of congruent and incongruent emotional response associations in order to substantiate our claim that empathy for dissimilar targets can be based on a direct mapping of other-related responses in the absence of pre-established emotional response tendencies. From a daily life perspective, such a direct mapping mechanism has high ecological validity because, in many cases, it is easier to understand the feelings of someone else in situations we have never experienced before (such as, for example, breaking a bone while never having broken one oneself).

On the contrary, sharing the (absence of) feelings in situations that are distressing or harmful for the self is much more challenging. This is captured by the behavioral results. Participants not only showed more evaluation errors, longer response times, and more erroneous pain ratings but also higher personal distress when watching dissimilar others undergoing injections. The fMRI results reveal activation increases only when empathy for nonpainful stimulation in dissimilar patients was required. Compared to the similarly nonpainful stimulation of normal patients, activation increased in a number of brain areas associated with cognitive control and perspective-taking (rIFC and dmPFC). Activation was also increased in areas processing the affective component of pain (AI and dACC). In addition, trait perspective-taking skills correlated with hemodynamic responses in rIFC only when participants were witnessing nonpainful stimulation.

In many respects, the situation our participants were exposed to resembles the ones created in task-switching paradigms. In these paradigms, a previously established stimulus–response association has to be replaced by a new association (Monsell, 2003). In the current study, participants switched from their own stimulus–response association to representing how someone dissimilar to them would respond. In addition to cognitive control mechanisms, this required assessing the sensory and affective consequences of the witnessed stimulations, that is, adopting the perspective of the target in order to share their feelings. Task-switching paradigms demonstrate the necessity to both inhibit pre-established response tendencies and to monitor whether this inhibition has to take place (e.g., Botvinick, Braver, Barch, Carter, & Cohen, 2001). As elucidated by neuroimaging and lesion studies, rIFC plays a decisive role in response inhibition, attention, and cognitive control (Brass et al., 2005; Aron et al., 2004; Corbetta & Shulman, 2002). These cognitive functions are predominantly associated with a large area encompassing the (right) ventral premotor area (pars opercularis and pars triangularis, cytoarchitectonic areas 44 and 45) and a more posterior cortical region labeled as the inferior frontal junction area (Brass et al., 2005). This area was strongly involved in the current study, as indicated by a large cluster encompassing rIFC. We propose that activation in this cluster is associated with inhibition of one's aversive response when observing painless injections. In addition to the correlation analysis which suggests that higher inhibitory control goes along with better self-reported perspective-taking skill, the PPI results support this view as well, showing increased connectivity with areas coding affective representations such as ventral posterior MCC and the dACC, the periaqueductal gray, and the right AI. Although PPI analyses do not allow inferences about the causality of interactions, it is tempting to interpret them as an increase in inhibitory control of areas coding one's own aversive response to the perceived situation. Future studies, including disruptive techniques such as transcranial magnetic stimulation, should therefore assess how specific and causal activation in rIFC is in regulating empathic responses to dissimilar others.

Recent reviews (van Overwalle, in press; Amodio & Frith, 2006) suggest that ventral aspects of mPFC are primarily associated with thinking about others based upon one's own mental representations, whereas dorsal regions are involved in taking the perspective of others—in particular when they are dissimilar from the self (Jenkins, Macrae, & Mitchell, 2008; D'Argembeau et al., 2007; Mitchell et al., 2006). Adopting the subjective perspective of another individual crucially relies upon representing two (or more) distinct perspectives, and upon distinguishing whether they belong to the self or the other (Decety & Jackson, 2004; Ruby & Decety, 2004). Self–other distinction enables us to generate appropriate self or other-related responses (Meltzoff & Decety, 2003). A recent meta-analysis assigns an important role to dorsal mPFC in pre-response conflict resolution and in responding under uncertainty (Ridderinkhof, Ullsperger, Crone, & Nieuwenhuis, 2004). Pre-response conflict resolution and uncertainty are also given when adopting the perspective of others who respond differently as we do. Hence, activation in dorsal mPFC might represent a low-level mechanism for self–other distinction in the current paradigm. The TPJ has been assigned a similarly important role for self–other distinction in previous studies on social cognition (e.g., Decety & Lamm, 2007; Lamm, Nusbaum, et al., 2007; Farrer et al., 2004; Ruby & Decety, 2001), and we expected it to play a crucial role in the present paradigm. The role of the TPJ in self–other distinction is usually explained by its multisensory neural connections that allow the matching of (egocentric) somatosensory signals with allocentric information, which is usually conveyed in the visual or auditory domain. The requirement of perceptual matching might have been precluded by dmPFC in the current study, as indicated by its increased connectivity with visual cortical areas.

A recent combined fMRI and eye-tracking study might suggest an alternative interpretation of dmPFC activation (van Reekum et al., 2007). This study demonstrated that negative responses to emotionally evocative scenes can be decreased and reappraised by averting one's gaze from the visual stimulus, and that dmPFC is substantially related to such a strategy. Watching injections with nonpainful consequences (i.e., needle injections into dissimilar targets) are particularly prone for such a reappraisal strategy. We therefore performed a control study in order to make sure that dmPFC activation in our fMRI study did not result from different eye movement patterns. Results showed that fixation times for needle injections into dissimilar others were not significantly shorter than fixation times for the nonpainful touch of similar patients—speaking against the interpretation that dmPFC activation in this study was related to averted eye gaze. The eye tracking study also showed that fixation times slightly varied across conditions, and that painful stimulation of similar others resulted in the longest looking times. Hence, parts of the effects we might see in the current as well as in other empathy paradigms might be attributed to different attentional and perceptual phenomena. Future studies should attempt to take these processes into account more explicitly, for example, by recording eye movements during scanning in order to treat them as a potential covariate.

Apart from a neural network associated with cognitive control and associative learning, areas coding the affective–motivational aspects of pain, such as ventral posterior MCC, dACC, AI, and periaqueductal gray, were also engaged when observing painless needle injections. As demonstrated by the automaticity localizer, these activations do not result from an automatic response triggered by the sight of an injection or aversive stimulation (see also Gu & Han, 2007). Both MCC and the AI play an important role in empathy for pain, a role that has been connected to interoceptive awareness (Critchley, Wiens, Rotshtein, Oehman, & Dolan, 2004; Craig, 2002). The increased connectivity between right AI and MCC/ACC during empathy for a nonpainful situation might result from the process of evaluating the affective consequences of the shown situations, as opposed to the actual outcome of the evaluation. This is in line with activation in these areas when participants evaluated the “painful” consequences of a Q-tip touching similar others (data not shown), as well as with previous results showing that evaluating “pain” caused by nonpainful stimuli also triggers activation in the insula and MCC (Lamm, Nusbaum, et al., 2007; Lamm & Decety, unpublished data).

In addition to the insights gained for how we respond to dissimilar others, this study also makes an important contribution toward how we understand similar others. Current accounts of empathy suggest that attending to another's affective state activates representations of that state in the observer, along with their corresponding somatic and autonomic responses (e.g., Preston & de Waal, 2002). Our results extend this hypothesis by showing that somatosensory areas present stronger activation when we empathize with the pain of someone whose sensory experiences and response-tendencies we share (contrast Pain: Similar > Dissimilar). The independent localization of the hand area combined with activation contralateral to the stimulated hand suggests, for the first time in such a specific manner for an fMRI study, that primary somatosensory representations are shared on the level of the affected body part.

A limitation of the current study is the use of stimuli which did not allow to infer the affective state of the target from overt affective displays (such as facial or vocal expressions), but instead had to be based solely upon previously provided context information. This design was chosen on purpose because we explicitly wanted to know how we infer affective states without relying upon emotional contagion or direct perception–action coupling. Future studies should therefore investigate the role of cognitive control in situations which convey the target's affective state to the observer directly.

Conclusion

Empathizing with someone whose bodily and affective representations are distinct from our own is a task requiring the integration of cognitive control with processes of self–other distinction and perspective-taking (see Karniol, 2003). These processes crucially rely on executive functions for activating relevant representations and keeping them active while inhibiting irrelevant ones. The fact that all of our participants were able to correctly infer the affective state of the dissimilar patients demonstrates the mental flexibility of the human mind. Notably, it seems that sharing the pain triggered by a situation with neutral emotional valence for the observer relies upon the same mechanisms as sharing the pain of someone who is like us. Behavioral and neural indicators, however, suggest that it is more challenging (yet without doubt possible) to share the affect of dissimilar others in a situation that is aversive for the observer. This flexibility is a cornerstone of our ability to empathize with diverse others—from animals to anthropomorphized objects such as pets to people from different cultural backgrounds. The current study casts new light on the neural mechanisms involved in this mental flexibility. It also contributes to our understanding of the fundamental mechanisms involved in empathy by showing that emotion contagion and perception–action coupling do not represent the only route to empathy for pain. Rather, our results support a model of empathy that involves a complex interaction between bottom–up (i.e., direct matching between perception and action) and top–down (i.e., regulation and control) information processes (Lamm, Porges, Cacioppo, & Decety, 2008; Decety & Lamm, 2006; Goubert et al., 2005; Decety & Jackson, 2004). The low level, which is automatically activated (unless inhibited) by perceptual input, accounts for emotion sharing. Executive functions, implemented in prefrontal cortex, serve to regulate both cognition and emotion, notably through selective attention and self-regulation.


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MRI scanning was conducted at the Lewis Center for Neuroimaging at the University of Oregon, Eugene. We thank Inbal Ben-Ami Bartal for help with the eye-tracking study. This study was supported by NSF grants (BCS 0718480 and SBE-0354453) and a grant from The University of Chicago Provost's Program for Academic Technology Innovation in 2007 to Dr. Jean Decety.

Reprint requests should be sent to Jean Decety, Social Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, Department of Psychology, The University of Chicago, 5848 S University Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637, or via e-mail: .


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Beyond the Memory Mechanism: Person-selective and Nonselective Processes in Recognition of Personally Familiar Faces

Motoaki Sugiura1,2,3, Yoko Mano1,2,3, Akihiro Sasaki1,2, and Norihiro Sadato1,2,4

1National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Okazaki, Japan

2The Graduate University for Advanced Studies (SOKENDAI), Okazaki, Japan

3Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan

4Japan Science and Technology Agency, Kawaguchi, Japan

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ABSTRACTSection:
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Special processes recruited during the recognition of personally familiar people have been assumed to reflect the rich episodic and semantic information that selectively represents each person. However, the processes may also include person nonselective ones, which may require interpretation in terms beyond the memory mechanism. To examine this possibility, we assessed decrease in differential activation during the second presentation of an identical face (repetition suppression) as an index of person selectivity. During fMRI, pictures of personally familiar, famous, and unfamiliar faces were presented to healthy subjects who performed a familiarity judgment. Each face was presented once in the first half of the experiment and again in the second half. The right inferior temporal and left inferior frontal gyri were activated during the recognition of both types of familiar faces initially, and this activation was suppressed with repetition. Among preferentially activated regions for personally familiar over famous faces, robust suppression in differential activation was exhibited in the bilateral medial and anterior temporal structures, left amygdala, and right posterior STS, all of which are known to process episodic and semantic information. On the other hand, suppression was minimal in the posterior cingulate, medial prefrontal, right inferior frontal, and intraparietal regions, some of which were implicated in social cognition and cognitive control. Thus, the recognition of personally familiar people is characterized not only by person-selective representation but also by nonselective processes requiring a research framework beyond the memory mechanism, such as a social adaptive response.


INTRODUCTIONSection:
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Personally familiar people are different from merely familiar people, such as famous people, because of rich episodic and semantic experience that selectively represents each personally familiar person. In previous functional imaging studies, preferential activation of extensive multimodal neocortices and (para)limbic regions during recognition of personally familiar people relative to the recognition of famous people was largely interpreted as a reflection of this rich person-selective representation (Trinkler, King, Doeller, Rugg, & Burgess, 2009; Sugiura et al., 2006, 2008; Gobbini, Leibenluft, Santiago, & Haxby, 2004). Many researchers have assumed differential activation in the medial pFC and TPJs to be related to the socioemotional aspects of person representation (Trinkler et al., 2009; Gobbini & Haxby, 2007; Gobbini et al., 2004). Others have associated the posterior cingulate cortex and TPJs, with spatial aspects of real-world experience relevant to the personally familiar people (Sugiura et al., 2006).

The question asked in this study is whether the special process recruited in the recognition of personally familiar people is explained solely by rich person-selective representation or also by other person-nonselective processes that characterize personally familiar people. This question is important because this distinction parallels the question of which research fields should address the person-recognition mechanism. The interpretation in terms of the person-selective representation allows the research to remain in the conventional memory domain. On the other hand, the involvement of the person-nonselective process may require conceptualization in a framework beyond the memory mechanism, such as social cognition. The latter possibility may be empirically suggested by the daily experience of person recognition. When we come across a personally familiar person, person recognition is often followed without effort by an appropriate social response, such as a smile, a greeting, and a small talk. Although such adaptive social responses are obviously triggered by the person-selective representation, it is not likely that the entire processes of each behavioral response are person-selectively represented. A possibility that the person recognition involves person-nonselective process beyond the memory component, as exemplified by such a behavioral component of the adaptive social response, may be in line with a proposal that the human brain is proactive in that it continuously generates predictions that anticipate the relevant future (Bar, 2009).

To elucidate whether preferential activation for personally familiar over famous people reflects access to a person-selective representation of each personally familiar person or reflects other nonselective processes instead, the present study examined repetition suppression of differential activation. Repetition suppression refers to a decreased neural response to a stimulus that is identical, perceptually similar, or semantically related to one presented previously (Schacter & Buckner, 1998). Repetition suppression has been assumed to occur in cortical areas where neurons represent repeatedly processed information (Grill-Spector, Henson, & Martin, 2006; Schacter, Dobbins, & Schnyer, 2004; Wiggs & Martin, 1998; but see Henson & Rugg, 2003). In previous functional imaging studies, repetition suppression has been examined to discriminate cortical regions that selectively represent specific information from regions for nonselective processes in a wide range of cognitive domains, including perceptual representation, such as the visual representation of a specific face (Eger, Schweinberger, Dolan, & Henson, 2005; Pourtois, Schwartz, Seghier, Lazeyras, & Vuilleumier, 2005; Rotshtein, Henson, Treves, Driver, & Dolan, 2005) or object (Koutstaal et al., 2001) as well as amodal conceptual representation, such as lexical (Buckner, Koutstaal, Schacter, & Rosen, 2000) or object (Koutstaal et al., 2001) concepts. In this study, we applied this approach to the cognitive processes entailed in the recognition of personally familiar people. During repeated recognition of the same person, repetition suppression is expected in the cortical areas where information selective to the recognized person is processed. As for the differential component of the preferential activation for personally familiar people over famous people, the repetition suppression should reflect the person-selective representation of each personally familiar person; here, general task-relevant processes for the recognition task, such as basic sensory processing, decision-making, and motor response, are assumed to be common for personally familiar and famous people. Conversely, when repetition suppression is absent in differential activation, it is unlikely to reflect person-selective representation but is likely related to some cognitive processes that may be interpreted in terms beyond the memory mechanism. One likely candidate for the latter person-nonselective process is the behavioral component of the adaptive social response that is specifically accompanied by the recognition of personally familiar people.

To date, functional segregation on the basis of the existence or inexistence of repetition suppression has not been addressed for preferential activation during the recognition of personally familiar compared with famous people. Repetition suppression of differential activation for famous over unfamiliar faces has been reported most frequently in the right fusiform gyrus and less frequently in the left fusiform, bilateral lateral temporal, medial-temporal, and inferior frontal regions (Eger et al., 2005; Pourtois et al., 2005; Rotshtein et al., 2005; Henson et al., 2003; Henson, Shallice, Gorno-Tempini, & Dolan, 2002). Only a few studies have addressed repetition suppression of preferential activation for personally familiar faces, reporting suppression in the anterior temporal cortices (Sugiura, Watanabe, et al., 2005; Sugiura et al., 2001). However, in these studies, activation was contrasted with that for unfamiliar faces only, and no particular attention was paid to the lack of repetition suppression in the other extensive areas that showed differential activation.

In this study, healthy subjects were presented with personally familiar, famous, and unfamiliar faces in a familiarity judgment task during functional MRI measurement. The task session was repeated twice, using the same set of stimuli presented in a different order. In each session, we first generated differential activation maps comparing personally familiar and unfamiliar, famous and unfamiliar, and personally familiar and famous conditions. Then, repetition suppression in differential activation was assessed in each activated area, with particular attention to differential activation between the personally familiar and the famous conditions. Because the comparison of the first and second sessions was performed with the already contrasted activation of two face types, a difference in the repetition suppression effect should reflect the familiarity-relevant component only (i.e., interaction). That is, the effect for the general processes (e.g., basic visual processes, decision-making, and motor response) for the execution of the face-recognition task has already been subtracted away at the initial contrast between two face types in each session.


METHODSSection:
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Participants

Twenty-eight healthy right-handed volunteers (16 men and 12 women, aged 19–31 years) participated in this study. All individuals had normal vision, and none had a history of neurological or psychiatric illness. Handedness was evaluated using the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory (Oldfield, 1971). Written informed consent was obtained from all participants. The protocol was approved by the ethical committee of the National Institute for Physiological Sciences.

Data obtained from four volunteers were of insufficient quality (see the Image preprocessing section). Therefore, data from only 24 individuals (14 men and 10 women) were analyzed.

Stimuli and Tasks

Each stimulus picture presented a person who was personally familiar to the subject (e.g., family member, relative, or friend), a famous person (e.g., actor/actress, politician, or athlete), or an unfamiliar person. Pictures of personally familiar faces were prepared, unbeknownst to the subject, by a collaborator who was either a close friend or a sibling of the subject. Each personally familiar person was photographed using a digital camera in a pose typically seen by the subject. Some of these personally familiar individuals wore glasses or a beard. Photographs of famous faces were obtained from publicly available Web sites. Two separate sets of unfamiliar faces were prepared for use as control stimuli to compare with the personally familiar and famous faces (Figure 1), considering possible differences in visual features derived from different photographic settings (e.g., professional photography, lighting, and makeup as typically used for the famous faces) and image postprocessing methods (e.g., adjustment of the color and spatial resolution as typically used in optimizing famous faces for a Web site). Controls for the personally familiar faces were taken from the personally familiar faces of other subjects, controlling for sex ratio and age range. Unfamiliar faces with similar visual, demographic, and circumstantial features (e.g., age, sex, and photographic variables) were also collected from Web sites to serve as controls for famous faces.


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Figure 1. Schema of experimental design. Four types of face stimuli were presented twice (i.e., once in each session). The resulting eight conditions (P1, P2, F1, F2, Cp1, Cp2, Cf1, and Cf2) comprised a three-factorial design composed of the following factors: Familiarity (familiar vs. unfamiliar), Category (personally familiar vs. famous), and Repetition (first vs. second session).


For the personally familiar faces, 20 pictures were prepared. Twenty-four highly famous faces were prepared, with the expectation that approximately 20 of these, on average, would be recognized as famous by all subjects. As controls for the personally familiar and famous faces, respectively, 20 and 24 unfamiliar faces were prepared. All pictures were resized to 320 × 320 pixels, with the length of the face in the vertical axis adjusted to approximately 80% of the image size. The background was masked with gray, and the hair, the neck, and the collar were visible.

During the fMRI experiment, the task session, consisting of the presentation of 88 pictures, was repeated twice during continuous MRI scanning. There was no explicit gap between the sessions, so subjects were not aware of the transition between the sessions. Although the same set of 88 pictures was separately pseudorandomized in each session, the minimum interval between the presentation of the same picture in the first and the second trials was set to be at least 66 trials. In each trial, the picture was presented for 0.5 sec, with the onset asynchrony varying between 3.5 and 14.5 sec. A central fixation cross was presented throughout the fMRI experiment. Each subject was instructed to judge whether the person presented was familiar or unfamiliar and to respond by pressing a button as quickly as possible. The right index and middle fingers were assigned to the buttons for familiar and unfamiliar, respectively. We did not counterbalance this finger assignment because the assignment does not affect differential neural response between the two familiar face types or repetition suppression. Each subject was informed that some pictures might be repeatedly presented and was instructed not to respond to a repeated unfamiliar face as being familiar; that is, “familiarity” in this study explicitly meant long-term memory in an extraexperimental context.

fMRI Measurement

A time course series of 420 volumes was acquired using T2*-weighted gradient-echo EPI sequences and a 3-T MR imager (Allegra, Siemens, Erlangen, Germany). Each volume consisted of 53 oblique slices (echo time = 30 msec, flip angle = 85°, slice thickness = 2.5 mm, gap = 0.5 mm) covering the entire cerebrum and cerebellum. The repetition time was 3000 msec.

Post-MRI Face Categorization and Evaluation of Person-related Information

Immediately after each volunteer had completed the fMRI measurement and exited the scanner, the participant was presented with the faces again. First, each person was asked to categorize each face as personally familiar, famous, or unfamiliar, without a time constraint. These data were used as references for the task performance in the MRI scanner.

Next, each volunteer was asked about the person-related information available for each face. This information was used to behaviorally characterize each person category. Four distinct information domains were arbitrarily chosen: (a) the ease with which the face could be named (“How quickly can you name this person?”) or Name, (b) the extent of semantic familiarity (“To what extent can you describe this person?”) or Knowledge, (c) the extent of behavioral familiarity (“How vividly can you imagine this person engaged in this action?”) or Action, and (d) the extent of psychological familiarity (“How much do you know about the personality of this person?”) or Personality. Five-point scales were used to rate each response.

The scores were also used to assess the relationship between the extent of regional activation and the self-evaluated level of person-related information (cf., Taylor et al., 2009; Trinkler et al., 2009). We assumed that the person-specific quality of represented information might be associated with repetition suppression and that a correlation would be found between activation and amount of person-related information. The sum of the rated scores for the four domains served as an index of the amount of information for each familiar person.

Image Preprocessing and Estimation of Activation

The following preprocessing procedures were performed using Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM5) software (Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, London, UK) and MATLAB (Mathworks, Natick, MA): adjustment of acquisition timing across slices, correction for head motion, spatial normalization using an EPI-MNI template, and smoothing using a Gaussian kernel with a full width at half maximum of 10 mm. Data from two individuals with excessive head motion (more than 3 mm) and two with dubious task performance (more than 5% of the responses were not recorded) were excluded from image analysis.

Each trial was categorized as one of the five face types as follows. First, the trials in which the participant correctly recognized a face as familiar in both sessions were categorized as personally familiar (P) or famous (F), according to the results of the post-MRI categorization provided by the participant. Those correctly judged as unfamiliar were designated as controls for the P (Cp) or the F (Cf) condition, as intended (i.e., faces that were personally familiar to other volunteers and unknown faces from Web sites, respectively). This separate categorization was necessary to control for potential differences in visual features between the P and the F faces derived from differences in the picture sources. Any faces related to an erroneous trial were designated as a condition of no interest. For the four face types of interest, the presentations in the first and second sessions were also designated as separate conditions. They are denoted hereafter as 1 and 2 (e.g., P1, P2). Accordingly, the resulting eight conditions of interest (P1, P2, F1, F2, Cp1, Cp2, Cf1, and Cf2) constituted a three-factorial design composed of the factors of Familiarity (familiar vs. unfamiliar), Category (personally familiar vs. famous), and Repetition (first vs. second session) (Figure 1).

To estimate the degree of regional neural activation, a voxel-by-voxel multiple regression analysis of the expected signal change for the nine conditions was applied to the preprocessed images for each individual. This analysis used a standard event-related convolution model using the hemodynamic response function provided by SPM5. We modeled an fMRI signal change focusing on the brief neural response at the onset of the face presentation but assumed that the signal changes induced by any face recognition and task execution processes (e.g., decision-making, button press), which took place within 1 sec, fit with this model. For each of the P1, P2, F1, and F2 conditions, a model for the neural response with an amplitude that was parametrically modulated with the index score of “amount of information” (normalized to the mean of zero) was also included (P1_prm, P2_prm, F1_prm, and F2_prm, respectively). Accordingly, 13 models were included in the analyses. A high-pass filter with a cutoff period of 128 sec was used for detrending purposes. The obtained parameter estimate (i.e., partial regression coefficient or beta value) was used as an index of the degree of activation.

Image Statistical Analyses

Statistical inference of differential activation was then performed with a second-level between-subjects random effects model using a one-sample t test on appropriate contrasts of parameter estimates. Initially, areas activated in the first and second sessions were identified separately. Activation during recognition of personally familiar faces (P1–Cp1 and P2–Cp2, respectively), famous faces (F1–Cf1 and F2–Cf2, respectively), and differential activation during recognition of personally familiar faces compared with famous faces (P1–F1 and P2–F2, respectively) was identified. Analyses of the contrasts for differential activation (P1–F1 and P2–F2) were confined to significantly (p < .05, uncorrected) activated areas during recognition of personally familiar faces (P1–Cp1 and P2–Cp2, respectively). Significant activation was first set to be p < .001 at each voxel and then corrected to p < .05 for multiple comparisons using the cluster size threshold assuming the whole brain as the search area.

To assess repetition suppression of differential activation in each activated area, the decrease in differential activation during the second session relative to that in the first session was tested at the peak voxel of each activated area. The peak voxel was defined as a voxel that had higher statistical value than surrounding voxels within a distance of 8 mm. When multiple peaks existed in an activation cluster, peak voxels were selected by taking available knowledge of anatomical and functional segregation into account. Repetition suppression during recognition of personally familiar faces was assessed using the contrast (P1–Cp1)–(P2–Cp2). For famous faces, the contrast (F1–Cf1)–(F2–Cf2) was used. Repetition suppression in differential activation for personally familiar faces relative to famous faces was assessed using the contrast (P1–F1)–(P2–F2). When the peak locations of the activated areas differed slightly between the first and the second sessions, the peak with a higher t value was chosen.

For the purpose of visualization, the repetition suppression effect was mapped within areas showing significant activation. For the repetition suppression effect during recognition of personally familiar faces, p values of the one-sample t test of the contrast (P1–Cp1)–(P2–Cp2) were set at p < .05, p < .01, and p < .001 and color coded within the conjoined activated areas for the two sessions (i.e., areas activated either in P1–Cp1 or in P2–Cp2). Similar procedures were performed to assess the repetition suppression effect during the recognition of famous faces and for differential activation for personally familiar faces relative to famous faces.

Sensitivity to the amount of person-related information was also assessed at the peak voxel of each activated area. Parameter estimates for P1_prm, P2_prm, F1_prm, and F2_prm were averaged for each participant, and a second-level between-subjects one-sample t test was applied.

For reference purposes, we also performed voxel-by-voxel exploratory analyses for significant activation reduction in each face type of interest (i.e., P1–P2, F1–F2, Cp1–Cp2, and Cf1–Cf2). The observed activation reduction should reflect the repetition suppression effect for the general processes (e.g., basic visual processes, decision-making, motor response) for the execution of the face recognition task.


RESULTSSection:
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Behavioral Data

Recognition accuracy during the fMRI session in reference to the post-fMRI categorization data (Figure 2A) was analyzed using a repeated measure three-way ANOVA. Main effects were not significant for any factors. Interactions were significant for Familiarity × Repetition and for Familiarity × Category × Repetition, p = .001, F(1, 23) = 13.07, and p = .041, F(1, 23) = 4.67, respectively.


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Figure 2. Behavioral data. Recognition accuracy (%) (A) and average RT (msec) in correct responses (B) given for each face type in each session. For scores of self-reported amounts of person-related information for the two familiar face types for each information domain, means and standard errors (error bar) across subjects are shown (C). See Results section for statistical results.


For the P, F, Cp, and Cf conditions, 18.6 ± 1.7, 21.0 ± 3.2, 19.9 ± 0.4, and 23.3 ± 1.0 (mean ± SD) faces, respectively, were correctly recognized by each subject in both sessions during fMRI analysis.

Average RTs in these conditions of interest (Figure 2B) were analyzed using a repeated measure three-way ANOVA. Main effects were significant for all factors: Familiarity, p = .001, F(1, 23) = 14.51; Category, p = .007, F(1, 23) = 8.66; and Repetition, p < .001, F(1, 23) = 21.05. The interaction for Familiarity × Repetition was also significant, p = .005, F(1, 23) = 9.64.

Rating scores of the amount of person-related information (Figure 2C) were analyzed using a repeated measure two-way ANOVA involving the factors Domain (name, knowledge, action, and personality) and Category (personally familiar vs. famous). Main effects were significant for Domain, p < .001, F(2.33, 53.63) = 50.56, and Category, p < .001, F(1, 23) = 88.17. The interaction for Domain × Category was also significant, p < .001, F(1.80, 41.32) = 12.63. Having observed this interaction, we analyzed the difference in scores between P and F across the four domains using one-way repeated measure ANOVA. The effect of domain was significant, p < .001, F(1.85, 42.45) = 13.48, and post hoc comparisons revealed a significantly larger difference in knowledge, action, and personality domains than that in the name domain (p < .05, Bonferroni correction).

Imaging Data

Significant activation during recognition of personally familiar faces in each session and the corresponding repetition suppression effect are summarized in Table 1 and Figure 3A. For famous faces, the same set of summary data for activation during recognition is listed in Table 2 and Figure 3B (no significant activation was observed in the second session). The summary data on differential activation for personally familiar faces versus famous faces are given in Table 3 and Figure 3C. In all contrasts, activation observed in the first session was partially diminished in the second session.

Data table
Table 1. Activation during Recognition of Personally Familiar Faces


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Figure 3. Summary of activation data. Activation during recognition of personally familiar faces (A) and famous faces (B) relative to respective control (unfamiliar) faces. Differential activation for personally familiar faces relative to famous faces is shown in panel C. Significant activation (p < .001 in height, corrected to p < .05 using the cluster size) in the first and second sessions is shown in the top and middle (except for famous faces) panels, respectively, in the yellow-red scale. Bottom panels show the repetition suppression effect within the regions activated in either the first or the second session; yellow, red, purple, and blue indicate different levels of significance in the repetition suppression effect (p < .001, p < .01, p < .05, and p > .05, respectively). Renderings onto the left and right lateral surfaces and overlays onto the parasagittal (x = −8) and horizontal (z = −24) sections of the standard anatomical image (SPM5) are shown in the panels from left to right.


Data table
Table 2. Activation during Recognition of Famous Faces
Data table
Table 3. Differential Activation for Personally Familiar Faces Compared with Famous Faces

For both personally familiar and famous faces, activation during recognition was observed in the left superior frontal gyrus and inferior frontal gyrus, with peaks in the pars triangularis and pars orbitalis (Tables 1 and 2; Figures 3A, B, and 4A). Repetition suppression was significant in all these areas except for a few local peaks. Several regions in the callosal sulcus showed a similar activation pattern, but repetition suppression was observed only for famous faces. A posterodorsal part of the right posterior cingulate cortex also showed activation for both types of familiar faces but did not show repetition suppression.


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Figure 4. Regions showing the repetition suppression effect for both personally familiar faces and famous faces. Activation peaks and activation profiles are illustrated for representative regions: (A) the left inferior frontal gyrus (pars orbitalis) from the contrast F1–Cf1 and (B) right inferior temporal gyrus (posterior) from P1–Cp1. A sagittal section of activation overlaid onto the standard anatomical image (SPM5) at each activation peak is shown. The activation profile shows the mean and standard error (error bar) of parameter estimates (partial regression coefficients) for each condition of interest. Parameter estimates are plotted for the first and second sessions for each of the four face types (black solid line = P; gray solid line = F; black dashed line = Cp; and gray dashed line = Cf). Three-way repeated measure ANOVA was applied, and the results of the test for four interactions (FC = Familiarity × Category; FR = Familiarity × Repetition; CR = Category × Repetition; and FCR = Familiarity × Category × Repetition) are reported (***p < .001, **p < .01, *p < .05, and ns = not significant). A significant repetition suppression effect for both personally familiar faces and famous faces was expected to entail significant FC interactions and nonsignificant FCR interactions.


Higher activation for personally familiar faces than for famous faces was observed in a large number of cortical areas (Table 3 and Figure 3C). Activation in several regions in the posterior ventromedial cortices, including the anterior part of the bilateral fusiform gyri, the parahippocampal gyri (Figure 5A), and the left amygdala (Figure 5B), showed clear repetition suppression effects. In anterior to lateral temporal cortices, activation was observed in the bilateral orbitotemporoinsular junction (extending to the temporal pole; Figure 5C), middle temporal gyrus (bilaterally in the anterior part and in the left posterior part), bilateral posterior STS (Figure 5D), and occipito-TPJ. Repetition suppression appeared to be lateralized when assessed for activation peaks (Tables 1 and 3), but the tendency did not appear to be that robust in the voxel-by-voxel analyses (Figure 3A and C). Repetition suppression was observed only sporadically among areas activated in the medial cortices (Figure 3C), posteriorly including the occipito-parietal sulcus, precuneus, and posterior cingulate cortices (Figure 6A), and anteriorly including the medial prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortices (Figure 6B). No significant repetition suppression effect was observed in activation peaks in the right intraparietal sulcus and inferior frontal cortices (Figures 3C and 6C).


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Figure 5. Regions showing preferential activation and repetition suppression for personally familiar faces. Activation peaks and activation profiles are illustrated for representative regions: (A) the right parahippocampal gyrus, (B) the left amygdala, (C) the left temporal pole/orbitotemporoinsular junction, and (D) the right STS (posterior) from the contrast P1–F1. Sagittal and coronal sections are shown. Significant FCR interactions were expected. Other details are the same as for Figure 4.



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Figure 6. Regions showing preferential activation for personally familiar faces without repetition suppression. Activation peaks and activation profiles are illustrated for representative regions: (A) the posterior cingulate cortex (posterodorsal), (B) the medial frontal gyrus (anterodorsal) from the contrast P1–F1, and (C) the inferior frontal gyrus (pars triangularis) from P2–F2. Significant FC interactions and nonsignificant FCR interactions were expected. Other details are the same as for Figure 4.


Posterior parts of the bilateral inferior temporal gyri were activated only for the personally familiar faces, and the repetition suppression effect was significant in the right hemisphere. Because we expected significant repetition suppression effects for famous faces in this right inferior temporal activation peak on the basis of a previous finding in a region of close proximity, the fusiform gyrus (Eger et al., 2005; Rotshtein et al., 2005; Henson et al., 2002, 2003), the degrees of activation, and the repetition suppression effect for famous faces were tested at a liberal threshold (p < .05, without correction for multiple comparisons). As a result, a significant activation (p = .019) in the first session (F1–Cf1) and an expected tendency (p = .055) toward repetition suppression ([F1–Cf1]–[F2–Cf2]) were obtained (Figure 4B).

Sensitivity to the amount of person-related information was not robustly detected. No activation peaks achieved p < .001. Although a few areas showed a positive correlation (i.e., positive regression slope) at p < .05, no relationship was found between the sensitivity to the amount of information and the effect of repetition suppression (data not shown).

Results of the voxel-by-voxel exploratory analyses for activation reduction in each face type of interest are given in Figure 7. The reduction was significant for all face types in the left sensorimotor cortex, bilateral ventral occipito-temporal cortices, and cerebellum. The bilateral inferior and the medial frontal gyri and striatum exhibited a reduction in activation for familiar faces (i.e., P and F). A significant reduction was observed in the medial and lateral temporo-parietal cortices for personally familiar faces.


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Figure 7. Significant activation reduction for each face type. A reduction in activation in the second session relative to the first session for the personally familiar face (P1–P2), famous face (F1–F2), unfamiliar face as the control for personally familiar (Cp1–Cp2), and that for famous faces (Cf1–Cf2) are presented in white from top to bottom. Details of the presentation are the same as for Figure 3.



DISCUSSIONSection:
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This study attempted to clarify whether preferential activation for personally familiar people reflects the person-selective representation or other nonselective processes by assessing the repetition suppression effect of differential activation. Among the preferentially activated regions, the medial and the lateral temporal cortices showed significant repetition suppression of differential activation with decreased or no significant activation upon the second presentation of the same face. In contrast, in some other regions, such as the posterior cingulate, the medial prefrontal, and the right inferior frontal cortices, differential activation was observed for both the first and the second presentations of the same face to equivalent degrees, indicating no repetition suppression. The results provide the first functional imaging evidence that preferentially recruited processes during the recognition of personally familiar people include not only the person-selective representation but also some nonselective processes.

Person-selective Representation of Personally Familiar People

The robust repetition suppression observed in the medial-temporal structures (Figure 5A) probably reflects a person-specific mediational role of these regions in the retrieval of relevant episodic memory. It has been established that these regions mediate the retrieval of episodic memory, in which sensorimotor experience is represented in different neocortical areas (Osada, Adachi, Kimura, & Miyashita, 2008; Mayes, Montaldi, & Migo, 2007). An advantage of relevant episodic memory in the recognition of personally familiar people was observed in patients with semantic dementia, whose medial-temporal structures are spared, but not in patients with Alzheimer's disease, whose medial-temporal structures deteriorate (Westmacott, Leach, Freedman, & Moscovitch, 2001; Snowden, Griffiths, & Neary, 1994).

The repetition suppression in the left amygdala (Figure 5B) is likely to reflect a behavioral significance or emotional value linked to a specific person. Amygdala lesions cause impairment in the social behavior of primates (Emery et al., 2001). A substantial portion of amygdala neurons responds selectively to the face of a specific individual, and some of these respond selectively to a specific facial expression (Gothard, Battaglia, Erickson, Spitler, & Amaral, 2007). It is interesting to note that in human functional imaging studies, familiarity-dependent amygdala response is left lateralized for both famous (Elfgren et al., 2006; Bernard et al., 2004) and personally familiar faces (Taylor et al., 2009; Sugiura et al., 2001). In the right amygdala, an opposite activation pattern has been reported (Gobbini et al., 2004).

In the bilateral anterior temporal regions (Figure 5C) as well as the posterior parts of the right STS (Figure 5D) and middle temporal gyrus, the observed repetition suppression effect may reflect the critical roles of these regions in retrieval of person-specific knowledge or episodic memory. This observation replicated the previously reported repetition suppression of anterior temporal activation during recognition of personally familiar faces (Sugiura, Watanabe, et al., 2005; Sugiura et al., 2001). A large neuropsychological cohort showed that when a familiar face is presented, patients who have damage in these regions of the right hemisphere are unable to describe the person, and those who have left anterior temporal damage cannot provide the name (Damasio, Tranel, Grabowski, Adolphs, & Damasio, 2004). Spontaneous recollection of details in autobiographical episodes is impaired in patients with ventral posterior parietal damage (Davidson et al., 2008; Berryhill, Phuong, Picasso, Cabeza, & Olson, 2007).

These considerations taken together suggest that the regions that showed repetition suppression in preferential activation for personally familiar faces largely represent person-specific information. This fact bolsters the assumed relationship between the repetition suppression effect and the selectivity of information processed in the region.

Person-nonselective Processes Relevant to Personally Familiar People

The cortical regions that showed no significant repetition suppression effect are unlikely to represent person-specific information or to play a role in facial recognition tasks per se. These regions include the posterodorsal part of the posterior cingulate (Figure 6A), precuneus, anterior-dorsal part of the medial pFC (Figure 6B), right inferior frontal gyrus (Figure 6C), and intraparietal sulcus. A lack of significant repetition suppression effects is unlikely to be a statistical artifact of interperson variability because robust differential activation was obtained in both the first and the second sessions. Brain damage in these regions has not been considered to impair facial recognition in previous neuropsychological studies (Damasio et al., 2004; Damasio, Tranel, & Damasio, 1990). Although the exact meaning of the activation characteristics, that is, nonselectivity in response to a recognized person, is an issue for future exploration, the available knowledge of the regions appears to suggest the behavioral component of the adaptive social responses at least in some areas.

The suggested person nonselectivity of differential activation in the anterior-dorsal part of the medial pFC seems to make this region the most likely candidate for the neural underpinning of the behavioral component of the adaptive social response to the personally familiar people. This notion appears in line with the interpretation of this region's involvement in social attachment (Gobbini et al., 2004). A crucial role of the medial pFC in social cognitive processes has been established (Krueger, Barbey, & Grafman, 2009; Amodio & Frith, 2006). Recent studies have shown that this region is recruited during participation in social behavior (Sassa et al., 2007; Rilling, Sanfey, Aronson, Nystrom, & Cohen, 2004). Activation in this region may reflect preparation for social interaction with the recognized person, which would appear to have an advantage in terms of prompt social response as the theory of the proactive brain assumed (Bar, 2009). This conceptual extension is comparable to the activation of the premotor cortex during tool observation (Chao & Martin, 2000). Just as seeing a tool implies its use, seeing a personally familiar face may imply social interaction.

The characteristics in regions around the right inferior frontal gyrus may be explained by assuming their roles in adaptive cognitive control processes during recognition. These regions have previously been suggested to have roles in the task-appropriate control of memory retrieval, retention, or inhibition processes (Sugiura et al., 2007; Sakai & Passingham, 2003; Lepage, Ghaffar, Nyberg, & Tulving, 2000). Additional degrees of recruitment of these control processes may be required for personally familiar faces because such faces likely induce retrieval of more episodic or semantic memories than do famous faces. The demand for such control processes may have been enhanced in the second session of our experiment because the volunteer had to dissociate long-term person familiarity from the familiarity caused by repeated presentation.

The characteristics in some regions, however, may be explained by the fact that the represented information is common to many personally familiar people. For example, the posterodorsal part of the posterior cingulate cortex, which has previously been implicated in the recognition of personally familiar places (Summerfield, Hassabis, & Maguire, 2009; Sugiura, Shah, Zilles, & Fink, 2005), may represent place information that is shared by many personally familiar people. If this is the case, this nonselectivity may have been particularly enhanced in the current study. Because a single collaborator collected the personally familiar face pictures, the majority of the personally familiar faces presented probably shared a specific place context, such as the university or the workplace that the volunteer visited regularly.

Implications for the Cognitive Neuroscience of Person Recognition

The current findings may call for a revision of previously reported interpretations of preferential activation for personally familiar people. It is reasonable that differential activation occurs more strongly in different brain regions depending on the number of repeated presentations. Differential activation reflects the person-selective representation more when a familiar person is presented only once (e.g., Sugiura et al., 2006, 2008) and reflects the non-person-specific processes more when the same person is repeatedly presented (e.g., Trinkler et al., 2009; Gobbini et al., 2004). In fact, temporal and lateral parietal activation was relatively more conspicuous in the former than the latter studies, and the reverse was true for frontal activation.

The involvement of the person-nonselective processes suggests the necessity of interpreting the cognitive mechanism of person recognition from a perspective beyond the conventional research framework of memory mechanisms. The conventional memory framework seems to have no particular motivation to assign specific meanings to these person-nonselective processes predominantly recruited for personally familiar people. General cognitive processes for person recognition and person-selective representation appear to be sufficient for the execution of the recognition task and accompanying recollection of person-related information. The person-nonselective processes specifically recruited for personally familiar people are, however, attractive from other perspectives, such as that of social cognition, because these processes may explain sophisticated appropriate social behaviors that are enacted without externally specified goals being given.

Repetition Suppression for Both Personally Familiar and Famous Faces

The repetition suppression effect observed in the left inferior frontal gyrus (Figure 4A) is consistent with a previous finding and may be related to the observed behavioral priming effect (i.e., increased judgment efficacy). Repetition suppression in this region has previously been reported for repeatedly presented famous faces (Pourtois et al., 2005; Rotshtein et al., 2005) as well as for conceptually primed words (Buckner et al., 2000) and object pictures (Koutstaal et al., 2001). This region has been shown to be essential for the repetition priming effect (Thiel et al., 2005; Wig, Grafton, Demos, & Kelley, 2005) and seems to play a role in linking retrieved person-selective information with behavioral responses (Wig, Buckner, & Schacter, 2009; Schacter, Wig, & Stevens, 2007). In the current study, the priming effect was larger for familiar faces than for unfamiliar ones, as shown by a significant Familiarity × Repetition interaction in both the recognition accuracy and the average RT data. This differential component of the priming effect is attributable to the familiarity-relevant or conceptual process, which is distinct from repeated stimulus perception per se.

The repetition suppression effect observed in the right inferior temporal gyrus (Figure 4B) is largely consistent with a previous finding, although the peak location has often been assigned to the fusiform gyrus (Eger et al., 2005; Rotshtein et al., 2005; Henson et al., 2002, 2003). This region has been assumed to represent a specific view of familiar faces on the basis of stronger repetition suppression for the same faces than for different views of famous faces (Eger et al., 2005; Pourtois et al., 2005; Rotshtein et al., 2005).

Methodological Considerations

Our critical assumption that preferential activation for personally familiar faces primarily reflects some special processes that characterize personally familiar people rather than general processes for task execution may require defense. One may suspect the effect of perceptual familiarity, which may be higher for personally familiar than for famous faces. We consider this interpretation unlikely if it refers to the processing efficacy or a feeling of familiarity due solely to a great amount of previous exposure. We included many highly familiar faces that frequently appeared in the media as famous faces and many faces that the subjects did not routinely encounter as personally familiar faces. Therefore, the amount of exposure does not explain the clear contrast in activation between the personally familiar and the famous faces. On the other hand, familiarity that refers to the mental response particular to the perception of personally familiar faces, which is not simply explained by the amount of exposure, should be dealt as one of the special processes recruited in the recognition of personally familiar people. We consider such a mental response relevant to the experience of daily interactions with and the behavioral significance of the person. Some limbic structures, such as the amygdala, may be candidate neural substrates of such a mental response. Concern for the effect of judgment efficacy may be raised because the recognition accuracy data also showed a significant Familiarity × Category × Repetition interaction. We consider this effect on preferential activation unlikely because a larger degree of accuracy improvement was observed for the famous faces than for the personally familiar faces, in contrast to the observed repetition suppression effect in activation. At the moment, we cannot think of any other psychologically established non-sociobehavioral factors that explain preferential activation for personally familiar faces.

The nature of our task seemed to be critical for the observed marked contrast in activation between the personally familiar and the famous faces. Our task (i.e., familiarity judgment) was implicit in terms of the episodic recollection or access to person-relevant semantic information. All previous studies reporting clear differential activation adopted implicit tasks (Sugiura et al., 2006, 2008; Gobbini et al., 2004). In contrast to relatively poor activation during famous-face recognition in the present study, previous studies reported extensive activation for famous faces in the medial, lateral temporal, and medial parietofrontal cortices. In some of these studies, the recollection of related episodes or semantic information was explicitly required (Denkova, Botzung, & Manning, 2006) or encouraged by asking for an evaluation of recognition confidence (Bernard et al., 2004). Although the other studies have used implicit tasks (Elfgren et al., 2006; Leveroni et al., 2000), much larger numbers of famous faces (more than 50) and more liberal statistical threshold were adopted in these studies than in ours. In fact, activation of extensive regions for famous faces similar to the previous studies was replicated when a liberal threshold (p < .05, uncorrected) was adapted to our analysis (i.e., F1–Cf1). In a similar vein, the effect of the damage in these regions was apparent for famous faces when description or naming, rather than familiarity judgment, was explicitly required (Damasio et al., 2004; Westmacott et al., 2001). Although one may have concern if the difference in interstimuli variance between the personally familiar and the famous faces could explain the contrast in activation, we consider it unlikely. In this study, the personally familiar faces (and the counterpart control faces) varied for each subject, in contrast to the famous faces. This fact potentially resulted in a large variance in the personally familiar face stimuli across subjects, whereas this variance was null in the famous face stimuli. The effect, accordingly, should have caused a lower statistical sensitivity for the personally familiar than for famous faces, which is contrary to the actual results.

Our three-factorial design can be analyzed in several different ways. Because we were interested in preferential activation for personally familiar over famous faces, we first identified differential activation separately for the first and second sessions and then made comparisons between the two. We did not adopt a voxel-by-voxel approach to explore any strong repetition suppression effect because our interest was in whether each of the differentially activated regions exhibited the effect. Others might be interested in the repetition suppression effect for basic visual processing of faces. Unfortunately, our task design was not optimal to elucidate this effect. Because of the long interval between the first and the second presentations of an identical face (i.e., between sessions), observed activation reduction included a strong effect of learning the task procedure (i.e., decision-making and motor response). In fact, activation reduction for each face type appeared in motor-related areas, such as the left sensorimotor cortex and the cerebellum, and a reduction in the ventral visual pathway was buried in the periphery of the cluster centered in the cerebellum (Figure 7). This task-learning effect was controlled in the contrasts that were our main interest, which focused on intersession comparison of differential activation between two face types.

Conclusions

Preferential activation during recognition of personally familiar faces over that for famous faces exhibited repetition suppression in some regions and no suppression in others. The results suggest that distinct parts of the preferentially activated regions process person-selective and nonselective information relevant to the personally familiar people. The repetition suppression was observed in the medial and lateral temporal cortices, which have been known to process episodic and semantic information. The repetition suppression was absent in the posterior cingulate, medial prefrontal, right inferior frontal, and intraparietal regions, some of which have been implicated in social cognition and cognitive control. Taking these considerations together, the recognition of personally familiar people specifically involves access to not only person-selective representation but also some person-nonselective processes, which suggests the necessity of these mechanisms from perspectives beyond the memory mechanism, such as that of social cognition.


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The authors thank Takashi Tsukiura for helpful suggestions about the manuscript and Tomoya Taminato for support in the preparation of visual stimuli. This study was supported by KAKENHI (17100003 to N. S. and 18680026 to M. S.).

Reprint requests should be sent to Motoaki Sugiura, Department of Functional Brain Imaging, Institute of Development, Aging and Cancer, Tohoku University, Seiryo-machi 4-1, Aoba-ku, Sendai 980-8575, Japan, or via e-mail: .


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Reach Out and Touch Someone: Anticipatory Sensorimotor Processes of Active Interpersonal Touch

Sjoerd J. H. Ebisch1, Francesca Ferri2,3, Gian Luca Romani1, and Vittorio Gallese2

1G. d'Annunzio University, Chieti, Italy

2Parma University

3University of Ottawa Institute of Mental Health Research

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ABSTRACTSection:
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Anticipating the sensorimotor consequences of an action for both self and other is fundamental for action coordination when individuals socially interact. Somatosensation constitutes an elementary component of social cognition and sensorimotor prediction, but its functions in active social behavior remain unclear. We hypothesized that the somatosensory system contributes to social haptic behavior as evidenced by specific anticipatory activation patterns when touching an animate target (human hand) compared with an inanimate target (fake hand). fMRI scanning was performed during a paradigm that allowed us to isolate the anticipatory representations of active interpersonal touch while controlling for nonsocial sensorimotor processes and possible confounds because of interpersonal relationships or socioemotional valence. Active interpersonal touch was studied both as skin-to-skin contact and as object-mediated touch. The results showed weaker deactivation in primary somatosensory cortex and medial pFC and stronger activation in cerebellum for the animate target, compared with the inanimate target, when intending to touch it with one's own hand. Differently, in anticipation of touching the human hand with an object, anterior inferior parietal lobule and lateral occipital-temporal cortex showed stronger activity. When actually touching a human hand with one's own hand, activation was stronger in medial pFC but weaker in primary somatosensory cortex. The findings provide new insight on the contribution of simulation and sensory prediction mechanisms to active social behavior. They also suggest that literally getting in touch with someone and touching someone by using an object might be approached by an agent as functionally distinct conditions.


INTRODUCTIONSection:
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Interpersonal touch is a primary expression of affiliative behavior. It reflects the disposition of individuals to seek close contact between them, promoting socioemotional development, group cohesion, and reproduction (Dunbar, 2010; Gallace & Spence, 2010; Morrison, Loken, & Olausson, 2010). Despite the clear interactive character of interpersonal touch, psychological and neuroscientific investigations addressed it almost exclusively as a receptive experience. Gibson (1962) already emphasized the functional specificity of active touch, but research on active touch was mostly confined to the study of human–object interactions.

Important differences exist between our tactile interactions with the animate or inanimate world. For example, whereas the former is driven by the intention to explore, manipulate, and use objects (Johansson & Flanagan, 2009; Lederman & Klatzky, 2009), the latter essentially has a communicative intention through somatosensory interaction with another individual (Gallace & Spence, 2010; Hertenstein, Keltner, App, Bulleit, & Jaskolka, 2006). From this perspective, it can be argued that active animate and inanimate touch may not only differ in the experience of the touch itself but that active interpersonal touch may be already unique in the processes anticipating it. This study specifically aimed at clarifying the anticipatory somatosensory processes of active interpersonal touch, compared with anticipatory somatosensory processes of active object touch, by means of fMRI.

Anticipation is fundamental to action (Blakemore & Frith, 2003; Haggard & Clark, 2003; Wolpert & Flanagan, 2001). During action performance, predictions are made by the brain about the sensorimotor consequences to anticipate effects and optimize performance (Prinz, 2012; Knoblich & Flach, 2001; Wolpert, Ghahramani, & Jordan, 1995). Several sensorimotor brain regions have been implicated in such predictions, including somatosensory and parietal cortices, cerebellum, and SMA (Haggard, 2008; Blakemore & Sirigu, 2003). Especially relevant for social action coordination, in addition to the anticipation of one's personal sensorimotor experiences, the anticipation of others' behavior and experiences plausibly also has a clear functional value (Sebanz, Bekkering, & Knoblich, 2006). For example, in the case of active interpersonal touch, intensity, velocity, and fine motor skills are regulated based on the expected sensation of both oneself and the other. It is likely to posit that sensorimotor brain circuits involved in the processing of first-person tactile experiences contribute to active interpersonal touch by anticipating not only one's own but also others' behavior and experiences for the regulation of touch performance.

Somatosensation constitutes an elementary component of both action consequences (Blakemore & Sirigu, 2003) and social cognition (Gallese & Ebisch, 2013; Gallese & Sinigaglia, 2011; Keysers, Kaas, & Gazzola, 2010). Activity in somatosensory cortices is modulated by anticipation of tactile stimuli (Carlsson, Petrovic, Skare, Petersson, & Ingvar, 2000) and active movement (Jackson, Parkinson, Pears, & Nam, 2011), which in turn modulates tactile stimulus processing (van Ede, de Lange, & Maris, 2013; Jackson et al., 2011; Voss, Ingram, Wolpert, & Haggard, 2008). Furthermore, empirical evidence consistently suggests that primary (SI, in particular BA 2) and secondary (SII) somatosensory cortices also contribute to the understanding of other individuals' tactile experiences (see, for reviews, Gallese & Ebisch, 2013; Gallese & Sinigaglia, 2011; Keysers et al., 2010). Some studies indicated that other regions endowed with tactile properties, like anterior inferior parietal lobule (aIPL), ventral premotor cortex, and lateral occipital-temporal cortex (lOT), could also be involved in somatosensory aspects of social perception (Morrison, Tipper, Fenton-Adams, & Bach, 2013; Ebisch et al., 2008). Although not systematically investigated, psychological evidence supports a role of embodied simulation in the predictive coding of others' peripheral sensations (Bosbach, Cole, Prinz, & Knoblich, 2005). Neuroimaging studies suggested that predicting the consequences of observed object-directed actions involves brain regions with somatosensory properties (Morrison et al., 2013; Ramsey, Cross, & Hamilton, 2012).

Most somatosensory regions related to social perception also are strongly linked with motor behavior, making them plausible candidates for regulating active social touch. BA 2 and SII have direct reciprocal connections with intraparietal sulcus and aIPL, areas involved in multisensory integration as well as vicarious sensorimotor functions (Ishida, Nakajima, Inase, & Murata, 2010; Keysers et al., 2010; Rizzolatti & Sinigaglia, 2010; Rozzi et al., 2006; Bremmer et al., 2001; Lewis & Van Essen, 2000; Pons & Kaas, 1986). BA 2 also projects to primary motor cortex (Caria, Kaneko, Kimura, & Asanuma, 1997; Kaneko, Caria, & Asanuma, 1994a, 1994b) and has a crucial role in motor control during haptic behavior (Freund, 2003; Iwamura & Tanaka, 1996; Hikosaka, Tanaka, Sakamoto, & Iwamura, 1985). Furthermore, aIPL (including areas PF and PFG) and ventral premotor cortex are involved in sensorimotor coupling underlying the integration of multisensory information with motor representations for the control of goal-related motor behavior (Rozzi et al., 2006; Gallese, Fadiga, Fogassi, & Rizzolatti, 2002; Rizzolatti, Fogassi, & Gallese, 2002; Hyvärinen, 1982).

Hence, we hypothesized that, in the case of touching someone as well as in the case of touching something, cortical motor and somatosensory circuits likely contribute to the prediction of the sensorimotor consequences of touch performance. In particular, touch directed at another individual might be characterized by differential anticipatory neural activation patterns in brain circuits involved in somatosensation and social cognition, when compared with touch directed at inanimate targets. In addition, we speculated that actions leading to skin-to-skin contact, that is, literally getting in touch with someone, and touching another individual through an object possibly might be characterized by distinct anticipatory sensory activity patterns. Skin-to-skin contact, that is, direct bodily interaction, is associated with a different intention, but also a different relevance for the personal perception of the touch, compared with an inanimate touch. By contrast, touching an animate or inanimate target mediated by an object, that is, indirect bodily interaction, only differs with respect to its intention with a more marked accentuation of the goal of the action.

To address these issues, fMRI scanning was performed in healthy participants during an experimental paradigm designed to isolate the anticipatory sensorimotor representations of social touch, while controlling for nonsocial sensorimotor processes and possible confounds because of interpersonal relationships or socioemotional valence. Interpersonal touch was studied either as skin-to-skin contact with another individual or as tactile stimulation of another individual without direct bodily contact. Whereas the former can be considered as an action resulting in a unique, shared sensory experience between two human beings, the latter concerns an action directed at inducing a sensation in the other without tactilely experiencing its sociality.


METHODSSection:
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Participants

Sixteen healthy, right-handed, young adults (age = 20–34 years; eight women) participated in the present experiment. All participants had normal or corrected-to normal vision capabilities. Written informed consent was obtained from all participants after full explanation of the study's procedure, in line with the Declaration of Helsinki. The experimental protocol was approved by the local institutional ethics committee. Participants were paid for their participation in the fMRI experiment.

fMRI Data Acquisition

For each participant, BOLD contrast functional imaging was performed with a Philips Achieva scanner (Andover, MA) at 3T at the Institute of Advanced Biomedical Technologies, Chieti, Italy. An initial T1-weighted anatomical (3-D MP-RAGE pulse sequence; 1 mm isotropic voxels) and T2*-weighted functional data were collected with an eight-channel phased-array head coil. EPI data (gradient-echo pulse sequence) were acquired from 31 slices (3.5 × 2.875 × 2.875 mm resolution, repetition time = 2000 msec, echo time = 64 msec, SENSE factor = 2, flip angle = 80°, field of view = 230 mm). Slices were oriented parallel to the AC–PC axis of the observer's brain.

Experimental Procedure and Materials

The participant was in a supine position in the fMRI scanner for about 1 hr and completed seven fMRI runs. A wooden table was placed on the participant's legs. The participant's right hand was placed at the center of the table on an object (brush for body massage). A fake hand (mannequin) and the hand of another individual (another volunteer who was standing next to the scanner) were both placed next to the participant's hand. To keep the participants naive about whose hand was placed on the table, they were not introduced to the other person before the experiment and it was not possible for them to see the hand or the individual they were touching during the experiment. To avoid systematic effects of the location where the human and fake hand were placed, their position was pseudorandomized throughout the experiment (i.e., on the right and left side of the participant's hand). Before each individual fMRI run, the participant was informed about on which side of his or her own hand the human and fake hands were placed. Behavioral performance accuracy of participants was monitored during the experiment through a video camera placed in the MRI room and proved that all the participants were accurate in the performance of the task. The experimental setup is depicted in Figure 1.


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Figure 1. Picture of the experimental setup.


During the touch intention fMRI runs (duration: 194 functional volumes/run = 6.46 min/run), the participants completed a series of touch and no touch trials. Trial order was randomized. Each trial, either touch or no touch, started with a visual cue consisting of two black and white line outline drawings. The upper drawing indicated the modality of the touch (i.e., how the touch had to be performed), whereas the lower drawing indicated the target of the touch (what had to be touched). The modality could be either the participant's own hand or an object (brush for body massage). The target could either be the human or the fake hand. Thus, four types of cues could be distinguished: “hand/human hand,” “hand/fake hand,” “object/human hand,” and “object/fake hand.” The experimental procedure of the touch intention runs is illustrated in Figure 2.


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Figure 2. (A) Cue stimuli for the experimental conditions. (B) Time line of the experimental paradigm including touch as well as no touch trials. During the “cue” phase, one of the cues depicted in (A) is presented according to a randomized order.


The visual cues were presented for a duration of 1000 msec and were always followed by a red fixation cross. After 3000 msec, the red fixation cross could become either blue (duration = 6000 msec) or black (variable duration = 2000/4000/6000/8000 msec). When the red fixation cross became blue (20% of the trials), the participants were required to perform a gentle massage of the dorsum of the human hand or of the fake hand in the same manner. These trials were defined as “touch trials” and mainly served as catch trials in the experiment. According to the cue, participants had to massage the human hand with their own hand (14 trials), the human hand with the object (14 trials), the fake hand with their own hand (14 trials), or the fake hand with the object (14 trials). When the blue fixation cross turned black, participants had to bring their hand back to the original position on the table. We chose to massage the dorsum of the hand for two reasons: (1) to extend previous studies where we showed that the mere social perception of the dorsum of another individual's hand being touched activated somatosensory cortices (Ebisch et al., 2008, 2011) and (2) the dorsum of the hand has been related to clear social functions, like affiliative social body contact, mainly based on the presence of C-tactile afferents (Morrison et al., 2010; Löken, Wessberg, Morrison, McGlone, & Olausson, 2009).

In case the red fixation cross became black (80% of the trials), participants had to keep their hand on the table and to wait for the next cue. These trials were defined as “no touch trials.” Because the touch trials occurred randomly, participants could not know beforehand whether they had to perform the cued touch and were required to prepare the cued touch in all the trials (i.e., “touch trials” as well as “no touch trials”). The “no touch trials” were of principal interest for data analysis, because they reflected the intention to touch, without the presence of any overt movements of the participant. Thus, the touch intention could be “hand/human hand” (56 trials), “object/human hand” (56 trials), “hand/fake hand” (56 trials), or “object/fake hand” (56 trials).

In addition to these touch intention fMRI runs, all participants underwent a tactile localizer task always run at the end of the fMRI session during which they were touched (i.e., gentle massage) on their right hand in randomized order by the hand of the individual standing next to the scanner (8 × 10 sec periods) or by the brush for body massage (8 × 10 sec periods). Touch periods were divided by an intertrial interval of 12 sec. Participants were touched on the dorsum of their hand to match the passive touch experience condition (i.e., being touched on the dorsum of one's own hand) with the active touch conditions where the other individual passively experienced touch in the same way. The localizer task was separated from the active touch conditions, allowing the use of an independent data set for creating a tactile localizer mask, thus providing an independent way to select voxels responding to passive tactile stimulation. Analyzing modulation of BOLD response in anticipation of active touch condition in brain regions involved in passive touch experiences was of theoretical interest for the study, whereas the relationship between active and passive touch was not to be investigated directly.

Before scanning, participants underwent a practicing session outside the scanner to train them on the fMRI task with the experimenter, thus avoiding interactions with the individual who was going to stay next to the scanner during the experiment. At debriefing, participants were asked to rate the pleasantness of their experience of actively touching the human hand or the fake hand by means of their own hand or the object. This rating referred to the pleasantness of the active touch as required by the experimental design during scanning. For this purpose, the pleasantness of the four different touch stimulations was rated on a visual analog scale.

fMRI Data Preprocessing and Analysis

Raw data were analyzed with Brain Voyager QX 2.3 software (Brain Innovation, Maastricht, The Netherlands). Because of T1 saturation effects, the first five scans of each run were discarded from the analysis. Preprocessing of functional data included slice scan time correction, motion correction, and removal of linear trends from voxel time series. A 3-D motion correction was performed with a rigid body transformation to match each functional volume to the reference volume estimating three translation and three rotation parameters. Preprocessed functional volumes of a participant were coregistered with the corresponding structural data set. As the 2-D functional and 3-D structural measurements were acquired in the same session, the coregistration transformation was determined using the slice position parameters of the functional images and the position parameters of the structural volume. Structural and functional volumes were transformed into the Talairach space (Talairach & Tournoux, 1988) using a piecewise affine and continuous transformation. Functional volumes were resampled at a voxel size of 3 × 3 × 3 mm and spatially smoothed with a Gaussian kernel of 6 mm FWHM to account for intersubject variability.

The touch intention fMRI runs were modeled by means of a two gamma hemodynamic response function using predictors for the different no touch conditions (one regressor including cue and red cross representing the touch anticipation phase) and the different touch conditions (one regressor including cue and red cross representing the touch anticipation phase and one regressor for the blue cross representing the touch performance phase). The intertrial interval (black cross) was defined as a baseline period (rest) and, hence, not modeled as a separate predictor. The tactile localizer fMRI run was also modeled by means of a two gamma hemodynamic response function. In this case, the different types of touch were defined as separate predictors and the intertrial interval served as a baseline.

Before statistical analysis, a percent signal change normalization of the time series from the different runs was performed. The parameters (beta values) estimated in individual participant analysis were entered in a second-level voxel-wise random effect group analysis to search for activated areas that were consistent for the whole group of participants. The p value (<.001 uncorrected) of the statistical maps and an estimate of the spatial correlation of voxels were used as input in a Monte Carlo simulation (1000 simulations) to access the overall significance level and to determine a cluster size threshold (k) to obtain a significance level that was cluster level-corrected for multiple comparisons (Forman et al., 1995). The coordinates of the voxel clusters showing statistically significant effects were compared with the Talairach atlas available in Brain Voyager QX software to label them in terms of anatomically defined regions and Brodmann's areas.

Statistical maps related to touch anticipation (cue and red cross phase of the “no touch trials”) as well as touch performance (blue cross phase of the “touch trials”) were calculated by means of voxel-wise, whole-brain t tests (contrast: any condition vs. baseline; “hand/human hand” vs. baseline or “hand/fake hand” vs. baseline or “object/human hand” vs. baseline or “object/fake hand” vs. baseline).

To investigate whether there were statistically significant modulations of BOLD response because of a different target (human hand vs. fake hand), voxel-wise statistical contrasts based on the t statistic were performed specifying condition effects and interactions between conditions by appropriately weighted linear contrasts on the “no touch trials.” In particular, it was investigated whether there were statistically significant Target, Modality, or Target × Modality interaction effects. Contrasts of principal interest were the effect of Target (is the anticipation of touching a human hand different from touching a fake hand?) and the Target × Modality interaction effect (is the anticipation of actively touching a human hand, compared with a fake hand, by one's own hand functionally distinct from anticipating the active touch of a human hand with an object?).

The Target × Modality interaction contrasts investigating whether the anticipation of touching a human hand was associated with stronger neural activity, compared with the control condition (touching a fake hand), were [(hand/human hand > hand/fake hand) − (object/human hand > object/fake hand)] and [(object/human hand > object/fake hand) − (hand/human hand > hand/fake hand)]. Whereas the former contrast allowed to test for differential BOLD response specifically when the touch was performed with one's own hand, the latter contrast allowed to test for differential BOLD response specifically when the touch was performed with an object.

With respect to the Target effect, we investigated whether the human hand elicited a greater BOLD signal compared with the fake hand target, independent of modality: [human hand > fake hand]. Regarding the modality effect, we investigated whether there was a difference in BOLD response between a touch performed with one's own hand and a touch performed with an object, independent of target: [hand > object] or [hand < object].

First, the contrasts described above were performed by means of a whole-brain, voxel-wise approach. Second, to focus on brain voxels that also responded to first-person tactile experiences, these contrasts were performed within the mask obtained by the tactile localizer task (touch experience vs. baseline).

To control for differences in BOLD response because of differences in affective valence between the conditions, ROI-based control analyses on BOLD responses to the “no touch trials” were performed, taking into account the affective valence of the touch. Individual beta values were extracted from the ROIs showing a significant effect regarding the above-described statistical contrasts (Target or interaction effects) between the experimental “no touch” conditions. Beta values for each ROI were calculated from the average signal time course of the voxels included in each ROI. ANCOVAs were performed on each cluster with these beta values within the clusters as dependent variables and Experimental Condition as within-subject factor to specifically investigate the effect of the covariate avoiding double dipping for effects because of the experimental conditions. The difference scores between the pleasantness ratings of the experimental conditions were set as covariate. Thus, for the contrast [hand/human hand > hand/fake hand], the difference score was calculated for the pleasantness ratings of the “hand/human hand” and the “hand/fake hand” conditions. For the contrast [object/human hand > object/fake hand], the difference score was calculated for the pleasantness ratings of the “object/human hand” and the “object/fake hand” conditions.

An additional whole-brain analysis was performed on the “touch trials.” It needs to be mentioned that this analysis is rather exploratory, also because of the small number of touch trials and variability in touch performance; touch trials primarily served as catch trials. In this additional analysis, the same voxel-wise contrasts as reported for the “no touch” trails were performed on the “touch trials,” specifically analyzing the phase when the blue cross was present, that is, when participants were actually performing the touch, excluding the preceding cue and red cross phases that were modeled as a separate regressor.

Finally, whole-brain, voxel-wise conjunction analyses were performed to preliminarily test whether the brain regions involved in the anticipation of active interpersonal touch also responded differently to actual touch performance. A random effect analysis of the conjunction between two contrasts was based on the minimum statistic compared with the conjunction null (Nichols, Brett, Andersson, Wager, & Poline, 2005). This method controls the false positive error for conjunction inference and tests for common activations by creating the intersection of statistical maps thresholded at a specific alpha rate. Also in this case, analysis of touch anticipation concerned the “no touch trials” (i.e., one regressor including both the cue and red cross phases), whereas the analysis of touch performance focused on the touch performance phase of the “touch trials” (i.e., regressor concerning the blue cross phases). Two conjunction contrasts were performed: (1) [“hand/human hand” vs. “hand/fake hand” no touch trials] ∩ [“hand/human hand” vs. “hand/fake hand” touch performance] and (2) [“object/human hand” vs. “object/fake hand” no touch trials] ∩ [“object/human hand” vs. “object/fake hand” touch performance].


RESULTSSection:
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Pleasantness Ratings

Average pleasantness rating (minimum = 0, maximum = 10) and standard deviation was for the “hand/human hand” touch 6.19 ± 2.12, for the “hand/fake hand” touch 4.90 ± 1.87, for the “object/human hand” touch 5.44 ± 1.48, and for the “object/fake hand” touch 3.76 ± 2.19. ANOVA showed a significant main effect of Target, F(1, 14) = 8.271, p < .01. Average ratings suggest that touching a human hand was rated by participants as being slightly more pleasant than touching a fake hand. There neither was significant main effect of Modality nor a significant Target × Modality interaction effect (p > .05).

fMRI Data Analysis: Experimental Conditions versus Baseline

Compared with baseline, significant activation was found for the “no touch trials” (any condition vs. baseline) in bilateral superior frontal gyrus (BA 6), SMA (BA 6), dorsal ACC (BA 32), ventral precentral gyrus (BA 6), lateral and medial posterior parietal cortex (BA 7, BA 19), supramarginal gyrus (BA 40), superior frontal gyrus (BA 10), anterior insula (BA 13), nucleus caudatus, thalamus, occipital cortex (BA 17, BA 18, BA 19), fusiform gyrus (BA 37), right cerebellum, and left hemisphere postcentral gyrus (PostCG; SI), aIPL (BA 40), medial parietal cortex (BA 5; p < .01 corrected; t > 4.07; k > 10).

Compared with baseline, significant activation was found for the touch performance phase (blue cross) of the “touch trials” (any condition vs. baseline) in bilateral dorsal precentral gyrus (BA 4), superior frontal gyrus (BA 6), SMA (BA 6), posterior parietal cortex (BA 5, BA 7, BA 39, BA 40), nucleus caudatus, putamen, parietal operculum/aIPL (BA 40), thalamus, anterior/mid/posterior insula (BA 13), cerebellum, cingulate cortex (BA 24, BA 31, BA 32), mid brain, left PostCG (BA 1, BA 2, BA 3), and right ventral precentral gyrus (BA 6) and lOT (BA 19, BA 37; p < .01 corrected; t > 4.07; k > 10).

The observed activation patterns concerning touch anticipation and touch performance are largely consistent with previous studies investigating similar phenomena (e.g., Lederman & Klatzky, 2009; Carlsson et al., 2000).

The tactile localizer task, compared with baseline, induced significant activation in left PostCG (SI; BA 3, BA 1, BA 2), posterior parietal cortex (BA 5, BA 7), aIPL (BA 40), dorsal precentral gyrus (BA 4), ventral precentral gyrus (BA 6), mid cingulate cortex (BA 31), lOT (BA 37), right anterior insula (BA 13, BA 45), and bilateral SII (BA 40) and posterior insula (BA 13; p < .01 corrected; t > 3.29; k > 10).

Anticipating an Active Touch of a Human versus a Fake Hand: Whole-brain Approach

The interaction contrast [(hand/human hand > hand/fake hand) − (object/human hand > object/fake hand)] showed a significant effect in left PostCG (SI; BA 2), right cerebellum, and left medial pFC (MPFC; p < .01 corrected; t > 3.73; k > 7). The interaction effect in right cerebellum was driven by a stronger BOLD response in anticipation of a “hand/human hand” touch, compared with a “hand/fake hand” touch. The interaction effects in left PostCG (SI; BA 2) and left MPFC (BA 10, BA 32) were driven by stronger activity (i.e., weaker deactivation) in anticipation of a “hand/human hand” touch, compared with a “hand/fake hand” touch.

The contrast [(object/human hand > object/fake hand) − (hand/human hand > hand/fake hand)] yielded significant clusters in left aIPL extending into postcentral sulcus (PostCS; BA 40/BA 2), and in left lOT (BA 37; p < .01 corrected; t > 3.73; k > 5). The interaction effects in left aIPL/PostCS and lOT were driven by stronger activity during the “object/human hand” condition, compared with the “object/fake hand” condition.

No significant positive effect was detected for the human hand target, compared with the fake hand target, independent of modality. Significant effects for modality, independent of target, were found in left precentral gyrus, left PostCG, left mid insula, right PostCG, bilateral PreCG, and left mid cingulate cortex, reflecting stronger BOLD responses when anticipating a touch with the object, compared with a touch with one's own hand (p < .01 corrected; t > 3.73; k > 7), and in left occipital cortex reflecting stronger BOLD responses when anticipating a touch with one's own hand, compared with a touch with the object (p < .01 corrected; t > 3.73; k > 7).

Group statistical maps with voxel clusters showing a significant interaction effect at the whole-brain level and graphs representing average percent signal change within these voxel clusters are depicted in yellow/green in Figure 3 for the intention to touch with one's own hand and in Figure 4 for the intention to touch with the object. Further details about these clusters and statistical information are reported in Table 1.


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Figure 3. Group statistical maps of voxel clusters (yellow = inside tactile localizer mask; green = outside tactile localizer mask) showing a significant modulation in BOLD response because of the different touch target (human hand > fake hand), when intending to touch with one's own hand (p < .01, corrected). The tactile localizer mask is depicted in blue. Graphs represent average percent signal change, compared with baseline, in the voxel clusters and standard errors for the different no touch conditions. H-HH = hand/human hand; H-FH = hand/fake hand; O-HH = object/human hand; O-FH = object/fake hand.



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Figure 4. Group statistical maps of voxel clusters (yellow = inside tactile localizer mask; green = outside tactile localizer mask) showing a significant modulation in BOLD response because of the different touch target (human hand > fake hand), when intending to touch with the object (p < .01, corrected). The tactile localizer mask is depicted in blue. Graphs represent average percent signal change, compared with baseline, in the voxel clusters and standard errors for the different no touch conditions. H-HH = hand/human hand; H-FH = hand/fake hand; O-HH = object/human hand; O-FH = object/fake hand.


Data table
Table 1. Brain Regions Showing a Modulation of BOLD Response by the Different Experimental Conditions and Statistical Information for the Direct Contrasts between the Touch Intention Conditions

ROI-based covariance analysis failed to detect a significant effect of pleasantness ratings as covariate in these ROIs showing an interaction effect (p > .1 corrected for multiple comparisons, that is, for the number of ROIs included in the analysis), even using an uncorrected threshold of p < .1. Thus, although the different types of intended touch required by the experimental paradigm slightly differed regarding their pleasantness as experienced by the individual participants, the distinct activation patterns could not be explained by the pleasantness of the touch the participants intended to perform.

Anticipating an Active Touch of a Human versus a Fake Hand: Brain Regions Responding to Tactile Stimulation

Voxel-wise contrasts regarding the “no touch trials” within the tactile localizer mask showed that the significant interaction effect for the contrast [(hand/human hand > hand/fake hand) − (object/human hand > object/fake hand)] inleft PostCG (SI; BA 2) concerned voxels that also responded to passive tactile experiences (p < .01 corrected; t > 3.73; k > 5). Right cerebellum and left MPFC did not respond to passive touch experiences.

The contrast [(object/human hand > object/fake hand) − (hand/human hand > hand/fake hand)] yielded significant clusters in left aIPL extending into PostCS (BA 40/BA 2) and in left lOT (BA 37; p < .01 corrected; t > 3.73; k > 5) indicating that these regions also responded to passive tactile experiences.

No significant positive effect was detected for the human hand target, compared with the fake hand target, independent of modality. A significant effect for modality, independent of target, was found in left precentral gyrus, left PostCG, left mid insula, reflecting stronger BOLD responses when anticipating a touch with the object, compared with a touch with one's own hand (p < .01 corrected; t > 3.73; k > 5). The opposite modality contrast [hand > object] did not yield significant results within the tactile localizer mask.

Group statistical maps with voxel clusters showing a significant interaction effect inside the tactile localizer mask and graphs representing average percent signal change within these voxel clusters for the different conditions are depicted in yellow in Figure 3 for the intention to touch with one's own hand and in Figure 4 for the intention to touch with the object. Further details about these clusters and statistical information are reported in Table 1.

ROI-based covariance analysis failed to detect a significant effect of pleasantness ratings as covariate in these ROIs showing a significant interaction effect (p > .1 corrected for multiple comparisons, i.e., for the number of ROIs included in the analysis), even using an uncorrected threshold of p < .1. Hence, the detected differences in brain activity inside the tactile localizer mask seem to reflect sensorimotor processes rather than the affective aspect of active interpersonal touch.

Touch Performance

An exploratory analysis concerning the touch trials based on whole-brain, voxel-wise contrasts showed a significant interaction effect for the contrast [(hand/human hand > hand/fake hand) − (object/human hand > object/fake hand)] in left MPFC, left precuneus, right putamen, right medial-temporal cortex, and right lOT (p < .01 corrected; t > 4.07; k > 7), reflecting stronger activity during the “hand/human hand” condition, compared with the “hand/fake hand” condition.

For the interaction contrast [(object/human hand > object/fake hand) − (hand/human hand > hand/fake hand)], a significant effect was found in left PostCG and right posterior parietal cortex (p < .01 corrected; t > 4.07; k > 7), reflecting stronger activity during the “object/human hand” condition, compared with the “object/fake hand” condition.

A significant positive effect was detected for the human hand target, compared with the fake hand target, in MPFC, precuneus, and right posterior STS (p < .01 corrected; t > 4.07; k > 7) reflecting increased activity for the human hand target, compared with the fake hand target, independent of modality. A significant effect of modality was found in bilateral precentral gyrus, bilateral PostCG, bilateral SMA, bilateral posterior parietal cortex, bilateral SII, bilateral posterior insula, bilateral precuneus, left MPFC, right putamen, right posterior STS, bilateral cerebellum (p < .01 corrected; t > 4.07; k > 7), reflecting increased activity when touching with one's own hand, compared with an object, independent of the target.

Conjunction Analysis: Touch Anticipation and Touch Performance

Conjunction analysis showed that left MPFC was characterized by stronger activity during both the anticipation (i.e., weaker deactivation, compared with baseline) and the performance (i.e., stronger activation, compared with baseline) of the “hand/human hand” touch, compared with the “hand/fake hand” touch (p < .01 corrected, cluster size: 432 voxels, Talairach coordinates: −7, 46, 21). By contrast, left PostCG (SI) showed stronger activity (i.e., weaker deactivation, compared with baseline) anticipating a “hand/human hand” touch, compared with a “hand/fake hand” touch, whereas neural activity was stronger (i.e., stronger activation, compared with baseline) during the subsequent performance of a “hand/fake hand” touch, compared with a “hand/human hand” touch (p < .01 corrected, cluster size: 2457 voxels, Talairach coordinates: −40, −41, 57). Concerning the touch by an object, conjunction analysis did not detect voxel clusters characterized by a significant modulation by target during both touch anticipation and performance. Group statistical maps with voxel clusters showing a significant conjunction effect and graphs representing average percent signal change within these voxel clusters for the anticipation of touch (i.e., “no touch trials”) and the performance of touch (i.e., touch phase of the “touch trials”) are depicted in Figure 5.


View larger version(80K)

Figure 5. Group statistical maps of voxel clusters showing a significant modulation in BOLD response by target (human hand or fake hand) both during the anticipation and the performance of the touch when performed with one's own hand (p < .01, corrected). Graphs represent average percent signal change, compared with baseline, in the voxel clusters and standard errors. H-HH = hand/human hand; H-FH = hand/fake hand.



DISCUSSIONSection:
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This study aimed at investigating the anticipatory neural representations of active interpersonal touch. It was hypothesized that the intention to touch another individual (i.e., animate target, human hand) would be accompanied by differential neural activity in somatosensory cortices when compared with the control condition, that is, the intention to touch an inanimate target (i.e., fake hand). Confirming this hypothesis, fMRI results yielded stronger neural activity anticipating the touch of a human hand, compared with the touch of a fake hand in left PostCG (SI/BA 2), MPFC, aIPL, and lOT and right cerebellum. A tactile localizer task showed that these regions, except for left MPFC and right cerebellum, were also endowed with somatosensory properties underlying the first-person experience of touch.

No action performance (i.e., touching) was required in the conditions included in the statistical analysis of anticipatory processes and no overt hand movements were observed. Therefore, these results cannot be attributed to action performance or differences in tactile experiences between touching a human hand or a fake hand per se. The only difference between the conditions was the intention to eventually touch either an animate or an inanimate target controlling for nonsocial anticipatory sensorimotor processes by using a fake hand as inanimate target. Analysis of touch performance did not show significant target or Target × Modality effects in (pre)motor cortices, further suggesting that the anticipated touch conditions were comparable in motor performance. Finally, the participants were kept unaware of the identity of the individual they had to touch to control for possible confounds because of interpersonal relationships, whereas covariance analysis showed that the observed effects were independent from the affective valence of the touch as experienced by the participants. Thus, the differential modulation of activation induced by the no touch conditions is proposed to reflect sensorimotor processes specifically distinguishing between the anticipation of active animate or inanimate touch.

Importantly, interpersonal touch was studied in two modalities. Participants were cued to touch another individual's hand by means of their own hand or by using an object. As expected, a significant Target × Modality interaction effect in the brain regions described above showed that these conditions, compared with the conditions in which participants were cued to touch a fake hand, induced differential activation patterns. Below, we will further elaborate on this.

Anticipating Active Skin-to-Skin Contact

Differential neural activity in anticipation of skin-to-skin contact, that is, the touch of a human hand, compared with a fake hand, was detected in SI/BA 2. This finding extends previous work by showing that SI also may participate in active touch by specific anticipatory processes depending on the target of the touch. In particular, a more detailed examination of the fMRI results reveals that the active touch of a fake hand with one's own hand is anticipated by a stronger deactivation in SI, that is, a suppression of the BOLD signal, compared with baseline (Schäfer et al., 2012; Devor, Tian, Nishimura, Teng, & Hillman, 2007; Hlushchuk & Hari, 2006; Shmuel, Augath, Oeltermann, & Logothetis, 2006). Such a deactivation was absent in anticipation of the active touch of a human hand. We propose that such an anticipation could be based on sensory prediction mechanisms guiding behavior.

Sensory prediction or anticipation has a crucial role in motor control (Shadmehr, Smith, & Krakauer, 2010; Wolpert & Flanagan, 2001). According to forward models, an efference copy of the motor command is used to predict the sensory consequence of an action (Bays, Flanagan, & Wolpert, 2006; Blakemore, Wolpert, & Frith, 1999). Such prediction may lead to sensory attenuation or amplification in terms both of their phenomenology and of their cortical response (Hughes, Desantis, & Waszak, 2013; Jackson et al., 2011; Voss et al., 2008; Blakemore, Wolpert, & Frith, 1998; Chapman, 1994).

No studies directly compared the anticipatory processes related to the active touch of an animate and inanimate target. However, in the case of passively experienced touch, social factors have been demonstrated to modulate somatosensory responses as well as tactile perception (Gordon et al., 2013; Gazzola et al., 2012). Furthermore, Gazzola et al. (2012) showed by means of multivariate cluster analysis that neural activity in SI already differentiated between the type of touch the participants thought and predicted to receive before actually being touched. The present results add that actively touching an animate or an inanimate target is anticipated by differential activation patterns in bilateral SI/BA 2. Given the somatosensory and social functions of SI/BA 2 in combination with its connections with cortical motor circuits (Keysers et al., 2010), these findings may open a new window into the investigation of their contribution to social motor behavior.

Except for SI, increased anticipatory BOLD response was found for active skin-to-skin contact in right cerebellum. Not coincidentally, the cerebellum is a crucial brain structure underlying sensory prediction and the encoding of prediction errors (Roth, Synofzik, & Lindner, 2013; Schlerf, Ivry, & Diedrichsen, 2012; Blakemore & Sirigu, 2003; Wolpert, Miall, & Kawato, 1998). It has been generally suggested that the cerebellum is needed to optimize action performance and perception by recalibrating predictions of the sensory consequences of actions (Bastian, 2006; Wolpert et al., 1998). In particular, cerebellum could be involved in altering the perception of the effect of one's action by providing predictions about the sensory consequences of motor commands (Hughes et al., 2013; Blakemore, Frith, & Wolpert, 2000; Wolpert et al., 1998). The effects reported here in both SI and cerebellum are in line with previous evidence suggesting that sensory prediction in the cerebellum might modulate activity in somatosensory cortices when tactile stimuli are self-generated (Blakemore et al., 1999).

What could this sensory prediction entail? A relevant finding is that the absence of a deactivation in BA 2/SI and the presence of a positive anticipatory response in cerebellum were observed specifically when the participants prepared to touch the human hand directly with their own hand, that is, when the cue implied an eventual bodily contact with the target. According to previous reports on cerebellar function and sensory prediction, it has been proposed that the comparison of the predicted signals with actual sensory feedback facilitates the distinction between the sensory consequences of one's own movements and externally produced sensory signals, thus augmenting sensitivity to external sensory cues during active touch (Bays et al., 2006; Blakemore et al., 1999).

It could be speculated that actively touching someone else's hand with one's own hand is linked with a greater sensitivity to errors or to externally produced sensory cues. Preliminary results obtained by conjunction analysis indicating increased activation in left SI/BA 2 during the actual performance of the “hand/fake hand” touch, compared with the “hand/human hand” touch, seems to support this hypothesis. Stronger anticipatory activity (i.e., weaker deactivation) for the “hand/human hand” touch may be followed by attenuated somatosensory activity during actual performance which in turn is associated with a greater tactile discrimination capacity (Hughes et al., 2013; Bays et al., 2006; Blakemore et al., 1999). An intriguing issue for future studies would be to investigate whether the mere intention to perform an interpersonal touch is sufficient to modulate perceptual sensitivity and how this may regulate motor control. In addition, further experiments will need to extricate the relevance of sensory feedback when comparing the active touch of animate and inanimate targets.

Additional stronger activity during the anticipation of skin-to-skin contact was found in left MPFC. Like in SI/BA 2, a more detailed examination of the fMRI results discloses that the active touch of a fake hand with one's own hand is anticipated by a stronger deactivation in MPFC, that is, a suppression of the BOLD signal, compared with baseline. Conjunction analysis further yielded a significant modulation of BOLD response during both the anticipation and the subsequent performance of a hand touch in left MPFC: Whereas MPFC showed a stronger deactivation (negative BOLD modulation) in anticipation of a “hand/fake hand” touch, compared with the anticipation of a “hand/human hand” touch, MPFC showed enhanced BOLD response to the performance of a “hand/human hand” touch, compared with a “hand/fake hand touch.” MPFC has been associated with cognitive aspects of social cognition, like mentalizing (Amodio & Frith, 2006; Gilbert et al., 2006), suggesting that during active skin-to-skin contact processes related to social reasoning also come into play, consistent with previous studies on social interaction (Schippers, Roebroeck, Renken, Nanetti, & Keysers, 2010; Gilbert et al., 2007). We propose that the stronger deactivation in MPFC for the “hand/fake hand” no touch condition could reflect an anticipatory suppression of social reasoning processes that would be relatively irrelevant during the subsequent touch of the fake hand.

Active Interpersonal Touch Mediated by an Object

By contrast, in anticipation of an active interpersonal touch mediated by an object (“object/human hand” condition, compared with the “object/fake hand” control condition), a different set of brain regions was activated. There are some principal differences with the “hand/human hand” condition. The “object/human hand” condition required the use of an object not allowing to perceive distinct tactile properties of either the human or the fake hand when touch performance was required. Whereas the “object/fake hand” condition controlled for sensorimotor processes related to object manipulation, the absence of direct bodily contact with the target allowed to control for confounds because of differences in the predicted sensations associated with the animate and inanimate target. Thus, we propose that increased anticipatory activation in left aIPL/PostCS and lOT for the active touch of a human hand with an object is associated with the intention to induce tactile sensations in another individual.

The aIPL activation cluster is likely located in area PF (Caspers et al., 2008). Cytoarchitectonic, functional, and anatomical studies suggest that the rostral aspect of aIPL represents the putative human homologue of monkey area PF (Caspers et al., 2006), with similar motor (Binkofski et al., 1999), somatosensory (Ruben et al., 2001), and social functions (Caspers, Zilles, Laird, & Eickhoff, 2010; Gazzola & Keysers, 2009; Buccino et al., 2001) as well as connectivity patterns (Wang et al., 2012). Studies in macaque monkeys show that area PF contains neurons with somatosensory and proprioceptive responses that also discharge in association with movements, especially goal-directed motor acts (Gallese et al., 2002; Hyvärinen, 1982). In particular, area PFG represents motor acts related to the hand and also responds to tactile input from the same hand and to proprioceptive input induced by arm flexion (Rozzi, Ferrari, Bonini, Rizzolatti, & Fogassi, 2008). Consistent with these sensorimotor properties, PFG is connected with the hand representation of SII-PV complex, and with ventral (F5 and F4) and dorsal (F2) premotor areas (Rozzi et al., 2006; Petrides & Pandya, 1984). Additionally, based on the detection of mirror neurons in area PFG (Fogassi et al., 2005; Gallese et al., 2002), PFG has been proposed to play a role in others' intention understanding (Bonini et al., 2010; Rizzolatti & Sinigaglia, 2010). Most relevant to our study, showing aIPL involvement in anticipation of an action with a specific goal, is that PFG neurons have been shown to reflect the final goal of a performed action from the early phase of action unfolding (Bonini et al., 2011).

In addition to the mirror properties related to action performance and observation in aIPL, some studies suggested a more general role of aIPL in social perception, also including the mapping of others' tactile experiences onto one's own sensory representations. For example, in a previous study, we found that aIPL not only activates in response to tactile input, but also for the mere observation of another individual being touched (Ebisch et al., 2008). Furthermore, Morrison et al. (2013) postulated that aIPL, together with PostCG, may subserve the anticipation of the sensory consequences of observed hand–object interactions through the integration of action information and external information about the object. Here, we extend these findings by showing that aIPL and PostCS also activate in anticipation of active interpersonal touch without the need for any sensory input. Like in the case of social perception, this possibly incorporates the predicted sensory experiences of the person who is going to be touched by mapping them onto the somatosensory representation of our own tactile experiences (Keysers et al., 2010). A similar principle could apply to lOT, a multisensory region responding both to tactile stimulation (Hagen et al., 2002) and to the sight of touch (Ebisch et al., 2008). This is consistent with the proposal that multimodal circuits in the brain driving one's actions and sensations can ground an experience-based perception and generate expectations of others' sensations during social interaction based on embodied simulation (Morrison et al., 2013; Gallese & Sinigaglia, 2011; Sebanz et al., 2006; Wilson & Knoblich, 2005; Gallese, 2003; Gallese & Goldman, 1998).

Interestingly, it was proposed that the transformation of sensory information into a motor format is the main organization principle of aIPL (Rozzi et al., 2008). Moreover, PostCS as the posterior part of postcentral somatosensory corresponds to BA 2, a region projecting onto primary motor cortex (Caria et al., 1997; Kaneko et al., 1994a, 1994b), with a crucial role in motor control during haptic behavior (Freund, 2003; Iwamura & Tanaka, 1996; Hikosaka et al., 1985). Hence, we argue that during actively touching another individual, using an object, others' predicted somatosensory experiences could be integrated with motor programs in aIPL/PostCS. Such an integration possibly supports action coordination when individuals interact (Sebanz et al., 2006), like the regulation of active interpersonal touch.

General Discussion and Conclusions

This study sheds new light on the neural bases of anticipatory processes of active interpersonal touch. Some additional issues need to be mentioned. Some caution may be required for the interpretation of the observed deactivations in SI/BA 2 and MPFC anticipating active touch, because relatively short intertrial intervals were used due to the rapid event-related fMRI paradigm and the experiment did not include long-lasting rest conditions in which no stimuli were applied.

Moreover, although we controlled for possible confounds because of interpersonal relationships or socioemotional valence, we should add that, in everyday life, in addition to the sensorimotor component, interpersonal touch is inherently associated with an affective component, too (Gallace & Spence, 2010; Morrison et al., 2010). Motivational factors, like desire and aversion, probably will play a crucial role in the anticipation of interpersonal touch. Future work also will need to address the anticipatory processes representing the affective components of interpersonal touch and how these interact with sensorimotor predictions for the regulation of social behavior.

In conclusion, different from previous work on the contribution of the sensorimotor system to social cognition, mainly focused on social perception from a third-person perspective, the present findings provide new insights on the contribution of somatosensation, sensory prediction, and simulation mechanisms to social behavior in direct bodily interactions requiring to alternate between third- and second-person perspectives (see Gallese, in press; Gallese & Ebisch, 2013). Moreover, we suggest that direct and indirect bodily tactile contact with conspecifics is approached with a different emphasis on personal perception and external goals, respectively.


AcknowledgmentsSection:
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This work was supported by the EU Grant TESIS (Towards an Embodied Science of InterSubjectivity) to V. G. The authors thank the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on a previous version of this work.

Reprint requests should be sent to Sjoerd J. H. Ebisch, Institute of Advanced Biomedical Technologies, Department of Neuroscience and Imaging, G. d'Annunzio University, Via dei Vestini 33, 66013 Chieti, Italy, or via e-mail: or Vittorio Gallese, Department of Neuroscience, Section of Physiology, Parma University, Via Volturno 39, I-43100 Parma, Italy, or via e-mail: .


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+ Reflections of Oneself: Neurocognitive Evidence for Dissociable Forms of Self-Referential Recollection +

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Cerebral Cortex, Volume 25, Issue 9, September 2015, Pages 2648–2657, https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhu063
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Published:
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03 April 2014
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Abstract

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Research links the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) with a number of social cognitive processes that involve reflecting on oneself and other people. Here, we investigated how mPFC might support the ability to recollect information about oneself and others relating to previous experiences. Participants judged whether they had previously related stimuli conceptually to themselves or someone else, or whether they or another agent had performed actions. We uncovered a functional distinction between dorsal and ventral mPFC subregions based on information retrieved from episodic long-term memory. The dorsal mPFC was generally activated when participants attempted to retrieve social information about themselves and others, regardless of whether this information concerned the conceptual or agentic self or other. In contrast, a role was discerned for ventral mPFC during conceptual but not agentic self-referential recollection, indicating specific involvement in retrieving memories related to self-concept rather than bodily self. A subsequent recognition test for new items that had been presented during the recollection task found that conceptual and agentic recollection attempts resulted in differential incidental encoding of new information. Thus, we reveal converging fMRI and behavioral evidence for distinct neurocognitive forms of self-referential recollection, highlighting that conceptual and bodily aspects of self-reflection can be dissociated.

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Introduction

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Much cognitive neuroscience research indicates a strong link between social cognition and the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) across various tasks and cognitive domains (Amodio and Frith 2006; Mitchell 2009). Within the mPFC, a dorsal–ventral functional gradient has often been observed (Northoff and Bermpohl 2004; Moran et al. 2011). Whereas the dorsal mPFC is linked with processing social information about people in general (e.g., Hassabis et al. 2013), the ventral mPFC is more engaged when processing information in relation to oneself (Mitchell et al. 2006; D'Argembeau et al. 2007; Denny et al. 2012; Wagner et al. 2012). Furthermore, activation in the ventral mPFC is most often elicited in tasks that involve processing conceptual as opposed to bodily aspects of the self (e.g., reflections on one's personality traits rather than judgments of agency), whereas the latter tends to be associated with activation in sensorimotor and posterior cortical regions (Blakemore and Frith 2003; Gillihan and Farah 2005; Powell et al. 2010). Hence, the ventral mPFC may be a core component in a network of medial cortical regions that are specifically dedicated to conceptual self-referential processing (e.g., Gusnard et al. 2001; Kelley et al. 2002; Powell et al. 2010; Martinelli et al. 2013; although see Roy et al. 2012).

Episodic memories—recollections of personally experienced events—are intrinsically self-related, and are critical for our sense of a coherent identity that extends across time (Schacter et al. 2007). However, episodic memory may involve different degrees or types of self-referential processing, depending both on how information is initially encoded as well as on the type of information oriented towards during subsequent retrieval (e.g., Summerfield et al. 2009). During episodic encoding, relating information to one's concept of self (e.g., “Does the word intelligent describe you?”) improves later memory and is associated with greater ventral mPFC activity compared with relating the same information to another person (e.g., “Does the word intelligent describe President George Bush?”; Kelley et al. 2002). Furthermore, the level of activation in ventral mPFC predicts the magnitude of the later memory advantage for self-encoded items (Macrae et al. 2004; see also Leshikar and Duarte 2011). Another type of self-related processing—interacting with the world as an agent as opposed to watching another person perform an action—also enhances memory encoding (e.g., Cohen 1983; Engelkamp and Zimmer 1989). However, this enactment-based memory effect has been related to the involvement of motor-planning regions during encoding of self-performed actions rather than the mPFC (Powell et al. 2010), consistent with a distinction between bodily and conceptual aspects of self (see also Lind 2010).

During episodic retrieval, remembering conceptual information that was encoded in relation to oneself as opposed to another person activates the mPFC (Fossati et al. 2004; Benoit et al. 2010). In contrast, remembering self-performed actions compared with verbal descriptions of actions activates sensorimotor regions (e.g., Nyberg et al. 2002). Such similarity between cortical activation at encoding and retrieval is predicted by the transfer-appropriate processing framework, which proposes that successful retrieval involves the reinstatement of neurocognitive processes that were active at the time of encoding (Morris et al. 1977; Rugg et al. 2008). Interestingly, asking participants to remember whether they or another person performed an action activates the mPFC compared with other types of memory judgments (Brandt et al. 2014; Vinogradov et al. 2006; Simons et al. 2008). This finding raises the possibility that orienting towards social agency information (“was it me or you?”) during retrieval judgments engages mPFC-mediated cognitive processes that are not automatically elicited during retrieval of self-performed actions without a social element (cf. Nyberg et al. 2002). However, to our knowledge, no previous study has tested the extent to which agentic versus conceptual self/other judgments in recollection involve the recruitment of the same neural system, a question that formed the main focus of the current study.

We also tested another, complementary prediction related to the transfer-appropriate processing framework, namely that if retrieval involves reinstating the neurocognitive processes engaged when initially encoding an experience, then each retrieval attempt is potentially also an encoding event. Hence, if participants reinstate distinct types of neurocognitive processes depending on the type of information they are trying to retrieve, this may in turn affect the incidental encoding of novel information presented in a retrieval test. Previous research has shown that new “foil” words presented during an old/new recognition test tend to be incidentally encoded, as assessed by a surprise subsequent recognition test for the foils, and that such incidental encoding is enhanced if the foils are first encountered intermixed with semantically encoded old words compared with phonologically encoded old words (Jacoby, Shimizu, Daniels, et al. 2005; Jacoby, Shimizu, Velanova 2005). Because semantic processing typically leads to enhanced memory compared with phonological processing (Craik and Tulving 1975), this finding suggests that people strategically reinstate a semantic processing mode when attempting to retrieve semantically encoded information, and a phonological processing mode when attempting to retrieve phonologically encoded information (see also Marsh et al. 2009; Danckert et al. 2011). In the current study, we examined whether orienting retrieval towards the conceptual self would lead to differential encoding of new information compared with orienting retrieval towards the agentic self, as might be expected if these types of processing modes are distinct.

These questions were addressed in an fMRI experiment involving source judgments about agentic or conceptual self-referential memory. During study, participants viewed lists of person-descriptive words that were first read out loud either by the participant or the experimenter. Next, participants judged how well the person-descriptive word applied either to themselves or the President of the USA, Barack Obama (Kelley et al. 2002). During a subsequent scanned test, participants were presented with the words again, intermixed with new “foil” words. Participants were asked on a trial-by-trial basis to remember either whether they themselves or the experimenter had spoken the word, or whether it was new (orienting retrieval towards agentic self/other information); or, whether they had related the word to themselves or Obama, or whether it was new (orienting retrieval towards conceptual self/other information). A third nonepisodic control condition was also included. Following scanning, a surprise recognition test assessed whether agentic and conceptual recollection attempts had led to different degrees of incidental encoding of foils.

We predicted that both types of episodic recollection task would activate dorsal mPFC compared with the nonepisodic control condition, since both episodic tasks involve considering social information. In contrast, since the ventral mPFC is particularly linked to conceptual self-referential processing, we expected enhanced activation during recollection of person-descriptive words that participants had related to themselves rather than Obama during study. Finally, engaging such distinct self-referential retrieval processes when asked to retrieve conceptual versus agentic information, may, in turn, result in encoding differences of new items that served as lures. In that case, participants were expected to show differences in subsequent recognition of foil items from the conceptual versus agentic retrieval task.

Materials and Methods

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Participants

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Eighteen right-handed healthy native English speakers (5 male, 13 female, mean age = 22.5 years, and range 19–29), with normal or corrected to normal vision were screened using a comprehensive medical questionnaire and gave written informed consent before entering the MRI scanner. Participants received £30 in compensation for taking part. The study was approved by the University of Cambridge Psychology Research Ethics Committee.

Materials

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Stimuli consisted of 288 person-descriptive words (e.g., “gentle, jealous, bossy”) derived from Dumas et al. (2002). These words were split into 16 lists of 18 items each that were matched for word length, likableness, familiarity, and Kucera–Francis word frequency (Wilson 1988). List assignment to conditions was fully counterbalanced across participants.

Design and Procedure

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After initial practice of one study and one test phase, participants completed 16 study-test cycles in the scanner. Each study-test cycle was ∼2.5 min, meaning that the total time in the scanner was ∼40 min, plus short breaks. Only the test phases were scanned to avoid movement artifacts in the fMRI data due to the participant speaking during the study phase.

A study phase consisted of 8 trials. Each trial began with a 500 ms fixation cross followed by a person-descriptive word that appeared in the center of the screen for 500 ms, after which a cue at the top of the screen appeared for 3000 ms indicating who was to read out the word, either the participant or the experimenter (indicated by a “neutral” or an “experimenter” face symbol respectively, see Fig. 1). Participants spoke the word out loud on Subject trials and listened to the experimenter speaking the word over the intercom in Experimenter trials. Subsequently, a second cue appeared at the bottom of the screen for another 3000 ms indicating whether the participant had to judge the extent to which the person-descriptive word applied to either him/herself or to Obama (indicated by a “pointing hand” or an “Obama 2008” symbol respectively, see Fig. 1). Participants made their judgment via 4 buttons with their right hand (“sure no”, “unsure no”, “unsure yes”, and “sure yes”). These 2 study phase factors were fully crossed, and 2 trials of each possible combination were presented in a pseudorandom order (not more than 3 repetitions of the same condition) in each study phase.
Stimuli examples in the study (left column) and test (right column) phases. In the study phase, a symbol at the top of the screen indicated whether the participant (a “plain” face) or the experimenter (a face resembling the experimenter) should speak the word out loud. A symbol at the bottom of the screen indicated whether participants should judge how well the word reflected themselves (pointing hand) or the US President Obama (the “Obama 2008” campaign logo). In the test phase, a question at the top of the screen indicated to participants whether they should remember who had spoken the word at study (Agentic recollection), remember who the word had been related to at study (Conceptual recollection), or make a nonepisodic Control judgment. Top left: a word spoken by the participant at study (Subject) that they also related to themselves (You). Top right: the same word tested with the Conceptual recollection question. Bottom left: a word spoken by the Experimenter at study that the participant related to Obama. Bottom right: a new word tested with the Agentic recollection question.
Figure 1.

Stimuli examples in the study (left column) and test (right column) phases. In the study phase, a symbol at the top of the screen indicated whether the participant (a “plain” face) or the experimenter (a face resembling the experimenter) should speak the word out loud. A symbol at the bottom of the screen indicated whether participants should judge how well the word reflected themselves (pointing hand) or the US President Obama (the “Obama 2008” campaign logo). In the test phase, a question at the top of the screen indicated to participants whether they should remember who had spoken the word at study (Agentic recollection), remember who the word had been related to at study (Conceptual recollection), or make a nonepisodic Control judgment. Top left: a word spoken by the participant at study (Subject) that they also related to themselves (You). Top right: the same word tested with the Conceptual recollection question. Bottom left: a word spoken by the Experimenter at study that the participant related to Obama. Bottom right: a new word tested with the Agentic recollection question.

The subsequent source memory test phases comprised 18 trials each, in which participants were presented with person-descriptive words in the center of the screen that had either previously been seen or were new, and were asked one of 3 questions. Six trials in each phase assessed memory for whether items had been read out loud by the participant or the experimenter during study, or whether they were new (the “Agentic condition” or “Agentic task”), with 2 items of each old type and 2 new foils); 6 assessed memory for whether items had been related to the participant or to Obama during study, or whether they were new (the “Conceptual condition” or “Conceptual task”), with 2 items of each old type and 2 new foils); and 6 trials required participants to judge the number of letters in novel personality trait words (the “Control condition” or “Control task”). The order of test questions was pseudorandom to ensure that the same question was not repeated more than 3 times in a row, and that the last item presented during the preceding study phase was not the first item presented at test.

Each trial began with a 475 ms fixation cross, after which one of the 3 questions appeared at the top of the screen (“Who Said it?” for Agentic recollection, “Who Related to?” for Conceptual recollection, or “Letters?” for Control), for a total duration of 4500 ms. One second after the question appeared, the person-descriptive word appeared in the center of the screen for 3500 ms, and participants were required to respond within this time (see Fig. 1). For each question, symbols at the bottom of the screen indicated the 3 different answers participants could choose between (Agentic recollection: “SUB”, subject said it; “EXP”, experimenter said it; “NEW”, the word is new. Conceptual recollection: “YOU”, related it to themselves; “OBA”, related it to Obama; “NEW”, the word is new. Control condition: “<8”, fewer than 8 letters; “8–10” between 8 and 10 letters; “>10”, more than 10 letters. These word length values were chosen since approximately one-third of items fell within each category). In all conditions, participants were instructed to use the duration of their button press to indicate their levels of confidence in their answer, with higher confidence indicated by a longer button press. When pressing a button, the font color of the chosen option would initially turn green, and the font color would change from green towards red with continued button press.

Postscan Foil Recognition Test

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After completing the experimental phases, participants undertook a surprise test outside of the scanner, which assessed their recognition memory for foils that had been previously presented during the test phase of the prior experiment. All previously seen foil words from the Agentic and Conceptual test conditions (32 items in each condition, 2 from each of the preceding 16 test phases) were pseudorandomly intermixed with completely new person-descriptive words (64 items), and were presented for 3500 ms in the center of the screen. The new person-descriptive words for the foil test were also selected from Dumas et al. (2002) and had similar characteristics to the words in the main experiment, but were not counterbalanced across the other conditions because our hypothesis only concerned differences in recognition performance for foils that had been previously seen in the agentic versus conceptual source memory tests. Participants were instructed to judge a word as “old” if it had been presented earlier in any phase of the experiment, and to respond “new” if the word had not been presented during any phase of the experiment. Responses were given on a 4-point confidence scale (“sure old”, “unsure old”, “unsure new”, and “sure new”).

Postscan Similarity Test

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Finally, following the foil recognition test, participants undertook a test to measure their perceived personality similarity with President Obama. In this similarity test, participants made judgments about Obama using the person-descriptive words that they had previously related to themselves in the study phase and vice versa. In this way, participants provided both a self and an Obama rating for each word.

In order to measure the extent to which participants perceived themselves as similar to President Obama, Pearson correlation coefficients were computed between the self and Obama judgments. These served as a similarity index, and were Fisher Z transformed. It has been suggested that self-referential processes are also applied when considering someone who is perceived as similar to the self (e.g., Mitchell et al. 2006). As a corollary, one would engage similar encoding processes when judging oneself and that similar other person, which would result in less discriminable memory traces (Benoit et al. 2010). Thus, individuals who perceived themselves as more similar to Obama should be worse at remembering whether they had related a word to themselves or Obama during study (Benoit et al. 2010).

FMRI Data Acquisition and Analysis

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Structural MPRAGE images and functional images were acquired with a 3T Siemens Allegra system (repetition time = 2250 ms, echo time = 30 ms, 36 interleaved axial slices oriented ∼10–20° from the AC–PC transverse plane, 2 mm thickness, 1 mm interslice skip, 192 mm field of view [FOV], 64 × 64 matrix). In order to allow for T1 equilibration, the first 4 volumes from each session were discarded.

Data were preprocessed and analyzed using SPM8 (Welcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience, London). All acquired images for each participant were realigned with respect to the first for motion correction and all slices were resampled in time to match the middle slice. Participants' structural scans were coregistered to their mean functional image, and the coregistered structural scan was segmented to separate out gray matter and generate normalization parameters. Next, these normalization parameters were used to normalize the realigned and slice-timing corrected functional images into 3-mm cubic voxels in Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) stereotactic space (Cocosco et al. 1997). The normalized images were then spatially smoothed with an 8-mm full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) isotropic Gaussian kernel.

Statistical analysis of random effects was undertaken in 2 stages. In the first stage, the 16 sessions were concatenated and delta functions representing onset times of the experimental conditions of interest were convolved with a canonical hemodynamic response function after discarding onsets that fell in the last 16 s of a session since their response could not be accurately modeled. Sessions were concatenated due to the low number of trials in each functional run to ensure an adequate trial number for the estimation of each regressor (e.g., Benoit et al. 2010). A subject-level model was used to estimate the parameters for each regressor, with movement parameters in the 3 directions of motion and 3 degrees of rotation included as vectors of no interest to avoid movement confounds. However, with concatenated functional runs, it is not possible to use the standard SPM high-pass filter, which would treat the runs as one continuous time-series. We thus included the following regressors in order to control for temporal drifts and for run-specific mean activation levels: a linear-trend predictor, a 6-predictor Fourier basis for nonlinear trends (sines and cosines of up to 3 cycles per run) and a confound-mean predictor (Kriegeskorte et al. 2008).

For the episodic tasks, 6 separate regressors coded the onsets of: 1) old items in the Agentic recollection task that participants had spoken during study and that received an accurate source judgment (the “Subject” condition); 2) old items in the Agentic recollection task that the experimenter had spoken during study and that received an accurate source judgment (the “Experimenter” condition); 3) correctly identified New items in the Agentic recollection task; 4) old items in the Conceptual recollection task that participants had related to themselves during study and that received an accurate source judgment (the “You” condition); 5) old items in the Conceptual recollection task that participants had related to Obama during study and that received an accurate source judgment (the “Obama” condition); 6) correctly identified New items in the Conceptual recollection task. Regressors 7–10 consisted of new items in the Control task that received an accurate letter number judgment and that were randomly split into quarters and modeled with 4 separate regressors. This split was implemented because one analysis of interest involved investigating common activation for both old and new items during both episodic tasks compared with the Control condition, thus splitting Control trials into 4 allowed each episodic condition to be compared against an independent baseline. A final 11th regressor coded old and new items from any task for which participants gave no response or the wrong response with the purpose of removing noise variability from the first level statistical model.

In a second analysis, another first level model was created to investigate differences between old items in the different recollection tasks based on whether the participant had related a word to themselves or Obama during study, irrespective of whether the experimenter or participant had spoken the word out loud. This analysis included the same regressors as above with the exception that old items were grouped according to You versus Obama study condition in both retrieval tasks.

In the second stage of each analysis, the beta estimates from the first level were entered into a general linear model treating subjects as a random effect. The mPFC was defined as an a priori region of interest. Coordinates of the anterior rostral medial PFC region identified by Amodio and Frith (2006) as specifically sensitive to social cognition were used to create a mask for small-volume correction. The mask had a posterior boundary at the edge between the corpus callosum and the anterior cingulate cortex (approximate Y coordinate 31), left and right boundaries at MNI X coordinates −15 and 15, respectively, the lower boundary on the horizontal plane approximately at MNI Z coordinate 4, and an upper boundary line passing through approximate MNI points (50, 41) and (30, 15) as defined by Steele and Lawrie (2004, see Fig. 5). This mask was smoothed with a 8 mm FWHM kernel, and activations within this mPFC region were characterized using an uncorrected height threshold of P < 0.001 with a minimum cluster size of 10 voxels, reported as significant when the peak exceeded the small-volume corrected family-wise error threshold of P < 0.05. Activations outside the mPFC were reported when they were significant at P < 0.05 whole-brain family-wise error corrected, with a minimum cluster size of 10 voxels. The approximate Brodmann's areas of significant clusters were estimated using the Talairach and Tournoux (1988) atlas and the Talairach daemon software, after adjusting coordinates to allow for differences between the MNI and Talairach templates using a nonlinear transform (http://imaging.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/imaging/MniTalairach).

Results

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Source Memory Test Results

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Table 1 shows the behavioral data from the scanned retrieval test phases. Note that old recognition rate was calculated as the proportion of items in old conditions that were attributed to either of the 2 sources irrespective of source accuracy. For source accuracy, we used the raw proportion accurate responses for each condition. In the first step, we tested for typical self-referential effects, whereby items that participants had related to themselves or spoken out loud were predicted to be associated with higher memory accuracy than items that participants had related to Obama or that had been spoken by the experimenter. Planned comparisons confirmed that self-encoded conditions were associated with significantly higher old recognition rate than other-encoded items in both memory tasks (Subject vs. Experimenter: t(17) = 2.87, P = 0.011; You vs. Obama: t(17) = 2.21, P = 0.042), in line with a large body of previous research. However, there were no significant differences between Subject- and Experimenter-spoken items in the Agentic recollection task for source accuracy (proportion correct responses), RT or Confidence (all P > 0.14). You- and Obama-related items in the Conceptual recollection task were also not significantly different for source accuracy (t < 1, ns), but You items were associated with significantly shorter RTs (t(17) = 4.52, P = 0.0003) and higher Confidence (t(17) = 4.12, P = 0.0007) than Obama items.

Table 1

Memory test performance

Proportion accurate
Reaction time (ms)
Confidence time (ms)
Proportion old recognition rate
MeanSEMMeanSEMMeanSEMMeanSEM
Agentic
 Subject0.630.04197074433350.940.01
 Experimenter0.710.03202354406310.900.01
 New0.960.0113467468352
Conceptual
 You0.770.03198780531490.930.01
 Obama0.750.03216360455400.910.01
 New0.970.0113987768153
Control0.870.0216228760139
Proportion accurate
Reaction time (ms)
Confidence time (ms)
Proportion old recognition rate
MeanSEMMeanSEMMeanSEMMeanSEM
Agentic
 Subject0.630.04197074433350.940.01
 Experimenter0.710.03202354406310.900.01
 New0.960.0113467468352
Conceptual
 You0.770.03198780531490.930.01
 Obama0.750.03216360455400.910.01
 New0.970.0113987768153
Control0.870.0216228760139
Table 1

Memory test performance

Proportion accurate
Reaction time (ms)
Confidence time (ms)
Proportion old recognition rate
MeanSEMMeanSEMMeanSEMMeanSEM
Agentic
 Subject0.630.04197074433350.940.01
 Experimenter0.710.03202354406310.900.01
 New0.960.0113467468352
Conceptual
 You0.770.03198780531490.930.01
 Obama0.750.03216360455400.910.01
 New0.970.0113987768153
Control0.870.0216228760139
Proportion accurate
Reaction time (ms)
Confidence time (ms)
Proportion old recognition rate
MeanSEMMeanSEMMeanSEMMeanSEM
Agentic
 Subject0.630.04197074433350.940.01
 Experimenter0.710.03202354406310.900.01
 New0.960.0113467468352
Conceptual
 You0.770.03198780531490.930.01
 Obama0.750.03216360455400.910.01
 New0.970.0113987768153
Control0.870.0216228760139

Next, we compared performance across the 2 recollection tasks. This analysis was important for interpreting any putative differences between foils on the subsequent foil recognition task, because previous research has shown that later recognition tends to be more accurate for foils that are presented intermixed with studied items that are more accurately remembered in the initial retrieval test (e.g., Jacoby, Shimizu, Daniels et al. 2005; Jacoby, Shimizu, Velanova 2005). Comparing all old items in the Agentic and Conceptual tasks against each other, irrespective of study conditions, showed that both source accuracy and confidence was significantly higher for Conceptual source memory judgments than Agentic source memory judgments (accuracy: t(17) = 3.20, P = 0.005; confidence: t(17) = 2.87, P = 0.011). However, the 2 memory tasks did not differ in reaction time (t(17) = 1.63, P = 0.12). There were no significant differences between Agentic and Conceptual new items on any measure (accuracy: t(17) = 1.37, P = 0.19; RT: t(17) = 1.72, P = 0.10; confidence: t(17) < 1, ns). Thus, performance for new foils was highly similar across tasks in the source memory test, suggesting that any subsequent differences on the foil recognition test (next section) cannot be simply explained by differences in processing effort or study time during initial encoding in the first test.

Performance in both recollection tasks was also compared against performance in the Control task. This analysis assessed whether potential behavioral differences between memory and Control tasks could explain the fMRI activations seen for both old and new items in the episodic retrieval tasks when compared with the Control condition (see fMRI Results section). Previously seen items in the recollection tasks were associated with lower accuracy (Agentic Subject: t(17) = 5.52, P = 0.00004; Agentic Experimenter: t(17) = 3.72, P = 0.002; Conceptual You: t(17) = 2.93, P = 0.009; Conceptual Obama: t(17) = 3.35, P = 0.004) and longer reaction times (Agentic Subject: t(17) = 3.94, P = 0.001; Agentic Experimenter: t(17) = 5.33, P = 0.00006; Conceptual You: t(17) = 4.19, P = 0.001; Conceptual Obama: t(17) = 7.38, P = 0.000001) than the Control condition. Old items were also associated with significantly lower confidence than Control items (Agentic Subject: t(17) = 4.30, P = 0.0005; Agentic Experimenter: t(17) = 6.28, P = 0.000008; Conceptual Obama: t(17) = 4.93, P = 0.0001), with the exception of items that the participant had related to themselves during study, which only showed a trend for lower confidence (Conceptual You: t(17) = 1.89, P = 0.08). In contrast, new items in both recollection tasks were associated with higher accuracy (Agentic New: t(17) = 3.38, P = 0.004; Conceptual New: t(17) = 4.37, P = 0.0004) and confidence ratings (Agentic New: t(17) = 2.45, P = 0.026; Conceptual New: t(17) = 2.33, P = 0.032) and shorter reaction times (Agentic New: t(17) = 3.95, P = 0.001; Conceptual New: t(17) = 2.96, P = 0.009) than the Control condition. This behavioral pattern thus means that any common episodic task effects on brain activity that occurred for both old and new items compared with the Control task cannot be explained by simple differences in accuracy, RT, or confidence.

Consistent with prior research, participants who thought of themselves as more alike to Obama (as shown by the similarity index) were significantly less accurate at remembering whether a word had been related to themselves or Obama (r(16) = −0.53, P = 0.024). By comparison, there was no significant relationship between the similarity measure and performance on the Agentic recollection task (r(16) = −0.15, P = 0.56). The difference between these correlation coefficients was at trend-level according to a Williams t-test for dependent correlations (t(15) = 1.49, P = 0.08, one-tailed). Thus, consistent with the hypothesis that one would also engage self-referential (encoding) processes when thinking about someone similar to oneself (Mitchell et al. 2006; Benoit et al. 2010), people who perceived themselves as more similar to Obama found it more difficult to subsequently remember whether they had in fact made conceptual judgments about themselves or Obama.

Foil Recognition Results

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Despite highly similar behavioral performance for foils during their initial exposure, they were not remembered equally well on a subsequent foil recognition test. The hit rate was significantly higher for foils that had been presented with a Conceptual than Agentic retrieval question during the preceding source memory test (Conceptual: mean proportion correct = 0.66, SEM = 0.03; Agentic: mean proportion correct = 0.57, standard error of the mean (SEM) = 0.03; t(17) = 3.18, P = 0.005). RT and confidence measures did not differ across the 2 types of foils (Conceptual: mean RT (ms) = 1745, SEM = 307; Agentic: mean RT (ms) = 1715, SEM = 207; Conceptual: mean proportion confident responses = 0.45, SEM = 0.04; Agentic: mean proportion confident responses = 0.44, SEM = 0.04; both ts < 1, ns). Thus, the results support the hypothesis that retrieval of conceptual versus agentic self-referential information rely on different neurocognitive processes.

FMRI Results

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We first discuss the simple retrieval effects (episodic task effects and basic old/new effects) and then turn to the critical and more complex analysis of the activation differences as a function of both study condition and retrieval task.

General Episodic Task Effects Compared with Control

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The first fMRI analysis investigated common effects of episodic retrieval instructions compared with the Control condition, irrespective of retrieval task and memory status (old vs. new) of the items. A conjunction analysis was conducted on individual contrasts between Agentic old > Control, Agentic new > Control, Conceptual old > Control and Conceptual new > Control. Because these contrasts used the same Control condition they were not statistically independent, which can bias the conjunction statistical test. Therefore, it would be inappropriate to report the t-values generated by this nonindependent conjunction analysis. Instead, common activation across contrasts was defined as regions where each effect was independently significant at the specified threshold, and the conjunction analysis was only used to localize the peaks in this overlap. T-values for those peaks were reported for each individual contrast.

A region of interest (ROI) analysis focusing on the mPFC region that has previously been implicated in social cognition (using a mask based on coordinates identified by Amodio and Frith (2006) for small-volume correction) confirmed that all episodic conditions did indeed activate a relatively dorsal cluster in the left mPFC (Table 2; Fig. 2A). An exploratory analysis testing for regions outside the mPFC that were commonly activated for old and new items in both retrieval tasks showed further activations in the medial parietal and left lateral temporo-parietal cortex, left inferior frontal and left middle temporal regions (Table 2).
Table 2

fMRI activations associated with episodic retrieval mode that were common across retrieval task and old/new item memory status

HemisphereRegionBAxyzVoxelsAgentic old > Control
T-value
Agentic new > Control
T-value
Conceptual old > Control
T-value
Conceptual new > Control
T-value
Independ-ent contrasts conjunct-ion
T-value
Medial PFC ROI
 LeftSuperior frontal gyrus10−125925684.874.726.445.453.73
Whole-brain analysis
 BilateralPrecuneus/posterior cingulate cortex7/23/31−6−553742714.5610.8814.2610.338.79
 LeftMiddle temporal gyrus/superior temporal gyrus21/22−57−3711947.727.959.658.296.71
 LeftInferior frontal gyrus47/45/46−4529−51468.778.079.497.586.49
 LeftSuperior temporal gyrus/angular gyrus39−42−61282519.397.3310.827.35.61
HemisphereRegionBAxyzVoxelsAgentic old > Control
T-value
Agentic new > Control
T-value
Conceptual old > Control
T-value
Conceptual new > Control
T-value
Independ-ent contrasts conjunct-ion
T-value
Medial PFC ROI
 LeftSuperior frontal gyrus10−125925684.874.726.445.453.73
Whole-brain analysis
 BilateralPrecuneus/posterior cingulate cortex7/23/31−6−553742714.5610.8814.2610.338.79
 LeftMiddle temporal gyrus/superior temporal gyrus21/22−57−3711947.727.959.658.296.71
 LeftInferior frontal gyrus47/45/46−4529−51468.778.079.497.586.49
 LeftSuperior temporal gyrus/angular gyrus39−42−61282519.397.3310.827.35.61

BA, approximate Brodmann area.

Notes: Activation within the mPFC was initially height thresholded at P < 0.001 uncorrected, >10 voxels and subsequently small-volume corrected at P < 0.05 family-wise error (FWE). Activation outside the mPFC was thresholded at P < 0.05 FWE corrected for the whole brain, >10 voxels. Coordinates (x, y, and z) are cluster peaks from a conjunction analysis of the 4 simple effects in MNI space. T-values at these peaks are reported from simple contrasts of episodic conditions versus the pooled control condition, and from a conjunction analysis where the control trials were split into 4 independent baselines.

Table 2

fMRI activations associated with episodic retrieval mode that were common across retrieval task and old/new item memory status

HemisphereRegionBAxyzVoxelsAgentic old > Control
T-value
Agentic new > Control
T-value
Conceptual old > Control
T-value
Conceptual new > Control
T-value
Independ-ent contrasts conjunct-ion
T-value
Medial PFC ROI
 LeftSuperior frontal gyrus10−125925684.874.726.445.453.73
Whole-brain analysis
 BilateralPrecuneus/posterior cingulate cortex7/23/31−6−553742714.5610.8814.2610.338.79
 LeftMiddle temporal gyrus/superior temporal gyrus21/22−57−3711947.727.959.658.296.71
 LeftInferior frontal gyrus47/45/46−4529−51468.778.079.497.586.49
 LeftSuperior temporal gyrus/angular gyrus39−42−61282519.397.3310.827.35.61
HemisphereRegionBAxyzVoxelsAgentic old > Control
T-value
Agentic new > Control
T-value
Conceptual old > Control
T-value
Conceptual new > Control
T-value
Independ-ent contrasts conjunct-ion
T-value
Medial PFC ROI
 LeftSuperior frontal gyrus10−125925684.874.726.445.453.73
Whole-brain analysis
 BilateralPrecuneus/posterior cingulate cortex7/23/31−6−553742714.5610.8814.2610.338.79
 LeftMiddle temporal gyrus/superior temporal gyrus21/22−57−3711947.727.959.658.296.71
 LeftInferior frontal gyrus47/45/46−4529−51468.778.079.497.586.49
 LeftSuperior temporal gyrus/angular gyrus39−42−61282519.397.3310.827.35.61

BA, approximate Brodmann area.

Notes: Activation within the mPFC was initially height thresholded at P < 0.001 uncorrected, >10 voxels and subsequently small-volume corrected at P < 0.05 family-wise error (FWE). Activation outside the mPFC was thresholded at P < 0.05 FWE corrected for the whole brain, >10 voxels. Coordinates (x, y, and z) are cluster peaks from a conjunction analysis of the 4 simple effects in MNI space. T-values at these peaks are reported from simple contrasts of episodic conditions versus the pooled control condition, and from a conjunction analysis where the control trials were split into 4 independent baselines.

fMRI activations in the mPFC associated with self/other recollection. Effects in A and B are thresholded at P < 0.001 (uncorrected), with a minimum cluster size of 10 voxels, and inclusively masked to display only activations within the mPFC region associated with social cognition in Amodio and Frith (2006). Effects in (C) are thresholded at P < 0.05 family-wise error corrected for the whole brain, with a minimum cluster size of 10 voxels. The percent signal change bar graphs (A and B) plot the mean difference between each displayed condition and the nonepisodic Control task extracted from the peak voxel in each mPFC cluster. (A) A dorsal mPFC region with a peak at [−12, 59, 25] showed enhanced activation for both old and new items in both recollection tasks, compared with the Control condition. (B) a ventral mPFC region with a peak at [−9, 53, 13] showed selective activation for old items that participants had processed in relation to their conceptual self during study, and only when the retrieval task required recollection of conceptual self/other information. (C) In a whole-brain analysis, general old > new effects (old > new collapsed across retrieval task; red) were associated with a very different activation pattern from episodic retrieval task effects (episodic tasks > Control task; green), except in the precuneus where the 2 effects overlapped.
Figure 2.

fMRI activations in the mPFC associated with self/other recollection. Effects in A and B are thresholded at P < 0.001 (uncorrected), with a minimum cluster size of 10 voxels, and inclusively masked to display only activations within the mPFC region associated with social cognition in Amodio and Frith (2006). Effects in (C) are thresholded at P < 0.05 family-wise error corrected for the whole brain, with a minimum cluster size of 10 voxels. The percent signal change bar graphs (A and B) plot the mean difference between each displayed condition and the nonepisodic Control task extracted from the peak voxel in each mPFC cluster. (A) A dorsal mPFC region with a peak at [−12, 59, 25] showed enhanced activation for both old and new items in both recollection tasks, compared with the Control condition. (B) a ventral mPFC region with a peak at [−9, 53, 13] showed selective activation for old items that participants had processed in relation to their conceptual self during study, and only when the retrieval task required recollection of conceptual self/other information. (C) In a whole-brain analysis, general old > new effects (old > new collapsed across retrieval task; red) were associated with a very different activation pattern from episodic retrieval task effects (episodic tasks > Control task; green), except in the precuneus where the 2 effects overlapped.

To verify the reliability of the above findings, a further analysis was conducted where trials in the Control condition were randomly split into quarters and used as 4 independent baselines for the episodic task conditions. The conjunction between these independent contrasts was calculated, which confirmed that all peaks identified in the pooled analysis were also significant when using independent Control conditions (Table 2), although the independent conjunction analysis was obviously less powerful.

General Old versus New Effects

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The next analysis investigated regions commonly activated during correct source memory judgments for old items compared with correct identification of new items, irrespective of retrieval task and study condition. This analysis was performed to assess whether there were any task-independent effects of episodic retrieval success in the mPFC, which might be expected if the mPFC mediates postretrieval processing of social information across both agentic and conceptual domains. A conjunction analysis was conducted on the individual contrasts between Agentic old > new, and Conceptual old > new, which revealed no significant activations within the mPFC ROI, but several significant clusters in the whole-brain analysis, including regions in the left inferior lateral and medial parietal cortex, left dorsolateral PFC, medial frontal cortex, bilateral anterior insula and striatum (Table 3). The reverse conjunction contrast, testing regions more activated for new than old items, revealed 2 highly significant clusters in secondary visual regions, as well as a smaller right parietal cluster (Table 3).

Table 3

Whole-brain fMRI activation differences between old and new items common to both episodic retrieval tasks.

HemisphereRegionBAxyzVoxelsConjunction
T-value
Old > new
 LeftSupramarginal gyrus/intraparietal sulcus/angular gyrus39/40−33−55401247.85
 LeftMiddle frontal gyrus9/46−398402307.5
 LeftSuperior frontal gyrus/ cingulate gyrus6/8/32−617461257.41
 LeftPrecuneus7−6−6734997.04
 LeftAnterior insula13−27261536.82
 LeftBasal gangliaStriatum−125−2166.04
 RightBasal gangliaStriatum95−2225.87
New > Old
 LeftCuneus18−9−94161289.14
 RightLingual gyrus1812−70−2787.47
 RightSupramarginal gyrus4054−2828285.75
HemisphereRegionBAxyzVoxelsConjunction
T-value
Old > new
 LeftSupramarginal gyrus/intraparietal sulcus/angular gyrus39/40−33−55401247.85
 LeftMiddle frontal gyrus9/46−398402307.5
 LeftSuperior frontal gyrus/ cingulate gyrus6/8/32−617461257.41
 LeftPrecuneus7−6−6734997.04
 LeftAnterior insula13−27261536.82
 LeftBasal gangliaStriatum−125−2166.04
 RightBasal gangliaStriatum95−2225.87
New > Old
 LeftCuneus18−9−94161289.14
 RightLingual gyrus1812−70−2787.47
 RightSupramarginal gyrus4054−2828285.75

Notes: Presented effects are thresholded at P < 0.05 FWE corrected for the whole brain, >10 voxels (there were no common old/new effects in the mPFC). Coordinates (x, y, and z) are cluster peaks in MNI space from a conjunction analysis between 2 old/new simple contrasts within each of the episodic retrieval tasks.

Table 3

Whole-brain fMRI activation differences between old and new items common to both episodic retrieval tasks.

HemisphereRegionBAxyzVoxelsConjunction
T-value
Old > new
 LeftSupramarginal gyrus/intraparietal sulcus/angular gyrus39/40−33−55401247.85
 LeftMiddle frontal gyrus9/46−398402307.5
 LeftSuperior frontal gyrus/ cingulate gyrus6/8/32−617461257.41
 LeftPrecuneus7−6−6734997.04
 LeftAnterior insula13−27261536.82
 LeftBasal gangliaStriatum−125−2166.04
 RightBasal gangliaStriatum95−2225.87
New > Old
 LeftCuneus18−9−94161289.14
 RightLingual gyrus1812−70−2787.47
 RightSupramarginal gyrus4054−2828285.75
HemisphereRegionBAxyzVoxelsConjunction
T-value
Old > new
 LeftSupramarginal gyrus/intraparietal sulcus/angular gyrus39/40−33−55401247.85
 LeftMiddle frontal gyrus9/46−398402307.5
 LeftSuperior frontal gyrus/ cingulate gyrus6/8/32−617461257.41
 LeftPrecuneus7−6−6734997.04
 LeftAnterior insula13−27261536.82
 LeftBasal gangliaStriatum−125−2166.04
 RightBasal gangliaStriatum95−2225.87
New > Old
 LeftCuneus18−9−94161289.14
 RightLingual gyrus1812−70−2787.47
 RightSupramarginal gyrus4054−2828285.75

Notes: Presented effects are thresholded at P < 0.05 FWE corrected for the whole brain, >10 voxels (there were no common old/new effects in the mPFC). Coordinates (x, y, and z) are cluster peaks in MNI space from a conjunction analysis between 2 old/new simple contrasts within each of the episodic retrieval tasks.

Differences Between Old Items as a Function of Self-Referential Encoding and Retrieval Task

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The final, critical analysis investigated the hypothesis that mPFC would be differentially involved in self-related episodic recollection as a function of both 1) the type of self-referential processing engaged at study and 2) the retrieval test requirements. This involved contrasting old words related to the self or Obama (You > Obama) during the Conceptual recollection task, and contrasting old words spoken aloud by the participants or experimenter (Subject > Experimenter) during the Agentic recollection task. In line with previous research (Benoit et al. 2010), self-related words significantly increased ventral mPFC activation compared with other-related words in the Conceptual recollection task (one large ventral cluster with 163 voxels at x, y, z: −9, 53, 13, t = 4.67, see Fig. 2B; a second smaller dorsal cluster with 13 voxels at x, y, z: 6, 59, 31, t = 3.69). However, no similar self-reference effect was found on trials when participants judged whether they or the experimenter had spoken the word (there were no self > other activation differences for Agentic recollection in the mPFC). In fact, both clusters in the You > Obama contrast in the Conceptual recollection task were still significant when exclusively masked with a leniently thresholded (P < 0.05, uncorrected) Subject > Experimenter contrast in the Agentic recollection task, indicating that self > other mPFC activation differences were restricted to conceptual self-referential memories. A second analysis separated old items in the Agentic recollection task based on whether the participant had related the word to themselves or Obama. This analysis revealed no significant mPFC differences, showing that the self-referential effect was task dependent.

Finally, to verify that the response in the ventral mPFC was indeed qualitatively different from the dorsal mPFC activation pattern, we extracted the percent signal change values from ventral and dorsal regions and ran a region (dorsal/ventral) × old condition (Agentic Subject, Agentic Experimenter, Conceptual You, and Conceptual Obama) Analysis of variance (ANOVA) on these values. However, as the ventral peak in our main analysis was defined by a contrast that was nonorthogonal to the effect tested for in the current analysis, it would be inappropriate to extract signal from this peak because doing so might bias the significance of the results (an example of “double dipping”, see Kriegeskorte et al. 2009). Therefore, we defined the ventral peak based on a recent meta-analysis by Denny et al. (2012), which demonstrated a maximum difference between self- and other-referential processing in the ventral mPFC (coordinates: −10, 50, 6) across 48 studies. Percent signal change extracted from this ventral peak was compared with percent signal change in our dorsal peak (coordinates: −12, 59, 25, Fig. 2A), since the latter was defined based on an orthogonal contrast (common activation for old and new items in the episodic tasks compared with control, collapsed across Study condition) to that tested in the current ANOVA and thus not statistically biased. This analysis confirmed a significant interaction (F3,51 = 6.66, P = 0.001).

Discussion

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In the current study, we investigated the brain regions that support different types of self-referential processing during episodic retrieval. Previous research has revealed a functional gradient in the mPFC during nonepisodic tasks, whereby the dorsal mPFC appears to have a general role in social cognition whereas the ventral mPFC may have a specific role in conceptual self-referential processing (Northoff and Bermpohl 2004; Mitchell et al. 2006; D'Argembeau et al. 2007; Moran et al. 2011; Denny et al. 2012; Wagner et al. 2012; Martinelli et al. 2013). Based on the assumption that episodic retrieval involves a reinstatement of the neurocognitive processes that are engaged when perceiving and comprehending an initial event (Morris et al. 1977; Rugg et al. 2008), we predicted that a similar distinction would be observed during recollection. Consistent with our predictions, the dorsal mPFC was generally activated when participants attempted to retrieve social information, whereas the ventral mPFC was specifically activated during recollection of information that was previously encoded with reference to participants' conceptual self.

Dorsal mPFC activation was found for both old and new items in both episodic tasks, and for both self-encoded and other-encoded old items in comparison to the nonepisodic control condition. Importantly, these common episodic task effects on brain activity cannot be explained by similar behavioral performance for these conditions when compared with the control condition, because new and old items in the episodic tasks were associated with very different behavioral profiles. Participants were faster, more accurate and more confident when making memory judgments on new items in the episodic tasks than when making letter judgments on new items in the control task. In contrast, they were slower, less confident and less accurate for old items in the episodic tests when compared with control task performance. Thus, general episodic task-related activity in the dorsal mPFC suggests that this region can be confidently linked to episodic retrieval processes without potentially confounding behavioral differences. Furthermore, since similar activation levels were found in this region for both old and new items in the episodic tasks, this suggests that the dorsal mPFC was not engaged based on recollection success, but rather may mediate preretrieval processes that are recruited to facilitate recollection (see e.g., Rugg and Wilding 2000; Benoit et al. 2009). Activation in this region for both self- and other-encoded items is consistent with previous findings that dorsal mPFC is generally engaged during social cognition (e.g., Wagner et al. 2012; Hassabis et al. 2013).

In contrast, activation in the ventral mPFC was dependent on both the type of information initially encoded and the type of information participants were asked to retrieve. When participants were asked to retrieve whether they had related a person-descriptive word to themselves or another person, ventral mPFC was particularly engaged for items that had been encoded in relation to their concept of self compared with the concept of another person, but no similar conceptual self > other difference was found in the agentic recollection task. Nor was there an enactment-related difference in this region between items that had been spoken out loud by the participant versus items that had been spoken by the experimenter. This selective response in the ventral mPFC is highly consistent with previous findings relating this region specifically to conceptual rather than bodily self-referential processing (e.g., Powell et al. 2010), and with the more general argument that conceptual and bodily aspects of self are dissociable (e.g., Blakemore and Frith 2003; Gillihan and Farah 2005; Lind 2010; see also Williams 2010, for a somewhat different distinction).

There are several interesting aspects of this effect in the ventral mPFC. First, because it was dependent on the encoding conditions of particular stimuli, recruitment of this region appears to be contingent on successful retrieval of conceptual self-information, consistent with previous findings (e.g., Fossati et al. 2004; Benoit et al. 2010). Thus, ventral mPFC may mediate postretrieval processing of recollected information rather than preretrieval processes relating to retrieval attempts (Rugg and Wilding 2000). Second, conceptual self > other differences in the ventral mPFC were only found during the conceptual recollection task and not during the agentic recollection task, suggesting that the self-referential process mediated by this region was not automatically elicited, but rather was flexibly engaged based on task demands. Previous research on self-referential processing in nonepisodic tasks have shown that ventral mPFC activity is enhanced for conceptually self-relevant stimuli even when the task does not require explicit self-referential judgments (e.g., Rameson et al. 2010). However, such automatic effects have primarily been found for stimuli that are very strongly self-relevant, such as personal semantic facts (Moran, et al. 2009). In our task, although participants encoded person-descriptive words in relation to their conceptual self highly successfully (as judged by their subsequent accurate source memory for those words), such episodic encoding appears not to have elicited automatic self-referential processing to the same degree as did personal semantic facts in Moran et al.'s experiment.

The behavioral data showed that both self-enactment and conceptual self-referential processing resulted in enhanced recognition memory, in line with typical findings (Rogers et al. 1977; Engelkamp and Zimmer 1989). However, neither self-enactment nor conceptual self-referential processing enhanced source memory accuracy for the self-relevant source, which has sometimes been found in the previous literature (e.g., Serbun et al. 2011). The lack of source memory effects in our study is however difficult to interpret, because we were unable to correct our source memory measure for response biases (such as the “it had to be you” effect, Johnson et al. 1981), as done in previous studies (e.g., Serbun et al. 2011). Estimating response biases requires an examination of the type of errors participants make to new items, but new item accuracy was at ceiling in our data. Therefore, our behavioral source memory results are not very informative on this point since if there were self-referential effects on source accuracy in our study, these may have been obscured by response biases that we were unable to measure. Nevertheless, despite similar behavioral outcomes, the fMRI results indicate that self-referential effects due to performing an action versus relating information to one's concept of self have distinct neural underpinnings, since only the latter was associated with ventral mPFC engagement.

Interestingly, performance on the conceptual recollection task was weaker for participants who rated themselves as more similar to Obama, replicating previous research (Benoit et al. 2010). This pattern supports the view that similar self-referential processes are also applied when thinking about people considered similar to oneself (Mitchell et al. 2006; Benoit et al. 2010). That is, employing similar processes during encoding would lead to less discriminant memory traces, which, in turn, would make it more difficult to remember whether one had made the initial judgment about oneself or the similar other person.

We provided further evidence for 2 dissociable forms of self-reflection—conceptual versus agentic—by examining the fate of items that served as foils during the main memory task. Specifically, if people can intentionally orient retrieval towards either type of self-referential information, this might lead to differential incidental encoding of new information encountered during the 2 retrieval tasks. Previous research has shown that incidental encoding of new information is enhanced if that new information is tested in the same context as old information that was particularly effectively encoded during a preceding study phase. These observations have been taken to suggest that people strategically reinstate encoding processes during retrieval attempts (e.g., Jacoby, Shimizu, Daniels et al. 2005; Jacoby, Shimizu, Velanova 2005; Marsh et al. 2009; Danckert et al. 2011). In our experiment, participants were more accurate at judging whether a personality word had been related to themselves or President Obama than judging whether a word was spoken by themselves or the experimenter, suggesting that conceptual self-referential processing led to more effective encoding than agentic self-referential processing. In the final recognition test for items presented as foils in the preceding main experiment, foils were more accurately recognized if they had previously been presented with a conceptual self/other retrieval question than an agentic self/other retrieval question. This final test difference occurred despite highly similar behavioral performance for foils during their initial exposure, suggesting that it cannot be simply explained by differences in processing effort or study time during the first test.

Instead, our findings are more consistent with the view that people engaged distinct types of self-referential processing in response to the different test questions, in an attempt to strategically constrain retrieval to either conceptual or agentic self-referential information. Most previous research (e.g., Jacoby, Shimizu, Daniels et al. 2005; Jacoby, Shimizu, Velanova 2005; Marsh et al. 2009; Danckert et al. 2011; Halamish et al. 2012) has demonstrated such retrieval orientation effects on encoding using some form of level-of-processing manipulation (Craik and Tulving 1975), which typically produces very large effects on encoding. To our knowledge, ours is the first demonstration that even very subtle differences between retrieval attempts—in this case, attempting to retrieve distinct types of self-referential information—can produce differential incidental encoding of new information.

The current research has demonstrated a distinction within the mPFC during episodic recollection that is consistent with the previously proposed dorsal–ventral gradient for general social cognition versus conceptual self-referential processing (e.g., Wagner et al. 2012). However, the functional significance of this gradient remains to be determined, as the exact nature of processing or representation mediated by mPFC regions is still unclear (see e.g., Mitchell 2009). It is also not known whether the link between mPFC and social cognition is indicative of a specialized “module”, or whether the mPFC mediates more general cognitive processes that happen to be particularly engaged during these types of tasks.

According to one view, activations in the mPFC indicate that conceptual self-referential enhancements of memory are the result of a unique type of processing that is qualitatively different from general semantic processes, since the latter are typically associated with left lateral prefrontal regions (Kelley et al. 2002). Another view suggests that the concept of self is a particularly rich and elaborate semantic schema, and that relating information to this schema facilitates encoding (e.g., Kihlstrom et al. 2003). Accordingly, self-referential effects may only be quantitatively different from other semantic effects on encoding. Consistent with the latter view, recent evidence suggests that general schema-related memory enhancements are mediated by the mPFC even when the schema in question is neither obviously socially- nor self-relevant (reviewed in Van Kesteren et al. 2012). Thus, future research should aim to determine whether self-referential and general schema-related effects on memory involve similar recruitment of the mPFC.

An alternative line of research has focused on the role of the mPFC in value judgments during decision making. Recent research in this field has suggested that the self/other gradient in the mPFC is not fixed, but that dorsal and ventral mPFC process both self- and other-related information depending on whether that information is relevant to a currently executed or alternative, nonexecuted choice (Nicolle et al. 2012). Based on such evidence suggesting that the ventral mPFC may not support self-representations per se, D'Argembeau (2013) has suggested that this region may instead evaluate or represent the personal value or significance (i.e., the worth or importance of something for an individual) of externally and internally generated information. Since self-referential information tends to be considered more personally significant, this region tends to be more active during self-referential than other-referential processing. According to this view, the ventral mPFC activity pattern observed in the current study may be due to participants attaching particularly high personal significance to the recollection that a personality descriptive word had previously been related to their conceptual self compared with other types of recollected information.

In conclusion, our findings demonstrate a fractionation between different sub-regions within the mPFC that are engaged during recollection of different types of self-referential information, supporting the view that the self is not a unitary phenomenon. Rather, the brain regions that process information about our conceptual self appear partially nonoverlapping with the brain regions that process information about our bodily self. Whereas previous research has demonstrated this distinction during on-line processing of perceptual information in the environment, our findings show a similar dissociation when processing information retrieved from episodic long-term memory.

Notes

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We are very grateful to the staff of the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit MRI Facility for scanning assistance. Conflict of Interest: None declared.

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Reading fiction and reading minds: the role of simulation in the default network +

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Diana I. Tamir
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Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, Volume 11, Issue 2, 1 February 2016, Pages 215–224, https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsv114
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Abstract

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Research in psychology has suggested that reading fiction can improve individuals’ social-cognitive abilities. Findings from neuroscience show that reading and social cognition both recruit the default network, a network which is known to support our capacity to simulate hypothetical scenes, spaces and mental states. The current research tests the hypothesis that fiction reading enhances social cognition because it serves to exercise the default subnetwork involved in theory of mind. While undergoing functional neuroimaging, participants read literary passages that differed along two dimensions: (i) vivid vs abstract and (ii) social vs non-social. Analyses revealed distinct subnetworks of the default network respond to the two dimensions of interest: the medial temporal lobe subnetwork responded preferentially to vivid passages, with or without social content; the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) subnetwork responded preferentially to passages with social and abstract content. Analyses also demonstrated that participants who read fiction most often also showed the strongest social cognition performance. Finally, mediation analysis showed that activity in the dmPFC subnetwork in response to the social content mediated this relation, suggesting that the simulation of social content in fiction plays a role in fiction’s ability to enhance readers’ social cognition.

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Introduction

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Readers of fiction can transcend the here-and-now to experience worlds, people and mental states that differ vastly from their local reality. The consequences of reading, however, extend far beyond the subjective experience of any one individual. Researchers from fields as diverse as evolutionary psychology, literary studies and anthropology have independently credited literacy as a possible explanation for such fundamental societal shifts as the decline in human violence over the past few centuries, the development of desire-based over rule-based social interactions, and the advent of ‘modern subjectivity’ ( Lukacs, 1920 ; Watt, 1957 ; Ong, 1982 ; McKeon, 1987 ; Habermas, 1991 ; Pinker, 2011 ). Such large-scale societal impacts may nevertheless begin with small behavioral changes in individual readers, who demonstrate greater civic engagement, including higher levels of volunteering, donating and voting, than non-readers ( Katz, 2006 ). How might reading effect its influence on these individuals?

Recent research in psychology suggests that readers make good citizens because reading may improve one’s ability to empathize with and understand the thoughts and feelings of other people. Readers of fiction score higher on measures of empathy and theory of mind (ToM)—the ability to think about others’ thoughts and feelings—than non-readers, even after controlling for age, gender, intelligence and personality factors ( Mar et al. , 2006 , 2009 , 2010 ). Developmental work has likewise shown a correlation between reading and social cognition. Children between the ages of four and six who were exposed to more juvenile fiction performed better at ToM tasks than children with less exposure, again controlling for such potentially confounding factors as age, gender, vocabulary and parental income ( Mar et al. , 2010 ). Other developmental work has similarly demonstrated that the frequency of parent–child picture book reading and parents’ use of mental state terms predict false-belief task performance ( Adrian et al. , 2005 ), and that the use of stories that contain more emotional, social and psychologically convincing content predicts empathy and socioemotional adjustment ( Aram and Aviram, 2009 ). Recent experimental research has further shown that fiction reading plays a causal rather than just correlational role in the development of social-cognitive skills, such that among adults, fiction reading enhances ToM performance ( Kidd and Castano, 2013 ) and empathy ( Bal and Veltkamp, 2013 ).

However, not all reading improves social cognition. One study found that after controlling for demographic factors, personality traits and exposure to non-fiction and other fiction genres, only exposure to Romance significantly predicted ToM performance ( Fong et al. , 2013 ). In another series of studies, though high-quality ‘literary’ fiction consistently improved social cognition, lower-quality fiction and non-fiction did not ( Kidd and Castano, 2013 ). Indeed, people who regularly read non-fiction do not have better social abilities and may have worse social abilities than more infrequent readers of non-fiction ( Mar et al. , 2006 , 2009 ). However, at least one study found that people randomly assigned to read either literary fiction or literary non-fiction did not differ in empathy change pre- to post-reading; only when taking participants’ openness into account did the expected difference between fiction and non-fiction emerge ( Djikic et al. , 2013 ).

Developmental research further suggests that quality and genre may not be the only features that moderate reading’s ability to improve social cognition; content, and the kinds of cognitive demands that a piece makes on readers, may also play an important role. In one experiment, children who read books that required them to construct their own social interpretations performed better on social-cognition tasks than children exposed to stories that explicitly provided such metacognitive language ( Peskin and Astington, 2004 ). In a similar vein, adults assigned to read fiction over a 1-week period demonstrated positive changes in empathy only when they reported high emotional transportation into the story ( Bal and Veltkamp, 2013 ), suggesting that immersion into and simulation of the mental and emotional lives of the characters may be the mechanism of change.

Taken together, these findings suggest that the effectiveness with which literature improves social cognition may depend on how well it demands attention to others’ mental states. That is, perhaps literary fiction improves social cognition to the extent that it requires readers to mentally construct social contexts. Such high-quality practice in simulation—or the capacity to experience realities outside of the ‘here-and-now’, including hypothetical events, distant worlds, and other people’s subjective experience—then translates into real-world consequences for readers’ social cognition ( Zunshine, 2006 ).

Because we now know a great deal about the neural networks involved in such simulation processes, work in neuroimaging presents a unique way to test this prediction. In particular, our brain’s default network, which comprises the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS), temporal parietal junction (TPJ), anterior medial temporal gyrus and medial temporal lobes (MTLs), is responsible for supporting our capacity for simulation ( Raichle et al. , 2001 ; Buckner and Carroll, 2007 ; Schacter and Addis, 2007 ; Spreng et al. , 2009 ). The default network is recruited whenever people conjure up experiences outside of their local experiences, such as thinking about the future or the past, mentally constructing places and spaces, imagining hypothetical events and thinking about another’s perspective ( Okuda et al. , 2003 ; Addis et al. , 2007 ; Buckner and Carroll, 2007 ; Hassabis et al. , 2007 ; Schacter et al. , 2007 ; Szpunar et al. , 2007 ; Botzung et al. , 2008 ; Hassabis and Maguire, 2009 ; Tamir and Mitchell, 2011 ). The entirety of the default network has been associated with simulation in general but research has also demonstrated that two distinct subnetworks of the default network are recruited differentially when simulating vivid spatial content and mental content, respectively ( Andrews-Hanna et al. , 2010 ). More specifically, scene construction and the simulation of vivid physical spaces rely on neural structures within more ventral aspects of the default network, such as the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), hippocampal and parahippocampal gyri and retrosplenial cortex ( Hassabis et al. , 2007 ; Hassabis and Maguire, 2009 ), structures that comprise the default network’s MTL subnetwork. Conversely, studies of human social cognition suggest that thinking about people and mental states recruits a separate set of regions, including the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC), anterior temporal poles and TPJ ( Mitchell et al. , 2002 ; Saxe and Wexler, 2005 ; Mitchell, 2008 ), structures that comprise the default mode’s dmPFC subnetwork. Researchers have noted the overlap between the dmPFC subnetwork and the network of brain regions associated with ToM, suggesting that ToM may rely on simulation processes ( Andrews-Hanna et al ., 2010 ; Spreng and Grady, 2010 ; Mars et al ., 2012 ).

Fiction reading, which engenders simulations of vivid and social content, also recruits the default network ( Mar, 2004 , 2011 ). Thus, the overlap between reading and simulation is perhaps unsurprising, given that narratives often invoke vivid descriptive language to transport readers to far-off places, and engage readers with characters’ actions, interactions and mental states. Both the simulation of physical spaces and of mental entities provides a plausible explanation for why reading reliably activates the default network ( Mar, 2004 ; Yarkoni et al. , 2008 , 2011; Mason and Just, 2009 ; Speer et al. , 2009 ). However, the relation between default network activity and the simulation of scenes and minds, respectively, during fiction reading has yet to be explicitly tested. This study first empirically tests the hypothesis that reading recruits the default network because it evokes both of these types of simulation.

In addition, we capitalize on this hypothesized overlap between simulation and fiction reading to test the hypothesis that, by recruiting the default network while reading, readers may practice the types of simulation necessary for solving social tasks. However, not all types of simulation should play a commensurate role in the relation between reading and enhanced social cognition. As suggested by previous research ( Peskin and Astington, 2004 ), only simulations of social content should provide relevant social practice, whereas simulations of non-social scenes, events or hypothetical scenarios should fail to provide relevant social practice. This proposed dynamic relationship between neural function and experience is supported by neuroplasticity literature, which has demonstrated that repeated engagement in cognitive processes can lead to positive changes in the neural networks supporting those cognitive processes ( Draganski and May, 2008 ; Klingberg, 2010 ; Anguera et al. , 2013 ; Lovden et al. , 2013 ; Merzenich et al. , 2014 ). Thus, here, repeated engagement in social simulation vis-à-vis fiction reading may lead to beneficial changes in the default network, which may carry concomitant benefits for social ability. Said otherwise, fiction reading may impact social ability through its effect on the neural system supporting social simulation. We note the possibility that individuals who have greater ToM ability may read more fiction, in which case greater ToM ability may predispose individuals to engage in more simulation, which may make reading fiction more enjoyable. However, current empirical work suggests a causal effect of fiction reading on ToM ( Peskin and Astington, 2004 ; Mar et al. , 2010 ; Bal and Veltkamp, 2013 ; Kidd and Castano, 2013 ), rather than the reverse. Thus, taken together, we further hypothesize that neural activity while simulating social content, but not vivid physical scenes, should mediate the relation between fiction reading and ToM.

To test these hypotheses, participants in this study underwent functional neuroimaging scanning while they read literary excerpts designed to engender both simulations of vivid physical scenes and simulations of social content. Outside of the scanner, participants provided measures of their reading behavior and ToM ability. We expect that reading, which engenders simulation, should preferentially recruit the default network. More specifically, simulations of vivid scenes should evoke activity in the MTL subnetwork of the default network whereas simulations of social content should evoke activity in the dmPFC subnetwork of the default network. Further, we expect that the extent of fiction reading should predict ToM performance, replicating previous research on the relation between reading and social cognition. Finally, to the extent that simulation of social content provides the practice necessary for improvements in social cognition, we expect that neural activity specific to social simulations should mediate this relation between fiction reading and ToM.

Method

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Participants

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Twenty-six (16 female) right-handed, native English speakers with no history of neurological problems participated in this study ( M age = 21.2 years; range = 19–26 years). All participants provided consent in a manner approved by the Committee on the Use of Human Subjects at Harvard University.

fMRI reading task

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While undergoing fMRI scanning, participants read a series of literary passages, excerpted from a wide variety of sources, including novels, biographies, magazines, newspapers and self-help books ( Supplementary Materials A ). Each passage came from a unique source. For each trial, participants were presented with one passage to read ( M length = 85 words; range = 56–106). Instructions emphasized that participants should pay full attention as they read each passage and that they did not need to finish reading the passage within the time allotted. Passages remained on screen for up to 30 s. Participants pressed a button under their index finger if they finished the passage before 30 s after which the passage was replaced by a fixation cross for the remainder of the 30 s period. Four seconds of fixation followed each 30 s reading period.

Passages varied systematically along two orthogonal dimensions: (i) the vividness with which they described physical scenes (Vivid vs Abstract) and (ii) whether or not they described a person or a person’s mental content (Social vs Non-social). Passages were selected and categorized based on the pretest ratings of a separate set of participants across a variety of features: Social passages were selected to be highly social and personal, and contain either one person or groups of people; Vivid passages were selected to be high on vividness and movement and low on abstractness. There were a total of four passage types. Vivid/Social passages describe vivid scenes or events that include references to mental states, individuals or groups of people. Vivid/Non-social passages describe vivid physical scenes or events but lack references to mental states, individuals or groups of people. Abstract/Social passages use abstract language and thus lack easily imagined physical scenes but include references to mental states, individuals or groups of people. Finally, Abstract/Non-social passages use abstract language and lack imaginable physical scenes, people and mental states. Importantly, the four types of passages did not differ in their pretest ratings of boringness or wordiness or in average reading time ( Supplementary Materials B ).

During scanning, participants read 13 passages of each type, for a total of 52 passages. In addition, 13 fixation periods (each lasting 30 s) were included. The 52 passages and fixation periods were presented in a random order for each participant, divided among five consecutive runs of 442 s each.

fMRI data acquisition and analysis

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Functional data were acquired using a gradient-echo echo-planar pulse sequence (TR = 2 s; TE = 30 ms) on a 3T Siemens Trio. Images were acquired using 36 axial, interleaved slices with a thickness of 3 mm (0.5 mm skip) and 3 × 3 in-plane resolution and online motion correction. Functional images were preprocessed and analyzed using SPM8 (Wellcome Department of Cognitive Neurology, London, UK; http://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/spm/ ). Data were first spatially realigned to correct for head movement and then unwarped to reduce image distortions. Images were then normalized to a standard anatomical space (3 mm isotropic voxels) based on the ICBM 152 brain template (Montreal Neurological Institute). Normalized images were then spatially smoothed using an 8 mm FWHM Gaussian kernel.

Preprocessed images were analyzed using a general linear model in which the events were modeled using a canonical hemodynamic response function and covariates of no interest (session mean, linear trends and six motion realignment parameters). Events began at the onset of the presentation of the passage and lasted for a duration of either 30 s, or until the participant indicated that he or she had finished reading the passage by pressing a button. Trials were conditionalized based on the type of passage presented, resulting in four conditions of interest: Vivid/Social, Vivid/Non-social, Abstract/Social and Abstract/Non-social. To test whether reading recruited the default network, primary analyses identified voxels in which BOLD response differed along the two dimensions of interest; that is, vividness (Vivid/Social + Vivid/Non-social) > (Abstract/Social + Abstract/Non-social) and sociality (Vivid/Social + Abstract/Social) > (Vivid/Non—social). Analyses were performed individually for each participant, and contrast images generated within each participant were subsequently entered into a second-level analysis treating participants as a random effect. Group level whole-brain contrasts employed an experiment-wise threshold of P  < 0.05 corrected for multiple comparisons per Slotnick and Schacter’s (2004) specifications; Monte Carlo simulations indicated use of a statistical criterion of 54 or more contiguous voxels at a voxel-wise threshold of P  < 0.01.

To test the hypothesis that the MTL subnetwork would preferentially respond to the vividness of passages and the dmPFC subnetwork to the socialness of passages, we assessed neural responses to the reading task in independently defined regions-of-interest (ROIs). ROIs were defined as 8 mm spheres centered on the coordinates for each of the 11 regions independently identified by Andrews-Hanna (2010) . Using functional connectivity analyses, Andrews-Hanna et al. (2010) identified 11 default network regions, divided into three functionally and anatomically distinct subnetworks: (i) a MTL subnetwork that comprises the hippocampal formation, parahippocampal cortex, retrosplenial cortex, posterior intraparietal lobe and vmPFC; (ii) a dmPFC subnetwork that comprises the dmPFC, temporal pole, lateral temporal cortex and temporal-parietal junction; and (iii) a ‘core’ subnetwork that comprises the PCC and mPFC ( Andrews-Hanna et al. , 2010 ). Parameter estimates for the Social > Non-social and Vivid > Abstract contrasts were extracted from these ROIs to examine how each subnetwork responds to simulating physical and mental events during reading. Activity within each subnetwork was then calculated as the average parameter among the regions composing that network. Follow-up analyses evaluated individual ROI response within each network. Four outliers (>2.5 s.d. of the mean) were identified and Winsorized by replacing them with the next highest non-outlying value and adding 10% of that value to maintain variance. Of note, the direction and significance of the findings did not change when using the Winsorized values.

Behavioral measures

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In addition to the reading task, participants also completed behavioral surveys outside of the scanner. We measured participants’ exposure to both fiction and non-fiction and their social-cognitive abilities to assess whether participants showed the expected relation between fiction reading and ToM ( Mar et al. , 2006 , 2009 ).

Fiction reading

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Participants completed the author recognition test (ART) to assess the extent to which they read fiction and non-fiction in their daily lives. This measure was originally developed by Stanovich and West (1989) but participants in this study saw the most recently updated and validated version of the ART developed by Mar et al . (2006) . For this test, participants were presented with the names of fiction authors (50 names), non-fiction authors (50 names) and 40 foils, and were asked to place checkmarks next to the names that they recognized as authors. Participants needed only to recognize a name as that of an author but were not required to have read any of the author’s work. Participants were told that some of the names were of people who are not writers. In this way the ART discourages guessing and overcomes potential issues of self-report bias. Following Stanovich and West (1989) , fiction and non-fiction ART scores were calculated separately as the number of fiction or non-fiction author names a participant recognized, respectively, minus the number of foils they reported recognizing.

ToM

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Participants also completed a ToM task that assessed the extent to which they spontaneously think about intentions when judging an individual’s behavior. For this task, participants read 48 vignettes in which an actor engages in a behavior with either a negative or neutral outcome, on the basis of either a negative or a neutral intention ( Young et al. , 2010a ). The negative and neutral intentions were fully counterbalanced with the negative and neutral outcomes across 48 stimuli, resulting in 12 vignettes of four types: (i) no harm—neutral intention/neutral outcome, (ii) intentional harm—negative intention/negative outcome, (iii) accidental harm—neutral intention/negative outcome and (iv) attempted harm—negative intention/neutral outcome. After reading each vignette, participants judged the permissibility of the actor’s behavior on a scale from 1 ( forbidden ) to 5 ( permissible ). Participants read and answered all moral judgment questions at their own pace. Given that the intention differs from the outcome in the accidental and attempted harm scenarios, judgments of moral permissibility reflect the extent to which participants take into account the actor’s intention as opposed to the outcome. Thus, to the extent that participants consider the actor’s intention, participants should judge the action in accidental harm scenarios as more permissible and judge the action in attempted harm scenarios as less permissible (see Supplementary Materials C for more information). Using this task, previous researchers have shown that responses to these two scenario types provide a sensitive measure of ToM ( Young et al. , 2010a , b ; Moran et al. , 2011 ).

fMRI reading task memory assessment

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Finally, participants completed a surprise memory assessment for the stimuli presented during the reading task. This task measured the extent to which they had remained attentive during the scanning session based on their ability to recognize a series of sentences that either had been presented during scanning (‘old’) or had not been seen (‘new’). Performance was assessed by calculating d -prime for each participant ( Supplementary Materials D ).

Brain-behavior analysis

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One outlier was identified in the moral judgment data and was Winsorized. We evaluated the relationship between the behavioral measures with bivariate Pearson correlations. These values are accompanied by bias-corrected and accelerated 95% CIs generated from 5000 bootstrap samples in SPSS. To evaluate the hypothesis that fiction reading impacts ToM ability, in part, through its effect on the neural bases of social simulation, we tested a mediation model with fiction reading (fiction ART score) as the predictor variable, neural activity for social simulation as the mediator and as an index of ToM ability, performance on the moral judgment task as the outcome variable. We used a non-parametric bootstrapping procedure to estimate the indirect effect; that is, the path from the predictor to the outcome variable through the mediator (fiction reading → neural basis of social simulation → ToM ability). Estimates of the indirect effect are accompanied by bias-corrected and accelerated 95% CIs derived from 5000 bootstrap samples. As measures of effect size, we provide the proportion of variance accounted for by the mediated effect ( R 2med ) and, as recommended by Preacher and Kelley (2011) , κ 2 , which represents the ratio of indirect effect observed relative to the maximum possible indirect effect. This analysis was implemented in SPSS with the PROCESS macro ( Hayes, 2013 ).

Results

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fMRI results

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Our primary analyses identified brain regions that responded to the two features of interest: (i) the vividness with which passages described physical scenes and events and (ii) whether or not they described a person or a person’s mental content. Consistent with earlier research, both vivid passages and social passages recruited regions of the default network significantly more than abstract and non-social passages. A whole-brain random-effects contrast of Social>Non-social passages revealed activity in dmPFC, vmPFC, lateral temporal cortex from the temporal pole to the TPJ bilaterally, bilateral hippocampi and bilateral IFG ( Figure 1 A; Table 1 ). A whole-brain random-effects contrasts of Vivid>Abstract passages revealed robust activity in MTL structures, including hippocampus and parahippocampus bilaterally, retrosplenial cortex and precuneus ( Figure 1 B; Table 1 ).

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Fig 1.

BOLD differences for main effect of (A) Social > Non-social (B) Vivid > Abstract, (C) and results of ROI analysis of both contrasts. Both whole-brain and ROI analyses show that the dmPFC subnetwork of the default network responded most robustly to literary passages containing people or mental content, whereas the MTL subnetwork responded most robustly to vivid physical descriptions.

Fig 1.

BOLD differences for main effect of (A) Social > Non-social (B) Vivid > Abstract, (C) and results of ROI analysis of both contrasts. Both whole-brain and ROI analyses show that the dmPFC subnetwork of the default network responded most robustly to literary passages containing people or mental content, whereas the MTL subnetwork responded most robustly to vivid physical descriptions.

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Table 1.

Peak voxel and cluster size for all regions obtained from a contrast of Social  >  Non-social and Vivid > Abstract (cluster-level corrected P  < 0.05)

Anatomic label x y z Volume  Max t 
      
Social > non-social      
Anterior temporal pole 34 31 −42 5362 6.99 
 −44 9 −36 6189 6.96 
Primary motor cortex −42 −15 72 1159 6.94 
 54 1 58 591 5.74 
 22 −5 84 202 4.49 
Inferior frontal gyrus 60 27 6 502 5.21 
 46 29 −10 88 3.39 
Cerebellum 26 −83 −34 586 5.01 
 −26 −79 −38 146 4.21 
 0 −51 −36 77 3.12 
Dorsomedial prefrontal cortex −10 59 46 1741 4.75 
Ventromedial prefrontal cortex 6 49 −14 302 4.38 
Occipital cortex 16 −107 24 55 3.98 
 −8 −81 10 139 3.57 
 −50 −97 6 55 3.43 
 16 −79 14 61 2.86 
Non-social > social      
Inferior temporal gyrus −58 −55 −12 2554 7.45 
Middle frontal gyrus 48 37 24 16836 7.02 
 −30 35 −12  6.85 
Inferior parietal lobule −50 −49 52 12634 6.78 
 52 −41 50  6.10 
Middle temporal gyrus 60 −47 −10 1028 6.08 
Superior temporal gyrus 52 1 −6 1186 4.68 
 −52 −7 −2 142 4.29 
Parahippocampal gyrus 24 −37 −4 113 4.40 
 −32 −43 −10 589 3.85 
 34 −21 −32 60 3.26 
Cerebellum 56 −67 −42 348 4.14 
Insula −36 13 4 451 3.98 
Occipital cortex 44 −75 4 98 3.48 
Vivid > abstract      
Parahippocampal gyrus 18  −13  −20 1038 6.82 
Inferior parietal lobule −66 −35 38 1098 6.71 
 62 −39 44 58 3.01 
Fusiform gyrus −34 −35 −20 1556 6.63 
Angular gyrus −36 −87 36 809 6.37 
 44 −75 32 640 4.77 
Middle temporal gyrus −52 −63 −2 679 5.54 
PCC 10 −53 14 1743 4.94 
Middle frontal gyrus −38 35 18 931 4.88 
 48 51 24 66 3.21 
Inferior frontal gyrus 48 31 6 326 3.98 
 22 27 −12 162 3.38 
Precuneus −8 −35 46 378 3.60 
STS −40 −1 −20 87 3.29 
Superior frontal gyrus 22 13 48 76 3.01 
Abstract > vivid      
Superior temporal gyrus −50 11 −24 10531 9.10 
Inferior frontal gyrus −50 27 −12  8.25 
 64 19 22 61 3.36 
 62 9 38 166 3.26 
Middle temporal gyrus −60 −23 −6 10531 7.96 
 64 −41 −12 2546 6.31 
Dorsomedial prefrontal cortex −10 49 46 4539 8.08 
Ventromedial prefrontal cortex 0 43 −20 1478 6.71 
Temporo-parietal junction −52 −63 30 1929 6.70 
Insula −32 3 8 591 6.54 
Cerebellum 30 −83 −26 2659 6.12 
 −42 −73 −22 167 3.99 
Middle frontal gyrus −46 11 52 1294 5.78 
 40 59 −4 814 4.22 
Inferior parietal lobule 44 −57 40 1132 4.69 
Occipital cortex 46 −83 −4 272 4.43 
 −4 −91 −20 71 3.51 
 36 −83 18 78 3.40 
PCC −2 −43 32 191 3.90 
Anatomic label x y z Volume  Max t 
      
Social > non-social      
Anterior temporal pole 34 31 −42 5362 6.99 
 −44 9 −36 6189 6.96 
Primary motor cortex −42 −15 72 1159 6.94 
 54 1 58 591 5.74 
 22 −5 84 202 4.49 
Inferior frontal gyrus 60 27 6 502 5.21 
 46 29 −10 88 3.39 
Cerebellum 26 −83 −34 586 5.01 
 −26 −79 −38 146 4.21 
 0 −51 −36 77 3.12 
Dorsomedial prefrontal cortex −10 59 46 1741 4.75 
Ventromedial prefrontal cortex 6 49 −14 302 4.38 
Occipital cortex 16 −107 24 55 3.98 
 −8 −81 10 139 3.57 
 −50 −97 6 55 3.43 
 16 −79 14 61 2.86 
Non-social > social      
Inferior temporal gyrus −58 −55 −12 2554 7.45 
Middle frontal gyrus 48 37 24 16836 7.02 
 −30 35 −12  6.85 
Inferior parietal lobule −50 −49 52 12634 6.78 
 52 −41 50  6.10 
Middle temporal gyrus 60 −47 −10 1028 6.08 
Superior temporal gyrus 52 1 −6 1186 4.68 
 −52 −7 −2 142 4.29 
Parahippocampal gyrus 24 −37 −4 113 4.40 
 −32 −43 −10 589 3.85 
 34 −21 −32 60 3.26 
Cerebellum 56 −67 −42 348 4.14 
Insula −36 13 4 451 3.98 
Occipital cortex 44 −75 4 98 3.48 
Vivid > abstract      
Parahippocampal gyrus 18  −13  −20 1038 6.82 
Inferior parietal lobule −66 −35 38 1098 6.71 
 62 −39 44 58 3.01 
Fusiform gyrus −34 −35 −20 1556 6.63 
Angular gyrus −36 −87 36 809 6.37 
 44 −75 32 640 4.77 
Middle temporal gyrus −52 −63 −2 679 5.54 
PCC 10 −53 14 1743 4.94 
Middle frontal gyrus −38 35 18 931 4.88 
 48 51 24 66 3.21 
Inferior frontal gyrus 48 31 6 326 3.98 
 22 27 −12 162 3.38 
Precuneus −8 −35 46 378 3.60 
STS −40 −1 −20 87 3.29 
Superior frontal gyrus 22 13 48 76 3.01 
Abstract > vivid      
Superior temporal gyrus −50 11 −24 10531 9.10 
Inferior frontal gyrus −50 27 −12  8.25 
 64 19 22 61 3.36 
 62 9 38 166 3.26 
Middle temporal gyrus −60 −23 −6 10531 7.96 
 64 −41 −12 2546 6.31 
Dorsomedial prefrontal cortex −10 49 46 4539 8.08 
Ventromedial prefrontal cortex 0 43 −20 1478 6.71 
Temporo-parietal junction −52 −63 30 1929 6.70 
Insula −32 3 8 591 6.54 
Cerebellum 30 −83 −26 2659 6.12 
 −42 −73 −22 167 3.99 
Middle frontal gyrus −46 11 52 1294 5.78 
 40 59 −4 814 4.22 
Inferior parietal lobule 44 −57 40 1132 4.69 
Occipital cortex 46 −83 −4 272 4.43 
 −4 −91 −20 71 3.51 
 36 −83 18 78 3.40 
PCC −2 −43 32 191 3.90 
Table 1.

Peak voxel and cluster size for all regions obtained from a contrast of Social  >  Non-social and Vivid > Abstract (cluster-level corrected P  < 0.05)

Anatomic label x y z Volume  Max t 
      
Social > non-social      
Anterior temporal pole 34 31 −42 5362 6.99 
 −44 9 −36 6189 6.96 
Primary motor cortex −42 −15 72 1159 6.94 
 54 1 58 591 5.74 
 22 −5 84 202 4.49 
Inferior frontal gyrus 60 27 6 502 5.21 
 46 29 −10 88 3.39 
Cerebellum 26 −83 −34 586 5.01 
 −26 −79 −38 146 4.21 
 0 −51 −36 77 3.12 
Dorsomedial prefrontal cortex −10 59 46 1741 4.75 
Ventromedial prefrontal cortex 6 49 −14 302 4.38 
Occipital cortex 16 −107 24 55 3.98 
 −8 −81 10 139 3.57 
 −50 −97 6 55 3.43 
 16 −79 14 61 2.86 
Non-social > social      
Inferior temporal gyrus −58 −55 −12 2554 7.45 
Middle frontal gyrus 48 37 24 16836 7.02 
 −30 35 −12  6.85 
Inferior parietal lobule −50 −49 52 12634 6.78 
 52 −41 50  6.10 
Middle temporal gyrus 60 −47 −10 1028 6.08 
Superior temporal gyrus 52 1 −6 1186 4.68 
 −52 −7 −2 142 4.29 
Parahippocampal gyrus 24 −37 −4 113 4.40 
 −32 −43 −10 589 3.85 
 34 −21 −32 60 3.26 
Cerebellum 56 −67 −42 348 4.14 
Insula −36 13 4 451 3.98 
Occipital cortex 44 −75 4 98 3.48 
Vivid > abstract      
Parahippocampal gyrus 18  −13  −20 1038 6.82 
Inferior parietal lobule −66 −35 38 1098 6.71 
 62 −39 44 58 3.01 
Fusiform gyrus −34 −35 −20 1556 6.63 
Angular gyrus −36 −87 36 809 6.37 
 44 −75 32 640 4.77 
Middle temporal gyrus −52 −63 −2 679 5.54 
PCC 10 −53 14 1743 4.94 
Middle frontal gyrus −38 35 18 931 4.88 
 48 51 24 66 3.21 
Inferior frontal gyrus 48 31 6 326 3.98 
 22 27 −12 162 3.38 
Precuneus −8 −35 46 378 3.60 
STS −40 −1 −20 87 3.29 
Superior frontal gyrus 22 13 48 76 3.01 
Abstract > vivid      
Superior temporal gyrus −50 11 −24 10531 9.10 
Inferior frontal gyrus −50 27 −12  8.25 
 64 19 22 61 3.36 
 62 9 38 166 3.26 
Middle temporal gyrus −60 −23 −6 10531 7.96 
 64 −41 −12 2546 6.31 
Dorsomedial prefrontal cortex −10 49 46 4539 8.08 
Ventromedial prefrontal cortex 0 43 −20 1478 6.71 
Temporo-parietal junction −52 −63 30 1929 6.70 
Insula −32 3 8 591 6.54 
Cerebellum 30 −83 −26 2659 6.12 
 −42 −73 −22 167 3.99 
Middle frontal gyrus −46 11 52 1294 5.78 
 40 59 −4 814 4.22 
Inferior parietal lobule 44 −57 40 1132 4.69 
Occipital cortex 46 −83 −4 272 4.43 
 −4 −91 −20 71 3.51 
 36 −83 18 78 3.40 
PCC −2 −43 32 191 3.90 
Anatomic label x y z Volume  Max t 
      
Social > non-social      
Anterior temporal pole 34 31 −42 5362 6.99 
 −44 9 −36 6189 6.96 
Primary motor cortex −42 −15 72 1159 6.94 
 54 1 58 591 5.74 
 22 −5 84 202 4.49 
Inferior frontal gyrus 60 27 6 502 5.21 
 46 29 −10 88 3.39 
Cerebellum 26 −83 −34 586 5.01 
 −26 −79 −38 146 4.21 
 0 −51 −36 77 3.12 
Dorsomedial prefrontal cortex −10 59 46 1741 4.75 
Ventromedial prefrontal cortex 6 49 −14 302 4.38 
Occipital cortex 16 −107 24 55 3.98 
 −8 −81 10 139 3.57 
 −50 −97 6 55 3.43 
 16 −79 14 61 2.86 
Non-social > social      
Inferior temporal gyrus −58 −55 −12 2554 7.45 
Middle frontal gyrus 48 37 24 16836 7.02 
 −30 35 −12  6.85 
Inferior parietal lobule −50 −49 52 12634 6.78 
 52 −41 50  6.10 
Middle temporal gyrus 60 −47 −10 1028 6.08 
Superior temporal gyrus 52 1 −6 1186 4.68 
 −52 −7 −2 142 4.29 
Parahippocampal gyrus 24 −37 −4 113 4.40 
 −32 −43 −10 589 3.85 
 34 −21 −32 60 3.26 
Cerebellum 56 −67 −42 348 4.14 
Insula −36 13 4 451 3.98 
Occipital cortex 44 −75 4 98 3.48 
Vivid > abstract      
Parahippocampal gyrus 18  −13  −20 1038 6.82 
Inferior parietal lobule −66 −35 38 1098 6.71 
 62 −39 44 58 3.01 
Fusiform gyrus −34 −35 −20 1556 6.63 
Angular gyrus −36 −87 36 809 6.37 
 44 −75 32 640 4.77 
Middle temporal gyrus −52 −63 −2 679 5.54 
PCC 10 −53 14 1743 4.94 
Middle frontal gyrus −38 35 18 931 4.88 
 48 51 24 66 3.21 
Inferior frontal gyrus 48 31 6 326 3.98 
 22 27 −12 162 3.38 
Precuneus −8 −35 46 378 3.60 
STS −40 −1 −20 87 3.29 
Superior frontal gyrus 22 13 48 76 3.01 
Abstract > vivid      
Superior temporal gyrus −50 11 −24 10531 9.10 
Inferior frontal gyrus −50 27 −12  8.25 
 64 19 22 61 3.36 
 62 9 38 166 3.26 
Middle temporal gyrus −60 −23 −6 10531 7.96 
 64 −41 −12 2546 6.31 
Dorsomedial prefrontal cortex −10 49 46 4539 8.08 
Ventromedial prefrontal cortex 0 43 −20 1478 6.71 
Temporo-parietal junction −52 −63 30 1929 6.70 
Insula −32 3 8 591 6.54 
Cerebellum 30 −83 −26 2659 6.12 
 −42 −73 −22 167 3.99 
Middle frontal gyrus −46 11 52 1294 5.78 
 40 59 −4 814 4.22 
Inferior parietal lobule 44 −57 40 1132 4.69 
Occipital cortex 46 −83 −4 272 4.43 
 −4 −91 −20 71 3.51 
 36 −83 18 78 3.40 
PCC −2 −43 32 191 3.90 

To test the hypothesis that subnetworks of the default network respond differentially to each of these two features of the passages, we assessed neural responses to the four passage types within the three subnetworks identified by Andrews-Hanna et al . (2010) ( Figure 1 C). Consistent with the whole-brain analysis demonstrating that the subnetworks differentially respond to the social content and vividness of the passages, a 3 Subnetwork (Core, MTL, dmPFC) × 2 Vividness (Vivid, Abstract) × 2 Sociality (Social, Non-Social) repeated-measures ANOVA revealed an interaction between Subnetwork and Sociality, F (2, 50) = 3.51, P  = 0.04, partial η 2  = 0.12, Subnetwork and Vividness, F (2, 50) = 19.64, P  < 0.001, partial η 2  = 0.44, and a three-way interaction between Subnetwork, Sociality and Vividness, F (2, 50) = 4.96, P  = 0.01, partial η 2  = 0.17.

Follow-up 2 × 2 repeated-measures ANOVA within subnetworks revealed that the vividness of the passages significantly affected activity in the MTL subnetwork, F (1, 25) = 4.38, P  < 0.05, Cohen’s d  = 0.42, but the presence of people or mental content in the passages had no effect on the MTL subnetwork, F (1, 25) = 0.21, P  = 0.65, d  = 0.09. This suggests that the MTL network responded most robustly to passages that vividly described scenes but did not differentiate between passages with or without people. No interaction effects between the social and vivid factors were observed, F (1, 25) = 2.66, P  = 0.12, partial η 2  = 0.10.

In contrast, a 2 × 2 repeated-measures ANOVA over activity in the dmPFC subnetwork revealed two main effects. First, the presence of people in the passages significantly affected activity in the dmPFC subnetwork, F (1, 25) = 8.21, P  < 0.01, d  = 0.57, such that this subnetwork responded more robustly to the presence of people and mental states in literary passages. Unexpectedly, we also observed a second main effect: abstract passages elicited more activity in the dmPFC subnetwork than vivid passages, F (1, 25) = 28.72, P  = 0.001, d  = 1.07, suggesting that the dmPFC subnetwork responds robustly to abstract content. No interaction effects between the social and vivid factors were observed, F (1, 25) = 0.01, P  = 0.92, partial η 2  = 0.00.

The core subnetwork did not show differential responses to Social vs Non-social passages, F (1, 25) = 0.48, P  = 0.49, d  = 0.14 or Vivid vs Abstract passages, F (1, 25) = 1.50, P  = 0.23, d  = −0.24. No interaction effects between the social and vivid factors were observed, F (1, 25) = 0.18, P  = 0.67, partial η 2  = 0.01. Responses in individual regions within the network are presented in Supplementary Materials E .

Thus, both the whole-brain and ROI analyses suggest that the default network does indeed respond differentially to literary passages depending on their content. Different subnetworks of the default network distinguished between the vividness of a passage and the social content of a passage. The MTL network responded most robustly to passages designed to be easy to simulate because they are rich in vivid details, whereas the dmPFC subnetwork responds most robustly to passages designed to be easy to simulate because they contain references to people or mental states.

Behavioral results

+

Performance on the scanner task and behavioral measures are presented in Supplementary Materials D and Supplementary Data , respectively. We found that people who read more fiction were more likely to take intentions into account when judging attempted harm scenarios (i.e. negative intention/neutral outcomes). Specifically, participants’ fiction ART scores were significantly correlated with their ratings on the moral judgment task, r (24) = −0.44, P  = 0.02, 95% CI [−0.66, −0.12] ( Figure 2 C), such that greater fiction reading was associated with judging actions as less permissible on attempted harm scenarios.

+
Fig 2.

Depiction of significant correlations between (A) fiction reading scores on the fiction ART and dmPFC subnetwork activity during Social  >  Non-social passages, (B) between dmPFC subnetwork activity during Social  >  Non-social passages default activity and ToM task performance and (C) between fiction reading and ToM task performance. (D) The effect of fiction reading on ToM task performance through dmPFC subnetwork activity for social passages. Bootstrap analysis of the indirect effect indicated that dmPFC subnetwork activity mediated the relationship between fiction reading and ToM task performance. Unstandardized path coefficients shown with SE in parentheses for each path. The dotted line represents the direct effect of fiction reading on ToM task performance (i.e. controlling for the effect of dmPFC subnetwork activity). Note that the ‘More Intention’ and ‘Less Intention’ anchors on plots B and C are for visualization purposes only; participants rated each story on the Moral Judgment Task from 1 ( forbidden ) to 5 ( permissible ). * P  < 0.05.

Fig 2.

Depiction of significant correlations between (A) fiction reading scores on the fiction ART and dmPFC subnetwork activity during Social  >  Non-social passages, (B) between dmPFC subnetwork activity during Social  >  Non-social passages default activity and ToM task performance and (C) between fiction reading and ToM task performance. (D) The effect of fiction reading on ToM task performance through dmPFC subnetwork activity for social passages. Bootstrap analysis of the indirect effect indicated that dmPFC subnetwork activity mediated the relationship between fiction reading and ToM task performance. Unstandardized path coefficients shown with SE in parentheses for each path. The dotted line represents the direct effect of fiction reading on ToM task performance (i.e. controlling for the effect of dmPFC subnetwork activity). Note that the ‘More Intention’ and ‘Less Intention’ anchors on plots B and C are for visualization purposes only; participants rated each story on the Moral Judgment Task from 1 ( forbidden ) to 5 ( permissible ). * P  < 0.05.

This positive association between reading and ToM was specific to fiction reading. Non-fiction ART scores among participants did not correlate with moral judgments of failed harm, r (24) = −0.15, P  = 0.48, 95% CI [−0.48, 0.22], even though the extent to which participants read fiction and non-fiction was highly correlated, r (24) = 0.80, P  < 0.001, 95% CI [0.64, 0.91]. Such findings replicate numerous previous studies that demonstrate that exposure to fiction, but not non-fiction, predicts enhanced ToM ( Mar et al. , 2006 , 2009 , 2010 ; Kidd and Castano, 2013 ).

Brain-behavior results

+

Based on the extant literature, we hypothesized that the neural basis of social simulation would explain the link between fiction reading and ToM ability. That is, fiction reading improves ToM, in part, through its effect on the neural basis of social simulation. Because reading mental and vivid physical passages differentially recruited distinct subnetworks of the default network, we were able to address this question using dmPFC subnetwork activity to social passages as an index of social simulation. If fiction reading enhances ToM because doing so activates or trains the neural networks involved in ToM (i.e. the dmPFC subnetwork), then we would expect the dmPFC subnetwork response to the mental simulations to mediate the relation between fiction reading and ToM.

These questions were addressed with mediation analysis. The paths between the predictor (fiction ART), mediator (dmPFC subnetwork activity for Social > Non-social) and outcome variable (moral judgments on the attempted harm scenarios) were significant in the predicted directions ( Figure 2 ): fiction reading was positively associated with considering actors’ intention when making moral judgments, and with dmPFC subnetwork activity; dmPFC subnetwork activity was positively associated with considering actors’ intention when making moral judgments. Importantly, the direct effect of fiction reading on moral judgments was no longer significant when controlling for dmPFC subnetwork activity. Bootstrap analysis of the indirect effect (coefficient = −0.02, SE  =  0.01) generated a CI that did not encompass zero, 95% CI [−0.05, −0.001], indicating that dmPFC subnetwork activity mediated the relationship between fiction reading and moral judgments ( R2med  = 0.16, 95% CI [0.02, 0.37]; κ 2  = 0.21, 95% CI [0.03, 0.46]).

Since the dmPFC subsystem also responded preferentially to abstract vs vivid passages, one possibility is that simulation of abstract and non-social features of fiction in this subsystem contributed to the mediated effect. We evaluated this possibility by running an additional mediation model controlling for the dmPFC subnetwork’s response to Abstract > Vivid passages. The findings remain unchanged ( Supplementary Materials G ).

Another possibility is that fiction reading may impact ToM through its effect on the neural system selective for non-social simulation of vivid scenes. To evaluate this idea, we tested one additional model using neural activity in the MTL subnetwork for Vivid > Abstract as the mediator. Bootstrap analysis of the indirect effect revealed that non-social simulation of vivid scenes also did not mediate the relation between fiction and ToM ability ( Supplementary Materials H ).

Discussion

+

The link between fiction reading and ToM occurs at multiple levels of analysis. Psychologically, fiction readers possess stronger social-cognitive abilities than both non-readers and non-fiction readers ( Mar et al. , 2006 , 2009 , 2010 ). Historically, highly literate societies, especially societies that produced psychologically rich literature, function more empathically and less violently than less literate societies ( Lukacs, 1920 ; Watt, 1957 ; Ong, 1982 ; McKeon, 1987 ; Habermas, 1991 ; Pinker, 2011 ). And neurally, fiction reading and social cognition recruit an overlapping neural network (i.e. the default network) ( Mar, 2004 , 2011 ). This study not only replicates previous findings that fiction reading both enhances social cognition and recruits the default network but also draws together these findings to test two hypotheses about the nature of this relation between reading fiction and ToM.

First, this study demonstrates that fiction reading recruits the default network because it elicits at least two distinct types of simulation: the simulation of vivid physical scenes and the simulation of people and minds. Each type of simulation recruited distinct subnetworks of the default network. Consistent with prior work evaluating non-social vs social scene construction ( Hassabis et al. , 2014 ), simulations of physical scenes primarily recruited the MTL subnetwork of the default network, while simulations of people and minds primarily recruited the dmPFC subnetwork of the default network. Interestingly, and unexpectedly, this study also found that the dmPFC subnetwork was significantly more responsive to abstract content than vivid physical content. This finding may be consistent with prior literature on semantic and conceptual processing. For example, prior work has found dmPFC and left TPJ to be preferentially engaged during abstract or high-level construal tasks (e.g. generating semantic categories) vs low-level construal tasks (e.g. describing visual characteristics) regardless of the social content ( Baetens et al. , 2014 ), a finding that has been further substantiated with meta-analytic data ( Binder et al. , 2009 ). Similarly, focusing on the abstract features of personal memories preferentially recruits dmPFC and left TPJ, whereas focusing on concrete features of personal memories recruits aspects of the MTL subsystem ( D'Argembeau et al. , 2014 ). Thus, our findings regarding the preferential response of the dmPFC subnetwork to abstract vs vivid passages converge with other findings on the role of this network in abstract processing.

Second, this study capitalized on these neural findings to test the hypothesis that fiction reading improves ToM by providing readers with the opportunity to exercise or practice mental simulation capacities that are also recruited during social-cognitive tasks. Said otherwise, fiction reading may impact ToM through its influence on the neural basis of social simulation. Mediation analysis was consistent with this idea. Specifically, we found that dmPFC subnetwork response to simulating people and minds mediated the relation between fiction reading and ToM. This effect was not changed when controlling for the dmPFC subnetwork’s response to non-social abstract information. Furthermore, using MTL subnetwork activity to vivid vs abstract scenes, we further ruled out the possibility that fiction reading impacts ToM through its effect on non-social simulation. Together, the results suggest that any positive effect of reading fiction on social-cognitive abilities might be due to the influence of reading on neural networks involved in simulating social content and not non-social vivid scenes. This finding is consistent with that of behavioral work demonstrating that fiction reading over a 1-week period was associated with an increase in empathy only when readers reported a high level of transportation (i.e. simulation) of the characters’ mental lives and story events ( Bal and Veltkamp, 2013 ). We note that research in this field is nascent, and as such alternative models may be viable. For example, a reverse mediation model whereby ToM causally impacts the amount of fiction reading through its impact on social simulation. However, the model tested here, in which fiction reading impacts ToM through its effect on social simulation specifically, is most consistent with the extant literature regarding the nature and direction of the relations between the variables.

These findings also suggest that future research should focus on the content of literature to understand the relation between reading and ToM. Literature that effectively engages a reader in social content should be most likely to improve ToM; literature that does not successfully engage a reader in social thought, or that taxes a reader’s imagination only with hypothetical events and places, should not. Previous researchers have studied how genre (fiction vs non-fiction) or the quality (literary vs non-literary) of such works improves ToM (e.g. Fong et al. , 2013 ; Kidd and Castano, 2013 ). The current research manipulated content irrespective of genre. As such, these findings suggest a need to reinterpret previous findings in terms of content, and the kinds of cognitive demands that content makes on readers. For example, literary fiction may just more effectively depict social content than low-quality literature, and fiction may more often traffic in social content than non-fiction.

Nevertheless, the fact that the social content of a passage may play an important role in shaping social cognition raises important consequences for future research in both psychology and literary studies alike. For instance, our study does not discretely define and test every kind of social or mental interaction. That is, our ‘social’ passages sometimes contain either one person or groups of people; they depict either the appearance of an individual or describe a character’s abstract mental content; or they describe purely social interactions among groups of individuals. For both the psychologist and the literary scholar, a closer analysis of the content of the ‘social’ passages might reveal which aspects of social interaction and mental content fiction readers respond to most robustly, both neurally and psychologically. Future investigations into reading and social cognition would benefit significantly from a more in-depth understanding of which specific aspects of this range of social content most effectively drive the relation between fiction reading and enhanced ToM.

In a similar way, our passages range over a host of broad literary techniques associated with fiction without studying which techniques in particular provide the most relevant opportunities for simulation. Our ‘social’ passages include different techniques to supply readers with psychological information about their characters: direct representations of mental content; multi-level psychological inferences (‘she believed that he believed …’); free-indirect discourse (or the rendering of first-person thoughts into third-person narration); and physical actions linked to psychological states, thoughts and emotions (e.g. facial expressions and postures). Further narrative elements, such as issues related to first- and third-person narration, also present opportunities for further research into the relation among fiction, social-cognitive abilities and simulation.

The current findings must be interpreted in the context of several limitations. For one, given our sample size, the brain-behavior correlations and mediation findings may be overestimates of the true population effect ( Button et al. , 2013 ). Additionally, though it is tempting to draw a causal inference from the mediation findings, the current data are cross-sectional and cannot definitively speak to a causal relationship between the variables. As such, future longitudinal research should endeavor to establish that fiction reading enhances social-cognitive abilities. Such a connection would hold extremely important real-world implications, perhaps guiding the direction of higher education and social initiatives more broadly, as well as potentially providing a tolerable and cost-effective intervention for social cognitive deficits in clinical populations. However, this is not to preclude the possibility that future research might establish an inverse relation: that social-cognitive abilities instead cause people to read fiction. In either case, there is still a great deal to be learned about the nature of social cognition, its relation to fiction reading, and their impacts on both personal choices and behavior.

Acknowledgments

+

The authors thank John Bender, Susanna Carmona, Juan Manuel Contreras, Eshin Jolly, Joe Moran, Brandi Newell, Kenneth Parreno, Amitai Shenhav, Emma Templeton, Blakey Vermeule, Adam Waytz and Jamil Zaki for helpful advice and assistance.

Funding

+

Andrew Bricker was supported by fellowships from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

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Brain Imaging and Behavior

, Volume 11, Issue 3, + pp 685–697 | Cite as

Contributions of self-report and performance-based individual differences measures of social cognitive ability to large-scale neural network functioning

  • Ryan Smith
  • Anna Alkozei
  • William D. S. Killgore
  • Ryan Smith
    • 1
  • Anna Alkozei
    • 1
  • William D. S. Killgore
    • 1
  1. 1.Department of PsychiatryUniversity of ArizonaTucsonUSA
Original Research
+

Abstract

Adaptive social behavior appears to require flexible interaction between multiple large-scale brain networks, including the executive control network (ECN), the default mode network (DMN), and the salience network (SN), as well as interactions with the perceptual processing systems these networks function to modulate. Highly connected cortical “hub” regions are also thought to facilitate interactions between these networks, including the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (DMPFC), anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and anterior insula (AI). However, less is presently known about the relationship between these network functions and individual differences in social-cognitive abilities. In the present study, 23 healthy adults (12 female) underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while performing a visually based social judgment task (requiring the evaluation of social dominance in faces). Participants also completed both self-report and performance-based measures of emotional intelligence (EI), as well as measures of personality and facial perception ability. During scanning, social judgment, relative to a control condition involving simple perceptual judgment of facial features in the same stimuli, activated hub regions associated with each of the networks mentioned above (observed clusters included: bilateral DLPFC, DMPFC/ACC, AI, and ventral visual cortex). Interestingly, self-reported and performance-based measures of social-cognitive ability showed opposing associations with these patterns of activation. Specifically, lower self-reported EI and lower openness in personality both independently predicted greater activation within hub regions of the SN, DMN, and ECN (i.e., the DLPFC, DMPFC/ACC, and AI clusters); in contrast, in the same analyses greater scores on performance-based EI measures and on facial perception tasks independently predicted greater activation within hub regions of the SN and ECN (the DLPFC and AI clusters), and also in the ventral visual cortex. These findings suggest that lower confidence in one’s own social-cognitive abilities may promote the allocation of greater cognitive resources to, and improve the performance of, social-cognitive functions.

Keywords

Social Cognition Large-Scale Neural Networks Individual Differences Emotional Intelligence Social Visual Perception 

Introduction

The neuro-cognitive basis of social functioning has become a topic of considerable research interest (Adolphs 2009; Van Overwalle 2009). In particular, a large body of recent literature has emerged within the field of cognitive neuroscience that has highlighted specific neural networks engaged by tasks requiring social perception, theory of mind (ToM; also often referred to as “mentalizing”) abilities, and adaptive decision-making in social situations (e.g., Amodio and Frith, 2006; Barrett and Satpute, 2013; Decety and Sommerville, 2003; Frith and Frith, 2006; Heatherton, 2006; Keysers et al., 2010; Li et al., 2014; Lombardo et al., 2010; Meyer et al., 2015; Seidel et al., 2010; Zaki and Ochsner, 2012). At present, this body of literature suggests that the brain is organized into several functionally distinct—yet highly interacting—neural networks, and that adaptive social cognition is the result of complex, context-specific interactions between these networks. Three networks of particular interest are the “default mode network” (DMN; also sometimes called the “mentalizing” network), the frontoparietal “executive control” network, and the “salience” network (Barrett and Satpute 2013; Lindquist and Barrett 2012; Yeo et al. 2011). According to Barrett and Satpute (2013), the DMN’s function can be understood to involve the high-level conceptualization of sensory input based on past experience; it includes dorsal and ventral regions of the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), posterior/retrosplenial cingulate cortex, the temporoparietal junction (TPJ), and both medial and lateral anterior temporal regions. The executive control network, which includes dorsolateral prefrontal (DLPFC) and posterior parietal (PPC) cortical regions, is implicated in the top-down modulation (both excitatory and inhibitory) of sensory processing associated with selectively attending to, and holding in mind (i.e. working memory), perceptual information that is relevant to one’s current goals (Power and Petersen 2013). Finally, the salience network includes anterior insula (AI) and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) regions, and may function to direct attention (and related cognitive processing resources) to homeostatically/emotionally relevant stimuli (Taylor et al. 2009).

In a social cognition task, therefore, appropriate conceptualization of the mental states of others (i.e., ToM) will typically recruit DMN regions (Frith and Frith 2006). However, executive control network regions will be needed to selectively modulate sensory processing in a goal-appropriate manner (Sripada et al. 2014), and the selective deployment of cognitive processing resources (such as those proximally controlled by the executive control network) will also need to be guided by salience network regions, such that their allocation remains based on current needs/goals, as well as estimations of the uncertainty of current perceptual estimates (Barrett and Simmons 2015; Brown et al. 2011; Feldman and Friston 2010; Gu et al. 2013). Due to the observation that the brain exhibits a “small-world” network architecture in which networks interact through “rich club hubs” (van den Heuvel et al. 2008; Zippo et al. 2013), some regions would also be expected to make more important contributions to network interactions than others. Specifically, the AI, dorsal MPFC/ACC (DMPFC/dACC), and DLPFC appear to represent important hub regions that allow for the network interactions described above (van den Heuvel and Sporns 2011, 2013).

Although, this broad account of the neural basis of social cognition has considerable support, many details remain to be explored. One particular area that deserves considerable further attention pertains to the potential factors (e.g., intelligence, personality factors, emotion recognition ability) that may explain individual differences in social cognition ability. Researchers interested in the concept of emotional intelligence (EI), for example, have designed multiple measures for assessing, and have observed, individual differences in the cognitive abilities needed to function adaptively in social situations (Davis and Humphrey 2012; Fernández-Berrocal et al. 2006; Hertel et al. 2009; Lopes et al. 2005; Mayer et al. 2004; O’Boyle et al. 2011; Pérez et al. 2005; Schutte et al. 2010). However, studies of the neural basis of EI have thus far met with mixed results; this is in part due to a fairly limited number of studies performed that have attempted to directly relate EI measures to differences in neural structure/function (Bar-On et al. 2003; Barbey et al. 2014; Killgore et al. 2012; Takeuchi et al. 2011; Takeuchi et al. 2013a, b; Takeuchi et al., 2013a, b; Webb et al. 2013) and in part due to disagreement over the most valid and useful way to conceptualize EI (e.g., Conte, 2005; Locke, 2005; Petrides, 2011). Specifically, different proposed measures conceptualize EI in different ways, and it is unclear at present how distinct the construct of EI is from standard intelligence (i.e., IQ) on the one hand, and how distinct it is from standard personality measures on the other (Harms and Crede 2010; Locke 2005; Mayer et al. 2001; Webb et al. 2013). Measures of self-perceived vs. actual performance on EI-related tasks also often disagree with one another (Brackett et al. 2006; Goldenberg et al. 2006), and this further highlights the question of what measures of EI are appropriate to use in neuroimaging studies. In general, therefore, it remains unclear what cognitive and personality factors explain differences in social cognition abilities, and how these relate to the neural networks supporting these abilities.

In the present study, we were interested in exploring the neural correlates of social cognitive ability, with a specific focus on examining what cognitive- and/or personality-related factors may explain individual differences in these abilities. In particular, based on the tension between self-reported and performance-based measures of social-cognitive abilities described above (Brackett et al. 2006; Goldenberg et al. 2006), we were interested in exploring the possibility that self-reported beliefs about one’s own social characteristics/abilities might show distinct relationships with neural network activations from performance-based social ability measures. To do so, we first designed a visually based social judgment task, which we predicted would engage regions of the DMN, executive control network, salience network, and visual cortex that were previously observed in the neuroimaging studies on social cognition discussed above. Second, we had participants complete multiple self-report and performance-based measures of social and cognitive abilities. Self-report measures included widely used personality (Costa and McCrae 1992) and EI questionnaires (Bar-On 2006; Brackett et al. 2006), whereas performance measures included a standard cognitive intelligence (IQ) test (Wechsler 1999), a widely used performance-based EI measure (Mayer et al. 2002), and independent measures of the ability to perceive state- and trait-related psychological attributes in others (Ekman and Friesen 1976). Finally, we ran step-wise multiple regression analyses, using regional brain activation differences as outcome variables and our self-report and performance-based measures as predictor variables. The brain regions we focused on were the task-activated “hub” regions (AI, DMPFC/dACC, and DLPFC) believed to serve large-scale network interactions, as well as task-related regions of visual cortex. The regression analyses described above were done in order to explore whether differences in large-scale brain network activation during a social cognition task can be explained by these other widely used individual differences measures of both cognitive/emotional abilities and self-reported beliefs regarding one’s own social characteristics/abilities. We first predicted that self-report measures would explain significant portions of the variance in activation levels within DMN and salience network hub regions (i.e., AI and DMPFC/dACC), due to the fact that such measures plausibly reflect the consciously accessible beliefs/values contributing to conceptualization and the evaluation of current needs/goals (i.e., the functions most associated with those networks). We further predicted that performance-based measures would instead explain significant portions of the variance in activation levels within executive control network hub regions (i.e., left and right DLPFC) and in visual system activation. This second hypothesis was based on the idea that actual performance should depend on the degree to which executive control systems modulate visual processing in a goal−/task-appropriate manner.

Materials and methods

Participants

23 healthy adults (12 female) participated in the present study. These participants ranged in age from 21 to 43 years (M = 30.78, SD = 6.76). Participants did not have any history of psychiatric, neurological or substance use disorders, and all provided written informed consent prior to participating. Although a subset of behavioral data from some of these participants has been reported elsewhere (Killgore et al. 2012, 2013; Webb et al. 2013), the primary data from the fMRI task and its correlations with behavioral variables are novel and have never been published in any forum. The research protocol of the present study was also reviewed and approved by the US Army Human Research Protections Office, as well as by the Institutional Review Board of McLean Hospital.

Procedure

Social judgment task

While undergoing fMRI scanning, participants were asked to complete a social judgment task. In this task, participants were simultaneously presented with pictures of three male faces per trial (See Fig. 1a), and asked to make a particular condition-specific judgment. In the two “social judgment” conditions, participants were asked to press the button (i.e., out of buttons 1, 2, or 3) corresponding to which of the faces appeared to be the “strongest” or “weakest” of the three. In these conditions, each face set consisted of one strong-dominance, one weak-dominance, and one average-dominance face. Aside from these conditions, there was also a “different” condition in which two of the three faces presented on each trial were identical, whereas the third face was different. Participants were asked to press the button that corresponded to the face that was different from the other two. All faces used in this task were taken from a validated database of computer-generated faces manipulated in shape and reflectance for perceived dominance from low-dominance (−3 SD) to high-dominance (+3 SD) (freely available at: http://tlab.princeton.edu/databases/dominancefaces/) using the FaceGen Modeller program (http://facegen.com) Version 3.1 (Todorov and Oosterhof 2011; Todorov et al. 2013); the use of high-dominance (+3 SD), low-dominance (−3 SD), and average-dominance (0 SD) faces, and their location of visual presentation (i.e., left, right, middle) was counterbalanced across conditions. Twenty-five facial identities were used and counterbalanced in similar fashion. During the task run (inside the scanner), each face set was shown for 4.75 s (followed by a 0.25 s black screen) in a condition-specific block-design format. There were 4 face sets shown in each “different” block (D), whereas there were 6 face sets shown in each “strong” (S) and “weak” (W) block. The block order was: D, W, D, S, D, W, D, S, D, W, D, S. Task stimuli were presented using ePrime2 presentation software (http://www.pstnet.com/eprime.cfm).
Fig. 1

a Examples of average-dominance (left), high-dominance (middle), and low-dominance (right) faces used in the Social Judgment Task. b Examples of high-trustworthiness (left) and low-trustworthiness (right) faces used in the Trustworthiness Judgment Task. c FMRI results of Social > Perceptual Judgment. Visible clusters are present within the DMPFC/dACC, left and right DLPFC, left and right AI, left and right ventral visual cortex, left PPC, right thalamus, posterior midbrain, and cerebellum

In addition to the fMRI task described above, participants were also asked to complete a series of other self-report and performance-based measures of both cognitive/emotional abilities and self-reported personality traits.

Cognitive measures

Emotional Intelligence (EI)

In order to assess the role of emotional intelligence in social judgment, participants completed previously validated, commercially available tests of distinct models of EI. One test – the Mayer–Salovey–Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT) – is based on the “Ability model,” which defines emotional intelligence in terms of the cognitive capacities that allow one to reason about and solve emotion-related problems, and assesses EI based on participants’ performance on a range of different tasks/assessments (Mayer et al. 2002). It therefore treats EI as similar to traditional notions of intelligence (Mayer et al. 2001). It uses computer-administered items that are designed to measure abilities such as identifying emotions, understanding the causes of emotions, and utilizing emotions to guide behavior and accomplish goals. The MSCEIT provides a total emotional intelligence score (as well as several subscale scores). For this study, raw scores were converted to scaled scores on the basis of the general normative group, without adjustment for sex. There is also a validated self-report inventory designed to tap into similar EI capacities as the MSCEIT, called the Self-Rated Emotional Intelligence Scale (SREIS) (Brackett et al. 2006), which we used to assess the agreement between actual performance on the abilities measured by the MSCEIT and self-perceived performance with regard to those same abilities. The SREIS is a 19-item self-report questionnaire with items such as “By looking at people’s facial expressions, I recognize the emotions they are experiencing” that are rated on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (“very inaccurate”) to 5 (“very accurate”).

In contrast, the other major test of EI we used – the Bar-On Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i) – is based on the “Trait model,” which uses self-report inventories (as opposed to problem solving tests), and views EI as set of personal competencies reflecting an individual’s potential to cope with environmental demands (Bar-On 2006). It contains 125 items, and provides a total EI score (as well as several subscale scores). Items consist of statements such as ‘I am aware of the way I feel’ and ‘I do not hold up well under stress’, which must be answered on a five-point Likert scale ranging from ‘Very Seldom or Not True of Me’ to ‘Very Often True of Me or True of Me.’

Standard intelligence

Intelligence quotient (IQ) was assessed with the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence (WASI; Pearson Assessment, Inc., San Antonio, TX) (Wechsler 1999) in order to assess the role of standard intelligence in social judgment. This test provides scores for Full Scale IQ (and also subscale measures of Verbal IQ and Performance IQ). The WASI is a widely used intelligence scale with reported reliability of .98 for Full Scale IQ, with extremely high test-retest reliability; it also correlates .92 with the more comprehensive Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-III (WAIS; Pearson Assessment, Inc., San Antonio, TX). A trained and experienced bachelor’s level research assistant (blind to study hypotheses) administered the WASI under the supervision of a licensed doctoral level neuropsychologist.

Emotional facial recognition

As an independent means of assessing the ability to perceptually detect state-related information in others’ faces, participants were asked to complete the Ekman 60 faces test (Ekman and Friesen 1976). This is a computerized emotional recognition task during which participants are presented with photographs of 10 different actors (6 photographs of each), all displaying each of the basic emotions one time (happiness, anger, disgust, fear, surprise, and sadness). Participants are asked to choose which emotion best describes the facial expression shown (from a presented list). Photographs were presented in a pseudorandom order, and a total score (0–60) of correct responses for each participant was calculated.

Facial trustworthiness judgment task

As an independent means of assessing the ability to perceptually detect trait-related information in others’ faces, participants were asked to complete a computerized task, using ePrime2 presentation software (http://www.pstnet.com/eprime.cfm), in which they were shown pairs of faces and asked to decide which of the two presented faces looked most trustworthy (See Fig. 1B). The instructions were also clarified by saying “in other words, if you were in danger or needed help, which person would you be more likely to trust?” Answers were provided by pressing “1″ or “2″ on a laptop, and participants were asked to answer as quickly and accurately as possible (no time limit was enforced). Faces were taken from a validated database of computer-generated faces manipulated in shape and reflectance for perceived trustworthiness from low-trustworthiness (−3 SD below average) to high-trustworthiness (+3 SD above average) (freely available at: http://tlab.princeton.edu/databases/trustworthinessfaces/) using the FaceGen Modeller program (http://facegen.com) Version 3.1 (Todorov and Oosterhof 2011; Todorov et al. 2013). A total of 100 face pairs were presented, 25 at each of 4 levels of difficulty based on the difference in SD level of the faces. Difficulty level 1 used face pairs with values of −3 and +3 SD, level 2 used face pairs with values of −2 and +2 SD, level 3 used face pairs with values of −1 and +1 SD, and level 4 used face pairs with values of −1 and 0 SD. The database includes 25 facial identities, and all identities were used and counterbalanced for location (left/right) and difficulty level.

The motivation for including the two independent of measures of social perception ability described immediately above is that the perception subtests within the MSCEIT have received considerable criticism. In particular, studies have found that scores on these MSCEIT subtests do not correlate with other validated measures of facial emotion perception (Roberts et al. 2006). This leads to the concern that they may not represent sufficiently valid measures of such social perception abilities. Therefore, we were interested in using these independent measures to ensure that we acquired reliable performance-based data regarding individual differences in the ability to perceptually detect socially relevant information.

Personality inventory

To assess the possible role of personality differences in social judgment, participants were asked to complete a computerized version of the NEO Personality Inventory – Revised (NEO-PI-R) (Costa and McCrae 1992). The NEO-PI-R contains 240 items rated on a five-point Likert scale from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.” This test has been found to have excellent internal consistency and also shows convergent validity with Eysenck’s personality dimensions (Costa and McCrae 1995; Costa 1996). It provides scores for five domains of personality (Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness to Experience, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness), and several “facets” within each domain.

Neuroimaging methods

Neuroimaging was performed using a 3 T (Siemens Tim Trio, Erlangen, Germany) scanner with a 12-channel head coil. T1-weighted structural 3D MPRAGE images were acquired (TR/TE/flip angle =2.1 s/2.25 ms/12 degree) covering 128 sagittal slices (256 × 256) with a slice thickness of 1.33 mm (voxel size =1.33 × 1 × 1). Functional T2*-weighted scans were acquired over 42 transverse slices (3.5 mm thickness). An interleaved sequence was used (TR/TE/flip angle =2.5 s/30 ms/90 degree), and the voxel size of the T2* sequence was 3.5 × 3.5 × 3.5 mm. The field of view (FOV) was 22.4 cm, with a 64 × 64 acquisition matrix.

Image processing

Preprocessing steps on all MRI scans, as well as subsequent statistical analyses, were performed using SPM8 (Wellcome Department of Cognitive Neurology, London, UK; http://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/spm). Raw functional images were realigned, unwarped, and coregistered to each subject’s MPRAGE image in accordance with standard algorithms. Images were then normalized to Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) coordinate space, spatially smoothed (6 mm full-width at half maximum), and resliced to 2 × 2 × 2 mm voxels. The standard canonical hemodynamic response function in SPM was used, low-frequency confounds were minimized with a 128-s high-pass filter, and serial autocorrelation was corrected using the AR(1) function. The Artifact Detection Tool (http://www.nitrc.org/projects/artifact_detect/) was also used to regress out scans as nuisance covariates in the first-level analysis exceeding 3 SD in mean global intensity and scan-to-scan head motion that exceeded 1.0 mm.

Statistical analysis

For each participant, a general linear model was specified to contrast activation within the social judgment task between trials when social judgments were made (i.e., strong/weak) and trials when perceptual judgments were made (i.e., different). Motion regressors (generated by ART – see image processing above) were also added to each of these 1st-level designs. These contrast images were then entered into a second-level SPM analysis (one-sample T-test) to assess the main effect of our contrast of interest (i.e., Social Judgment > Perceptual Judgment). Analyses were thresholded using a height threshold of p < .001 (uncorrected) and family-wise error (FWE) corrected cluster extent threshold of p < .05.

Contrast estimates (i.e., the first eigenvariates) were also extracted from select visual system and “network hub region” clusters that were found to activate within these analyses (see results section). This was done by first individually selecting the activation clusters of interest within SPM8 and then using SPM8’s built-in volume-of-interest (VOI) time-series extraction tool. For each contrast estimate we extracted, the whole activation cluster defined the volume of interest. These contrast estimates were then regressed against our self-report and performance-based measures, to determine the relative contribution of these variables in explaining patterns of brain activation. Specifically, the following categories of explanatory variables were considered: (i) Performance-based cognitive-emotional abilities measures: WASI total IQ score, MSCEIT total score, Ekman 60 total score, facial trustworthiness judgment total accuracy score, and (ii) Self-reported cognitive-emotional trait/ability measures: Bar-On EQi total score, NEO personality inventory 5-factor T-scores (Neuroticism, Extroversion, Openness, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness), and SREIS total scores. Within SPSS 20, these measures were entered into stepwise linear regression models with the eigenvariate of each of our neural activation clusters of interest as the outcome variable. Results were considered significant at p < 0.05. Multiple collinearity checks were also run in SPSS (described further in the results section) to ensure that correlations between predictor variables in these regression analyses were not above acceptable limits.

Results

fMRI activation contrasts

Social judgment > perceptual judgment

As predicted, this contrast revealed significant activation within clusters spanning the left DLPFC, right and left ventral visual cortex, right DLPFC/AI, DMPFC/dACC (bilaterally), left AI, and left PPC. Other activation clusters were also observed within the medial cerebellum and right thalamus (see Table 1 and Fig. 1c). One further cluster within the posterior midbrain was noted because it survived FWE-correction at the peak-level. It did not survive FWE-correction at the cluster level, but this is likely due to the small size of the gray matter nuclei within this subcortical region (e.g., the superior colliculus and periacqueductal gray).
Table 1

fMRI activation results. Social Judgment > Perceptual Judgment (Whole-Brain, FWE-corrected cluster extent threshold, p ≤ 0.05)

Brain Region

Peak Voxel Coordinate

Cluster Size (kE)

T-score

L DLPFC

−44, 24, 28

1496

10.47

R Ventral Visual Cortex

40, −76, −8

1784

8.99

Posterior Medial Cerebellum

−8, −76, −38

651

8.54

L Ventral Visual Cortex

−38, −84, −4

1463

8.32

R DLPFC/AI

46, 32, 18

2152

8.00

Anterior Medial Cerebellum

−2, −46, −36

125

6.91

DMPFC/dACC

0, 18, 50

837

6.84

L AI

−32, 20, −2

448

6.68

L VLPFC

−44, 50, −2

164

6.65

R Thalamus

6, −12, 4

119

6.09

L Posterior Parietal Cortex

−24, −64, 46

209

5.37

Posterior Midbrain*

4, −32, −4

69

8.41

*Survived FWE-correction at the peak-level (but not at the cluster-level)

Social judgment task: performance

When required to identify the “different” face from among the sets of three, accuracy scores had a mean of 96 % (+/− 9.8 %), suggesting that this perceptual judgment condition was fairly easy for all participants. Accuracy scores when determining the “strongest/weakest” member of each set of three faces had a numerically lower mean of 82 % (+/− 13 %), suggesting, as expected, that this social judgment condition was more difficult than the perceptual judgment condition. Similarly, average median reaction times across the group were also numerically shorter for the “different” condition (1669.89 +/− 408.83 ms) than for the “strongest” or “weakest” conditions (strong: 2311.52 +/− 332.51 ms; weak: 2320.37 +/− 277.88 ms). The median reaction time was used instead of the mean in order to avoid the possibility that occasional attentional lapses during the task would inappropriately skew the mean toward longer reaction time estimates.

Performance-based and self-report measures

The mean and standard deviation for scores on each of our performance-based and self-report measures is listed in Table 2. Significant predictors of the activation observed within each of our regions of interest (i.e., DMPFC, right DLPFC/AI, left and right ventral visual cortex, left DLPFC, and left AI) are detailed below. These cortical clusters were specifically chosen due to their known participation as hub regions within the salience, DMN, and executive control networks, or, in the case of the visual cortex clusters, because these regions plausibly reflect the targets of top-down modulation from these anterior cognitive control networks (Barrett and Satpute 2013; Barrett and Simmons 2015; Lindquist and Barrett 2012; Sripada et al. 2014; Yeo et al. 2011).
Table 2

Cognitive/Self-Report Measures

Measure

Mean

Standard Deviation

WASI IQ scores

109.48

16.46

MSCEIT Total Score

103.22

10.89

Ekman 60 Total Scores

48.43

5.16

Facial Trustworthiness Judgment Accuracy

.68

.12

EQi Total Scores

97.96

13.13

SREIS

73.13

5.57

NEO-PI-R Neuroticism

52.91

10.46

NEO-PI-R Extraversion

51.65

11.59

NEO-PI-R Openness

53.65

10.46

NEO-PI-R Agreeableness

45.78

9.09

NEO-PI-R Contientiousness

50.78

14.51

Greater DMPFC/dACC activation was best predicted by lower EQi total scores (β = −0.478, p = 0.008) and lower NEO openness scores (β = −0.418, p = 0.018). EQi scores accounted for 34 % of the variance (R2 = 0.369, p = 0.002), and NEO openness scores accounted for an additional 16 % of the variance (R2 change =0.158, p = 0.018) in DMPFC activation.

In terms of greater right DLPFC/AI activation, the model that best fit the data included higher facial trustworthiness judgment scores (β = 0.592, p = 0.001) and lower SREIS scores (β = −0.592, p = 0.001). Facial trustworthiness judgment scores accounted for 24 % of the variance (R2 = 0.237, p = 0.019), and SREIS scores accounted for an additional 34 % of the variance (R2 change =0.339, p = 0.001) in right DLPFC/AI activation. Although MSCEIT scores were excluded by this stepwise analysis, there was a trend-level positive relationship between MSCEIT total scores and right DLPFC/AI activation (β = 0.266, p = 0.076). We therefore ran a post-hoc correlation, and observed that right DLPFC/AI activation was significantly positively correlated with MSCEIT total scores (r = 0.429, p = 0.041).

Greater left ventral visual cortex activation was best predicted by higher Ekman 60 total scores (β = 0.717, p < 0.001) and higher facial trustworthiness judgment total accuracy scores (β = 0.415, p = 0.002). Ekman 60 total scores accounted for 57 % of the variance (R2 = 0.568, p < 0.001), and facial trustworthiness judgment total scores accounted for an additional 17 % of the variance (R2 change =0.171, p = 0.002) in left ventral visual cortex activation.

For right ventral visual cortex activation, higher Ekman 60 total scores (β = 0.745, p < 0.001), and higher facial trustworthiness judgment scores (β = 0.343, p = 0.004), were also significant independent predictors, as well as lower NEO openness scores (β = −0.305, p = 0.01). Ekman 60 total scores accounted for 54 % of the variance (R2 = 0.542, p < 0.001), facial trustworthiness judgment total scores accounted for an additional 18 % of the variance (R2 change =0.178, p = 0.002), and NEO openness scores accounted for an additional 9 % of the variance (R2 change =0.085, p = 0.01) in right ventral visual cortex activation.

In the model predicting greater left DLPFC activation that best fit the data, lower NEO openness scores (β = −0.417, p = 0.048) were found to be the only significant predictor accounting for 17 % of the variance (R2 = 0.174, p = 0.048).

Lower NEO openness scores (β = −0.457, p = 0.028) were also found to be the only significant predictor of greater left AI activation, accounting for 21 % of the variance (R2 = 0.209, p = 0.028).

For each of the regression analyses described above, we also took multiple measures to ensure that potential collinearity issues did not threaten the validity of our results. First, as suggested by Field (2013), we ran correlation analyses between all predictor variables and confirmed that no predictor variables were correlated above a value of r = 0.8 (average correlation value within this correlation matrix was r = 0.04, SD = 0.26). Second, using SPSS collinearity diagnostics, we confirmed that the highest variance inflation factor (VIF) in these analyses was not greater than 10, and that the average VIF was not substantially greater than 1 (Bowerman and O’Connell 1990).

Discussion

As predicted, we first observed that social judgment, relative to perceptual judgment, activated regions associated with the executive control network (left and right DLPFC, left PPC), salience network (left and right AI and DMPFC/dACC), the DMN (anterior portion of the DMPFC/dACC cluster), and left and right regions of ventral visual cortex known to be involved in facial processing (e.g., Druzgal and D’Esposito, 2001a, 2001b; O’Craven and Kanwisher, 2000; Vuilleumier et al., 2001). The DMPFC/dACC, in particular, has been associated previously with visual evaluations of social dominance (Freeman et al. 2009). Although not predicted in advance, social judgment also activated regions of the cerebellum, right thalamus, and posterior midbrain. These further results are, nevertheless, consistent with current models in which cortical cognitive control networks interact, via subcortical nuclei, with a cerebellar “error” network that functions to optimize cortical network performance through error minimization processes (Dosenbach et al. 2008; Power and Petersen 2013). The posterior midbrain also includes the superior colliculi, which are implicated in the control of eye movements and spatial attention during visual tasks (Krauzlis et al. 2013). Thus, the present findings supported the hypothesized role of the executive control, salience, and default mode networks in social cognition; they also provided the predicted clusters of activation within network hub regions (believed to serve network interactions) that allowed us to explore the relationship between individual difference measures and associated neural responses. Consistent with our a priori hypotheses regarding these individual difference measures, we subsequently observed that distinct performance-based and self-report measures were able to explain a significant proportion of the variance in activation within distinct network regions (Fig. 2). As we describe in more detail below, a broad trend was observed across our results, converging on the overarching theme that lower self-reported confidence in one’s social abilities may promote the allocation of greater cognitive resources to, and therefore improve performance on, actual social-cognitive tasks.
Fig. 2

Graphical illustration of the overarching theme observed within our individual difference-based step-wise multiple regression analyses. These findings suggest that stronger responses within large-scale neural networks (and the perceptual systems they modulate) are associated with both better performance (higher MSCEIT, Ekman 60, and Facial Trustworthiness Judgment scores) and reduced self-reported openness/confidence in one’s own social cognitive abilities (lower NEO openness, SREIS, and Bar-On EQi scores). We propose that this may reflect the fact that salience network and DMN regions (AI and DMPFC/dACC) predict the need for increased effort to succeed in individuals with low openness/confidence, and that this promotes increased engagement of DLPFC executive control network functions (which improves performance by promoting additional visual processing). SREIS Self-Rated Emotional Intelligence Scale, MSCEIT Mayer–Salovey–Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test, EQi Bar-On Emotional Quotient Inventory

Individual differences and large-scale network function

First, self-report measures of personality and EI – NEO openness and total EQi scores – were each negatively associated with, and explained significant independent portions of the variance in, activation within the DMPFC/dACC cluster, which overlaps with regions of both the salience network and the DMN and may serve as an important hub for interactions between these networks (van den Heuvel and Sporns 2011, 2013). This is consistent with our a priori hypothesis that self-reportable beliefs/values would be most closely associated with networks that function to evaluate one’s homeostatic/emotional needs and conceptualize sensory input based on expectations/beliefs derived from background knowledge and past experience. Overall, these findings are in line with earlier work showing that self-reported EI was inversely correlated with activation of the medial prefrontal cortex and insular regions (Killgore and Yurgelun-Todd 2007). SREIS scores (another self-report EI measure) were also negatively associated with individual differences in the activation of the right DLPFC/AI cluster; since the right AI is part of the salience network, this is also broadly consistent with what we predicted. However, since this single cluster also encompassed the right DLPFC (an executive control network region), these results are not able to differentiate between the influence of SREIS scores on the salience vs. executive control network regions. However, as the DLPFC and AI are both important hub regions serving interactions between these networks (van den Heuvel and Sporns 2011, 2013), and given that they were both activated together in our task, this suggests that SREIS scores could also relate to important interactions between salience and executive control networks. The inverse relationship between self-perceived competencies and brain activation appears explicable in terms of how self-reported personality traits and self-related beliefs would be expected to interact with perceived salience. That is, it seems plausible that, when trying to evaluate the relative dominance of another person (as in our fMRI task), this would invoke greater concern/perceived salience in a person who was less open to new experiences (i.e., lower NEO openness scores), or less confident in their ability to adaptively assess and respond to emotionally charged social situations (i.e., lower EQi and SREIS scores). This increased salience might also provoke greater use of background knowledge from past experience to construct internal models for use in making these judgments (i.e., greater DMN activation). In general then, we suggest that these findings could be interpreted to indicate that reduced self-reported confidence/openness may lead to increased concern (and the predicted need for greater effort/resources to succeed at a social-cognitive task), and therefore increased salience of task stimuli and motivation to engage greater cognitive control to perform successfully.

We also observed that facial trustworthiness judgment accuracy scores (a performance measure) explained a significant independent portion of the variance in the right DLPFC/AI cluster; this is consistent with our hypotheses regarding the relationship between performance and executive control regions, but it was not a prediction we made regarding the right AI. In contrast to the SREIS, trustworthiness accuracy scores were positively associated with right DLPFC/AI activation. Interestingly, our post-hoc correlation analysis of MSCEIT total score also demonstrated a significant positive relationship between MSCEIT scores and right DLPFC/AI activation; thus, both of these performance measures increased with increasing activation. In contrast, we observed a negative relationship between both the left DLPFC and left AI clusters and NEO openness scores, but no other measure came out significantly associated with these clusters within our stepwise regression analyses. Thus, self-report measures were consistently negatively associated with, and performance measures were consistently positively associated with, the activation of these brain regions believed to serve network interactions. Similar to our suggestion above regarding the DMPFC/dACC and right DLPFC/AI, the observation that lower NEO openness scores were associated with greater left AI and left DLPFC activation could also reflect the fact that making social judgments may be perceived as more concerning/salient (greater left AI activation), and also promote allocation of greater processing resources to the task (greater left DLPFC activation), among those who are less open to new experiences. This account could also explain why greater right DLPFC/AI activation is associated with greater performance (i.e., higher MSCEIT scores and facial trustworthiness judgment accuracy), and also with lower self-reported abilities (i.e. lower SREIS scores). That is, greater cognitive/attentional resources may be allocated to task performance in those who are less confident in their abilities.

Individual differences and sensory cortex function

In further support of the overarching theme we propose, our analyses regarding the left and right ventral visual cortex clusters demonstrated that facial emotion recognition accuracy (as measured by the Ekman 60 test), and facial trustworthiness judgment accuracy, were each positively associated with, and explained significant independent portions of the variance in, visual system activation associated with facial processing. The fact that these areas were more activated in social vs. perceptual judgment, and that greater activation increases predicted better scores on performance-based measures, both suggest that the allocation of additional visual processing resources was required to infer ToM-related information from facial perception. In addition, however, our results suggest that independent portions of the variance in this allocation of additional processing resources are associated with the ability to accurately infer emotions (a state-related psychological attribute) and trustworthiness (a trait-related psychological attribute). The ability to infer these two types of psychological attributes plausibly allows for distinctly useful influences on decision-making. For example, the ability to infer a person’s emotional state has important implications for deciding how to interact with them in the present moment (e.g., if they are angry vs. afraid, different strategies would likely be optimal for helping them feel better), whereas the ability to perceptually infer a psychological trait plausibly has more long-term decision-making implications (e.g., if they are not trustworthy, it would be a better idea to not keep them as a friend). These results therefore highlight the possibility that different internal control “decisions” regarding top-down allocation of visual processing resources may underlie each of these abilities; future research should examine what further factors might contribute to an individual’s ability to learn to infer each of these useful types of information accurately.

Relation to previous literature

To our knowledge, few studies to date have examined the relationship between large-scale network interactions and individual difference measures of social-cognitive abilities, such as EI. However, our results do appear consistent with, and able to build upon, several previous findings. For example, earlier studies have found disagreement between self-report vs. performance-based measures of EI (Brackett et al. 2006; Goldenberg et al. 2006); relatedly, previous studies have found that self-reported EI measures are related to personality variables, whereas performance-based EI measures are related to IQ scores (KV Petrides et al. 2007; Webb et al. 2013). Our findings appear consistent with this work, but also suggest a way in which the beliefs/values reflected in self-reported EI and personality measures may promote cognitive resource allocation in a way that can improve performance. This may therefore clarify the nature of the disagreements previously observed between self-reported and performance-based measures, and highlight how they may influence the neural networks that implement social-cognitive functions. Our results also build on previous neuroimaging work that has explicitly examined correlates of social-cognitive abilities. For example, previous studies have found that differences in gray matter and white matter within the insula are related to differences in self-reported EI (Takeuchi et al. 2011; Takeuchi et al., 2013a, b), as are resting state functional connectivity estimates associated with the medial frontal cortex, DLPFC, and visual cortical regions (Takeuchi et al., 2013a, b), as well as cerebellum (Pan et al. 2014). Measures of ability EI have also been shown to correlate with gray matter volume of the insular cortex (Killgore et al. 2012; Tan et al. 2014) and greater functional responsiveness of the insular cortex to dynamically changing expressions communicating trustworthiness (Killgore et al. 2013). The visual cortex regions we observed also overlap with the same regions found in meta-analyses of emotion face processing (Fusar-Poli et al., 2009a, b; Fusar-Poli et al., 2009a, b). Our results appear to offer additional insights, however, regarding the way activity in these regions relates to individual differences in multiple conceptually distinct performance measures.

Limitations and conclusion

The present study has several limitations. First, the sample size is only moderate, and therefore future research should attempt to replicate the relationships we observed between performance-based/self-report measures and activation of particular large-scale neural network regions. Given that our fMRI task only presented male faces, a replication study (using a larger sample size) might also examine the possibility that neural responses in some brain regions could show gender interactions. Second, although our study was guided by some broad a priori hypotheses, the stepwise multiple regression approach we used, and the different measures we gathered, served an exploratory function. These findings should therefore be seen as mainly hypothesis-generating, which further highlights the importance for future studies to replicate the particular directional relationships we observed. In particular, it was somewhat surprising that WASI total IQ scores did not account for a significant proportion of the variance in the activation of any of the brain regions examined. This could perhaps suggest that IQ is less relevant to the type of social-cognitive task we used, or alternatively, it is possible that this was due to some partially shared variance between IQ scores and other stronger predictors in our analyses. Therefore, future studies should employ additional statistical analyses to further examine such issues. Third, it is notable that none of the cluster activations we observed were associated with accuracy on the social judgment task itself. This is surprising, as judgments of dominance appear to reflect a similar trait-related inference as that of facial trustworthiness, which were in fact, related to brain activation. We suggest that this is probably best explained by the fact that the dominance judgments were designed to be considerably easier than facial trustworthiness judgments, particularly in the difficult conditions of the facial trustworthiness task in which the faces presented were only separated by one standard deviation (in terms of the previously rated trait features). Therefore, the greater difficulty, reflected in the lower mean accuracy (68 % vs. 82 %), in trustworthiness vs. dominance judgment may have helped to bring out more meaningful individual differences. It is also possible, however, that accuracy differences may be explained by activations in the midbrain/cerebellar clusters which we chose not to further examine.

Fourth, although most of our chosen performance-based and self-report measures are previously validated, it bears highlighting that the facial trustworthiness task and the social judgment task were of our own creation. Thus, despite the fact that the trustworthiness/dominance face sets we used have been validated in previous work, less is known about the exact psychometric properties of the particular ways in which we chose to use them. Fifth, as we also highlighted above, the activation clusters we observed did not always permit distinguishing the contributions of neighboring cortical areas. Specifically, a single cluster spanned the right DLPFC and AI, and another spanned the left and right DMPFC/dACC, which created difficulty in discerning the distinct functional contributions of these regions. Therefore, future studies should perhaps take specific steps (such as using a smaller smoothing kernel) to facilitate the ability to observe and analyze more localized activation clusters in these regions. Finally, as in previous work (e.g., Oosterwijk et al. 2012), we chose to investigate network activation through examining the responses of brain regions known to participate in those networks. However, this strategy is limited by the fact that it does not allow inferences about interactions between regions of activation. Therefore, future work should also perform independent component analyses (ICA) to further examine the relation between individual difference measures and the distributed patterns of correlated neural activity that are detectable with such methods.

In conclusion, using a social judgment task to activate the multiple neural networks known to be engaged by, and interact during, successful social cognition, we were able to identify particular contributions of different individual difference factors to the functioning of hub regions thought to subserve interactions between these distinct contributing networks. First, we found that lower self-reported traits related to social and emotional competence were associated with greater activation of network regions that are involved in assessing the salience of, conceptualizing, and directing cognitive resources to task-relevant perception. Second, we found that higher scores on measures of better objective social/emotional performance were associated with greater activation within executive control regions as well as the visual processing regions modulated by them. Together these findings suggest that better performance is associated with greater allocation of cognitive processing resources, and that the decision to allocate resources in this way may be promoted by lower subjective estimates of performance ability (i.e., those who think they are the least capable may put forth the greatest cognitive effort). Finally, we found evidence that distinct portions of variance in activation within visual processing regions may account for the ability to correctly infer state-related vs. trait-related psychological information about others. If replicated in future work, these results may have important implications for the interaction between self-reported beliefs, objective performance, and interacting large-scale neural networks within the context of adaptive social functioning.

Notes

Compliance with ethical standards

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Funding

This study was funded by a USAMRAA grant to WDSK (grant number W81XWH-09-1-0730).

Conflict of interest

Ryan Smith declares that he has no conflict of Interest. Anna Alkozei declares that she has no conflict of interest. W.D. “Scott” Killgore declares that he has no conflict of interest.

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Brain Imaging and Behavior

, Volume 11, Issue 3, + pp 874–886 | Cite as

Contextual exclusion processing: an fMRI study of rejection in a performance-related context

  • Lisa Wagels
  • Rene Bergs
  • Benjamin Clemens
  • Magdalena Bauchmüller
  • Ruben C. Gur
  • Frank Schneider
  • Ute Habel
  • Nils Kohn
  • Lisa Wagels
    • 1
  • Rene Bergs
    • 1
  • Benjamin Clemens
    • 1
  • Magdalena Bauchmüller
    • 1
  • Ruben C. Gur
    • 3
  • Frank Schneider
    • 1
    • 2
  • Ute Habel
    • 1
    • 2
  • Nils Kohn
    • 1
    • 4
  1. 1.Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and PsychosomaticsMedical Faculty RWTH AachenAachenGermany
  2. 2.JARA – BRAIN Institute I: Structure Function RelationshipJülichGermany
  3. 3.Departments of Psychiatry, Perelman School of MedicineUniversity of PennsylvaniaPhiladelphiaUSA
  4. 4.Department for Cognitive NeuroscienceDonders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Medical CentreNijmegenNetherlands
Original Research
+

Abstract

Social stress has a major detrimental impact on subjective well-being. Previous research mainly focused on two methods to induce and measure social stress: social exclusion and performance evaluation. For social exclusion researchers frequently focused on the Cyberball task, which in contrast to many psychosocial stress paradigms does not include a performance component. The aim of the current study was to establish an optimized psychosocial stress paradigm by combining both, social exclusion as well as performance evaluation within a single fMRI paradigm. We implemented a modification of the Cyberball task including a performance game (with exclusion and inclusion periods) in addition to the already established exclusion and inclusion periods. This indeed resulted in increased subjective stress in the performance game. Hence, the modified Cyberball version seems to be superior in mapping relevant neural social stress correlates more pronounced and reliably. Exclusion within the performance-related context contrasted to the unmodified exclusion was associated with higher activation in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and the anterior insula. Moreover, the modified exclusion reflected greater social processing in the precuneus, several temporo-parietal and medial prefrontal areas, as suggested by the additional task aspects of social evaluation and social perspective taking. The findings emphasize that public negative evaluation is effective in substantially enlarging and potentiating the distressing effect of exclusion on a subjective as well as on a neural level. This may have a great potential for further experimental research on social stress.

Keywords

Cyberball Social evaluative stress Salience network Mentalizing network Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) 

Introduction

Successful social life means to be included in society, in a team, in a working group or in any other social group. Being excluded by others threatens all benefits that result from teamwork and from social interactions in general and might lead to a reduced self-esteem (Zadro et al. 2004). This might be especially pronounced in all situations that put strong emphasis on team performance, because in these circumstances exclusion might be an indication of inadequate performance. Previous studies investigating social exclusion have shown a number of negative effects for the individual (Williams and Nida 2011). For example, exclusion seems to impair self-regulation (Baumeister et al. 2005), increase the feeling of distress and negative affect (Chow et al. 2008; Zadro et al. 2004), and might even change our perspective on ourselves and what we expect others to think about us (Bastian and Haslam 2010). All things considered, social exclusion threatens our fundamental needs such as the need to belong, the need for control and the need for a meaningful existence (Smith and Williams 2004; Zadro et al. 2004).

Physiological responses to rejection or exclusion confirm their power as a stressor for the individual. Increased cortisol levels have been observed in several laboratory settings in which participants were excluded of a real life conversation (Blackhart et al. 2007; Stroud et al. 2002). In experimental investigations, however the simulated exclusion from an online ball-tossing game (Cyberball) has not consistently been associated with increased cortisol levels (Bass et al. 2014; Seidel et al. 2013; Zöller et al. 2010) - possibly due to the mild nature of exclusion as social stressor and inter-individual variability in appraisal of this experimental stressor. In the Cyberball task, the participant is told that he or she will play a virtual ball-tossing game with two or more participants. Unknown to the participant, the game is rigged and consists of computer-regulated inclusion and exclusion periods. During the latter, the participant does not receive the ball anymore. This exclusion period is the key component for the induction of social stress as rejection elicits social threat (Williams 2007a). Independent of the inconsistent hormonal stress response, the Cyberball task still has been characterized by high effect sizes with regard to negative affect (Blackhart et al. 2009) and elicits well-studied neural responses (Cacioppo et al. 2013; Rotge et al. 2014).

The core component in the Cyberball task is the feeling of being rejected by a social group, but there is some evidence for additional factors influencing individual stress reactions to social rejection in this paradigm (Williams 2007b). On the one hand, individual differences regarding the need to belong or self-esteem seem to be important for emotional, hormonal and neural responses (Beekman et al. 2015; Ford and Collins 2010; Onoda et al. 2009). On the other hand, there are external factors which seem to influence the perception of exclusion in the Cyberball task. For example, several studies manipulated information about the team members to imply different reasons for exclusion. They found that permanently discriminating reasons, like gender or ethnicity increase distress or prolong negative emotional states (Goodwin et al. 2010; Masten et al. 2011b; Wirth and Williams 2009). Some contexts that enhance a positive self-identification after exclusion might have a buffering function as well (Wirth and Williams 2009). In summary, these studies indicate that emotions and even neural responses to exclusion are modulated by an individual’s appraisal of the situation (Masten et al. 2011b).

The current study aimed to modify the experience and appraisal of exclusion by increasing the stress level within the Cyberball game. As the aforementioned findings show, the exclusion period in the Cyberball task itself is distressing. However, the task lacks one component which is essential to many other psychosocial stress tasks like the Montreal Imaging Stress Task (Dedovic et al. 2005) and the Trier Social Stress Test (Kirschbaum et al. 1993): a public performance monitoring in combination with (fake) negative feedback. Combining both the public performance evaluation and the subsequent exclusion in one task might be a more powerful psychosocial stressor compared to the mere exclusion in previous Cyberball studies. We therefore modified the Cyberball task such that in addition to the established inclusion and exclusion conditions (here free game, FG), a performance related condition (performance game, PG) was incorporated. In this condition individuals are not only excluded from a ball tossing game but they are also pressured by time constraints and public negative feedback about their performance. Following the assumption that the public evaluation of performance contributes to one’s stress response, we expect an increased stress level during the PG, even while subjects are included. Moreover, we expect that this additional stress component reinforces the negative experience of exclusion. When provided with negative feedback on performance, the attribution of exclusion will most likely be performance-related and the reason for exclusion might be more obvious than in the free game. Thus, performance feedback in the Cyberball task would prompt a new appraisal of the exclusion situation increasing self-evaluative cognition, a core component for social stress (Gruenewald et al. 2007). Being socially excluded after negative performance feedback would encompass a negative outcome, which attributed to the self would result in what has been conceptualized as mental pain or social stress (Tossani 2013).

In addition to the study of behavioral stress effects of Cyberball exclusion, the task has been applied frequently to investigate neural correlates of rejection. Eisenberger et al. (2003) were the first to investigate the neural response to exclusion in the Cyberball task; and they proclaimed the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) as a target region for the processing of exclusion related distress. The dACC is also referred to as anterior middle cingulate cortex (aMCC), as defined by Vogt (2005) based on cytoarchitectonic information and structural and functional connectivity. To prevent confusion, we will refer to this region as dACC/aMCC throughout this manuscript. Some subsequent studies suggested that the aMCC/ dACC in combination with the anterior insula is a target region for the processing of social pain as these regions overlap with what has been described as the physical pain network (DeWall et al. 2012; Kross et al. 2011). Later models for exclusion processing refer to the aMCC/ dACC as a neural alarm system (Eisenberger and Lieberman 2004; Kawamoto et al. 2015). Yet, besides the anterior insula and aMCC/ dACC, other regions have repeatedly been related to exclusion, such as the inferior orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) (Cacioppo et al. 2013) or other regions involved in emotion regulation like the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC) (Goldin et al. 2008; Sebastian et al. 2011), or in mentalizing like the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ), medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and precuneus (DeWall et al. 2012; Schurz et al. 2014). Common regions underlying social stressors such as rejection and public evaluative stress have been suggested in a recent meta-analysis (Kogler et al. 2015) emphasizing the role of the anterior insula and inferior frontal gyrus.

Our hypotheses are based on the assumption that the additional stress component in PG, implemented by the public performance evaluation, adds to the feeling of distress. We therefore predict increased subjective stress and reduced positive affective in the PG inclusion and exclusion conditions, and in exclusion compared to inclusion conditions (1). Moreover, we hypothesize reduced positive affect for exclusion situations compared to inclusion periods in both game contexts (2). In PG, we predict exclusion to result in less positive affect and increased stress than in FG (3). On the neural level, we hypothesize the contrast of exclusion versus inclusion to demonstrate increased activity in exclusion related regions encompassing structures in the vlPFC (inferior frontal gyrus, IFG), dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC), ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) including OFC and ventral anterior cingulate cortex (vACC), and insula (4), regardless of context (PG, FG). In addition, we predict that the increase of social evaluative threat - parallel to the expected behavioral effects (stress and positive affect) -intensifies the neural response to exclusion, thereby eliciting increased activity in the anterior insula and aMCC/dACC for exclusion in PG compared to FG (5).

Materials and methods

Participants

Twenty men and 20 women (mean age: 27.80 years; SD: 7.86) took part in the experiment. All participants had normal or corrected vision, no MRI contraindications and no history of traumatic brain injury, psychiatric or neurological illness. According to the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory (Oldfield 1971), all subjects were fully right handed. Participants completed tests of crystallized verbal intelligence (Lehrl et al. 1995), executive functions (Reitan 1956) and working memory (Von Aster et al. 2006) (see Online Resource 1). Participants were recruited through public postings in university buildings at RWTH Aachen University. None of the participants had ever taken part in a Cyberball task or any other experiment on social exclusion.

Compliance with ethical standards

The authors declare that there are no competing interests. Experimental procedures were approved by the Ethics Committee of the Medical Faculty of the RWTH Aachen University. All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. Participants received a financial compensation for taking part in the study. After participation, all participants were fully debriefed and informed about the study aims.

Procedure

Upon arrival, participants were told that they would be taking part in a group study designed to test their mental visualisation abilities while playing a ball-tossing game on the computer with two unknown teammates. Two virtual players located on the right and left side of the screen represented the teammates. The virtual players were named “Dieter” and “Nora,” with their respective names written above virtual representations of the figures. Dieter always started the game by throwing the ball to the participant, who was represented by a hand in the lower center of the screen. To throw the ball, participants could press one of two buttons of a keyboard (LumiTouch) with the first or second finger of the right hand, directing the ball to either the left or right teammate, respectively. Before the experimental session began, participants were also informed that there would be two conditions, the “Free Game” (FG) and the “Performance Game” (PG). The virtual game was implemented using Presentation® software (Version 16, www.neurobs.com) and presented by MRI compatible video glasses (VisuaStimDigital; Resonance Technology, resolution: 800x600).

The fMRI task consisted of 20 blocks (10 FG blocks and 10 PG blocks) with each block lasting 50s. Additionally, both FG and PG were conducted in an inclusion and an exclusion condition (5 blocks each). We pseudo-randomized the order of the context in which the game started, such that half of the participants started with 10 FG blocks and the other half started with 10 PG blocks. Independent of the order, the experiment always began with an inclusion block in order to increase the credibility of the paradigm. The following blocks of inclusion and exclusion within a certain context were completely randomized.

Regardless of exclusion or inclusion in FG or PG, within each block there was a short inclusion phase lasting 14.7 s. In the following 35.3 s, participants were either included or excluded. The participant received the ball in 60 % of all cases in inclusion phases. While some studies excluded the participant completely during exclusion phases, in our study, the subject received the ball in 3 % of all throws similar to other studies (Gradin et al. 2012; Kawamoto et al. 2012).

In FG, participants were told to just visualize and throw the ball to the player they preferred. The context was changed in PG by instructing subjects that fast reactions to the virtual ball would be essential for good group performance- the group as a whole would earn more points for faster reaction times. It was further explained that the faster the participants threw the ball back into play, the more points they would contribute to the overall group performance. To indicate reaction times, participants were told that whenever one of the players reacted too slowly, he or she would be warned by a red frame that would pop up and encircle his or her virtual figure (Fig. 1). During the PG inclusion phase and also in the preliminary phase before the PG exclusion phase, the red frame was presented in 20 % of the throws of the teammates, whereas the participant was presented with a red frame in 50 % of all throws. During actual exclusion periods, the virtual excluders still got negative feedback in 20 % of all throws.
Fig. 1

The figure presents the order of the modified Cyberball: In version A, Cyberball started with an inclusion block (PG IN) in the performance-related context, followed by randomized blocks of inclusion and exclusion (PG EX); part 2 was applied in a neutral context starting with inclusion (FG IN), followed by inclusion and exclusion (FG EX); in version B (reversed), Cyberball started with the neutral context in part 1, followed by the performance-related context in part 2

After each block, participants were asked to answer two questions. The first assessed their subjective stress level (Do you feel stressed?). The second question assessed positive affect (Do you feel well?). Subjects answered these questions with their first or second finger on the fibre optic response pad (LumiTouch). Pressing the keys moved a bar on a 9-point Likert-like scale from 1 (not at all) to 9 (extremely). Participants were presented a visual feedback in response to their choice. After five seconds, the next question appeared. The two questions were followed by a 16 s baseline phase in which a fixation cross was presented. (Fig. 2).
Fig. 2

Mean ratings and standards errors of stress (a) and positive affect (b) are indicated. PG = performance game; FG = free game; EX = exclusion, IN = inclusion. *significant at p < .05. **significant after Bonferroni correction

Behavioral data analysis

As eleven participants expressed doubts about the cover story when asked directly, stress and positive affect scores of believers versus non-believers were compared by independent sample t-tests. For the analysis of stress and positive affect, scores were generated by averaging the mean rating after each block separated into condition per context. Self-perceived stress was analysed by a 2x2 repeated measures ANCOVA with context (PG versus FG) and condition (IN versus EX) as within-subject factors. Order of context (start PG versus start FG) was included as covariate of no interest. The same analysis was conducted for positive affect. As one subject was identified as an outlier because of a wrong interpretation of the scale for positive affect in the first block, he was excluded from this analysis.

fMRI data acquisition and analyses

Imaging data were acquired using a Siemens 3 T Trio scanner (Siemens AG; Erlangen, Germany) equipped with a 12-channel head matrix coil located in the Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, RWTH Aachen University. Foam pads were used to properly stabilize the head. Each fMRI session consisted of one functional run and one anatomical run, which was always performed at the end of the session. A time series of 750 functional images per participant was acquired, using a spin-echo EPI sequence with the following acquisition parameters: TR = 2000 ms; TE = 28 ms, flip angle =77°, FOV = 192 * 192 mm, matrix size =64 x 64 mm, 34 slices, voxel size =3x3x3.75 mm3, interleaved, slice gap 0.8 mm. Functional scans lasted 25 min, including a pre-baseline (28 s). Structural scans were acquired using a T1-weighted MPRAGE sequence with the following acquisition parameters: TR = 2300, TE = 3.03 ms, flip angle =9°, FOV = 256 * 256 mm, matrix size =64 x 64; 176 slices, voxel size =1x1x1mm3.

Imaging data were analysed using SPM8 software (http://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/spm/). The first six volumes of each fMRI run were discarded so that the scanner could reach a stable magnetized state, preventing artefacts from transient signal changes at the beginning of the functional run. The images of the time-series were realigned with a two-pass procedure, with the first image (first pass) and the mean image (second pass) used as references. None of the subjects exceeded the predefined movement limits of 3 mm, or 3°. Data were high-pass filtered at 156 s to remove low-frequency drifts. Each anatomical scan was co-registered according to its mean EPI scan and subsequently used to determine spatial normalization parameters by means of the unified segmentation approach. These normalization parameters were applied to the functional scans, thus transforming the time-series into the standard space defined by the Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI).

During normalization, all images were resampled to a voxel size of 2x2x2 mm3. Afterwards, images were smoothed using an isotropic Gaussian kernel of 8 mm full-width-at-half-maximum. Individual time-series were analysed (first level) within the framework of the general linear model (GLM). Six box-car functions - one for each of the four game conditions, and two for the conditions of no interest (emotion ratings and the 14.7 s beginning of each game block) - were convolved with the canonical hemodynamic response function (HRF) implemented in SPM8. In addition, 6 regressors modelled the movement parameters.

Group level, whole brain analysis

For the whole brain analysis a general linear model (GLM) with random effects was conducted with the four conditions (PG EX, PG IN, FG EX, FG IN) entered as independent regressors. A voxel-level threshold of p = .05 corrected for multiple comparisons (FWE correction) was used for all contrasts. In order to test the main effect of exclusion, both exclusion conditions were contrasted against the inclusion conditions. Subsequently, in both the performance related context (PG) and the unmodified context (FG) we conducted t-contrasts of exclusion conditions compared to the unmodified inclusion condition (FG IN). We contrasted both exclusion conditions to the FG IN condition as this condition equals the original inclusion condition in other Cyberball experiments and does not contain additional stress components (public performance evaluation), which would influence the contrast. Subsequently, we applied a logical AND conjunction analysis of both contrasts (PG EX > FG IN ∩ FG EX > FG IN), which would contain regions that consistently were activated in both the PG exclusion period and the FG exclusion period compared to control. As opposed to the main effect, this conjunction analysis specifically focuses on the common effect of both exclusion conditions compared to a “clean” control condition provided by the FG IN condition. Furthermore, both exclusion conditions were compared applying a t-contrast of PG EX > FG EX.

Results

Behavioral data

Age and neuropsychological test scores of men and women did not differ significantly (see Online Resource 1). For a manipulation check we tested credibility as a potentially influencing factor on our behavioral data. Participants who indicated some doubt about our paradigm did not show different scores for stress (t(38) = −.800, p = .429) or positive affect (t(38) = −.302, p = .764) compared with participants that completely believed in our paradigm. For validation purposes regarding a successful manipulation of the game, the average tosses within each condition (for the 35.3 s which were analyzed in the fMRI block) were compared. Ball tosses significantly differed (all p < .001), with the largest number of tosses in PG IN and the lowest number in FG IN (Online Resource 2).

Behaviorally, subjectively perceived stress was analyzed depending on context and condition, with order as a covariate. There was a main effect of context (F(1,38) = 10.30, p = .003, ηp 2 = .213) but no effect of condition (F(1,38) = 1.09, p = .303, ηp 2 = .028). However, the interaction of context and condition was significant (F(1,38) = 4.08, p = .050, ηp 2 = .097). Post-hoc tests showed that inclusion in PG was more stressful than inclusion in FG (t(39) = 6.71, p < .001), and more stressful than exclusion in PG (t(39) = 5.31, p < .001) and FG (t(39) = 6.31, p < .001). Interestingly, exclusion in PG was perceived as more stressful than inclusion in FG (t(39) = 4.82, p < .001) and exclusion in FG (t(39) = 5.11, p < .001). In FG, however, stress ratings for inclusion and exclusion did not differ significantly (t(39) = −.907, p < .370).

For positive affect, there was a main effect of condition (F(1,37) = 5.42, p = .025, ηp 2 = .128) showing higher positive affect in the inclusion conditions. Specifically, post-hoc tests revealed that positive affect in FG IN was significantly higher than FG EX (t(38) = 2.18, p = .036). Similarly, positive affect was higher in the FG IN than in PG EX (t(38) = 2.53, p = .016) and PG IN (t(38) = 2.80, p = .008). Positive affect in the two exclusion conditions and the inclusion condition in PG did not differ (all p > .33). Furthermore, there was an interaction of order and condition (F(1,37) = 4.25, p = .046, ηp 2 = .103). For all individuals that started with PG, results demonstrated a more positive affect of inclusion compared to exclusion (t(19) = 2.45, p = .024). However, when individuals started with FG their affective ratings did not differ significantly (t(18) = .61, p = .547). There was no main effect of context or the covariate order concerning positive affect.

Brain activity

The main effect of EX > IN (Online Resource 3, Table 1; Online Resource 4) showed increased activation in several prefrontal regions including a large cluster in the vmPFC, the left vlPFC (IFG) and the dmPFC (middle frontal gyrus) and in the occipital cortex as well. Further, higher activation for exclusion was observed in limbic areas including bilateral hippocampus and amygdala. There was no increased activation for the anterior insula or the aMCC/ dACC comparing exclusion to inclusion. In addition, results for the reverse contrast (IN > EX) are presented in Table 1 and the contrasts for PG > FG and FG > PG are represented in Table 2 (all Online Resource 3), mainly demonstrating higher activation in temporal, parietal and occipital brain regions.
Table 1

MNI coordinates (x,y,z) for all peak voxels of significant clusters, T-value and cluster size k in voxel for exclusion versus control (FG EX > FG IN, and PG EX > FG IN) and the statistical overlap of both contrasts (PG EX > FG IN ∩ FG EX > FG IN)

Region

x

y

z

t

k

FG EX > FG IN

 R Postcentral Gyrus

44

−32

64

8.62

996

 vmPFC (vACC, OFC)

0

40

−8

6.05

396

 Rolandic Operculum

38

−16

18

9.12

337

 L ParaHippocampal Gyrus

−22

−32

−14

6.38

170

 L Angular Gyrus

−44

−74

44

6.22

136

 L Superior Occipital Gyrus

−12

−102

18

5.93

104

 L Middle Temporal Gyrus

−60

−4

−22

5.98

70

 L IFG (pars Triangularis)

−58

30

6

5.24

43

 L Posterior Cingulate Cortex

−8

−48

20

5.68

40

 R Paracentral Lobule

10

−34

54

5.84

35

 Cuneus

2

−90

26

5.26

19

 L Hippocampus

−42

−34

−10

5.33

21

 L MCC

−4

−38

42

5.31

17

 L IFG (pars Orbitalis)

−38

34

−18

5.37

17

 L Superior Frontal Gyrus

−12

58

28

5.27

16

 R Hippocampus

28

−18

−20

5.12

15

 R Middle Temporal Gyrus

52

−4

−28

5.21

13

 L Posterior Insula

−38

−12

20

5.52

10

PG EX > FG IN

 R Precentral Gyrus

34

−26

52

9.60

5134

 R Paracentral Lobule

6

−34

54

8.64

 

 R Postcentral Gyrus

18

−36

68

8.29

 

 R Precuneus

6

−42

40

7.73

 

 L MCC

0

−24

40

6.58

 

 L Angular Gyrus

−44

−72

44

8.51

1491

 L IFG (pars Orbitalis)

−46

32

−18

6.70

585

 L IFG (pars Triangularis)

−56

30

6

6.41

 

 Superior Medial Gyrus

0

62

24

6.27

557

 Lingual Gyrus

−12

−82

−10

7.50

489

 L Middle Temporal Gyrus

−68

−46

−12

7.57

355

 L Cuneus / Precuneus

−6

−76

34

5.60

229

 R Rolandic Operculum/Posterior Insula

40

−16

18

7.40

222

 R Middle Temporal Gyrus

62

−14

−14

6.31

211

 L Middle Temporal Gyrus

−62

−6

−14

6.25

181

 L Inferior Temporal Gyrus

−50

−10

−30

5.34

 

 L Middle Frontal Gyrus

−22

22

44

5.95

150

 L Superior Temporal Gyrus

−46

−16

−4

5.50

136

 L Cerebellum

−12

−52

−18

5.80

95

 R IFG (pars Orbitalis)

34

36

−12

6.20

90

 L Mid Orbital Gyrus

−2

34

−14

5.31

51

 R IFG (pars Triangularis)

53

32

10

5.87

48

 R Middle Frontal Gyrus

32

56

6

5.67

30

 R Cerebellum

20

−80

−30

7.24

31

 R Fusiform Gyrus

28

−54

−8

5.61

27

 L ACC (pregenual)

−4

46

8

5.27

27

PG EX > FG IN ∩ FG EX > FG IN ( Conjunction )

 R Postcentral Gyrus

36

−26

52

8.50

944

 R Rolandic Operculum

40

−16

18

7.39

171

 L Angular Gyrus

−48

−72

40

6.38

134

 L Middle Temporal Gyrus

−60

−4

−22

5.85

43

 L IFG (P. triangularis)

−58

30

6

5.24

38

 R Paracentral Lobule

10

−34

54

5.80

34

 L Mid Orbital Gyrus /vACC

−2

34

−14

5.27

33

 L Posterior Cingulate Cortex

−8

−48

22

5.57

32

 L MCC

−4

−38

42

5.29

15

 L IFG (P. orbitalis)

−38

34

−18

5.33

15

 L Cerebelum (IV-V)

−22

−44

−22

5.25

8

Table 2

MNI coordinates (x,y,z) for all peak voxels of significant clusters, T-value and cluster size (k) in voxels for PG EX > FG EX and FG EX > PG EX

Region

x

y

z

t

k

PG EX > FG EX

 R Inferior Parietal Lobule

42

−48

38

7.470

3757

 R Angular Gyrus

34

−62

40

7.360

 

 R Superior Occipital Gyrus

24

−82

20

7.310

 

 L Lingual Gyrus (V1-V4)

−10

−82

−10

11.630

1797

 R Middle Frontal Gyrus

24

18

52

6.850

1124

 L Superior Medial Gyrus

2

24

42

6.320

 

 R aMCC

10

16

30

5.490

 

 R Superior Frontal Gyrus

18

46

28

6.710

1018

 L Inferior Parietal Lobule

−38

−50

38

6.700

908

 R Precuneus

4

−48

76

7.060

471

 L Paracentral Lobule

    

 R Inferior Temporal Gyrus

62

−50

−18

6.370

271

 R Middle Temporal Gyrus

    

 L Middle Occipital Gyrus

−28

−82

20

7.640

248

 R Putamen/ Insula

30

14

−2

6.420

108

 R Caudate Nucleus

18

0

16

5.820

90

 L Middle Frontal Gyrus

−34

14

38

5.880

88

 L Middle Temporal Gyrus

−64

−52

−12

5.880

47

 L Cerebellum

−34

−70

−32

6.140

25

 L Anterior Insula

−31

16

−2

5.080

8

FG EX > PG EX

 R V1/ V2

12

−104

2

7.99

566

 L Middle Occipital Gyrus

−22

−98

6

7.48

468

Clusters showing increased activation in FG EX > FG IN and PG EX > FG IN are presented in Fig. 3, the corresponding peak voxels are reported in Table 1. The visual overlay presented in Fig. 3 does not depict a statistical comparison or contrast and is only included for display purposes. It should not be interpreted independently from the results of the formal statistical tests depicted in the left and right panels of Fig. 3. The overlapping activation of both exclusion contrasts compared to the FG IN condition resulted in higher activation of the IFG, vmPFC (vACC, inferior OFC), the posterior insula, the middle and posterior cingulate cortex, angular gyrus, middle temporal and post central gyrus and paracentral lobule.
Fig. 3

Significant clusters for the conjunction (left part) of performance exclusion versus free game inclusion and free game exclusion versus free game inclusion; significant clusters of the visual overlap of performance game exclusion versus free game inclusion and free game exclusion versus free game inclusion (middle part)*; significant clusters of the comparison of performance exclusion and free game exclusion (right part); FWE voxel level threshold of p < .05 was used for all clusters. *the visual overlap in Fig. 3 (middle part) does not depict a statistical comparison or contrast, and should not be interpreted independently from the results of the formal statistical tests depicted in the left and right panels of Fig. 3

Contrasting exclusion conditions directly showed increased activation in several regions for PG EX > FG EX (Table 1). Especially the dmPFC, several temporo-parietal regions, precuneus and the striatum were activated in PG EX more than in FG EX. In line with our hypothesis, contrasting PG EX > FG EX showed increased activation of the insula and aMCC/dACC. In FG EX, only visual areas were activated more than in PG EX (Table 2).

Discussion

This study investigated the neural correlates of exclusion after adding a negative performance evaluation in direct comparison with naïve exclusion in the Cyberball paradigm for the first time. The aim of placing public performance evaluation before excluding a participant was to increase social evaluative threat, which in turn was assumed to increase brain activity within a network related to social rejection and stress. Applying a modified version of an established exclusion paradigm, we found that negative performance evaluation within the Cyberball task served as an improved psychosocial stressor increasing subjectively perceived stress in inclusion and exclusion periods compared to naive exclusion. Our results thus clearly indicate that social evaluation contributes to the stressfulness of the paradigm. Exclusion periods, which were the focus of measuring stressful experience within the Cyberball paradigm, seemed to be more stressful after negative performance feedback than after naïve exclusion. Inclusion in the performance condition was the most effective stressor on a behavioral level, which may explain the higher stress level in exclusion as the effect of a preceding (and persisting) stressful experience. Taken together, the modified version may be superior in reliably producing correlates related to a stress response in a more classical sense (Seidel et al. 2013; Zöller et al. 2010) as implied by behavioral ratings.

Neural responses to performance-related exclusion versus naïve exclusion

Both naïve and performance-related exclusion were associated with increased activation in the vmPFC, in the operculum, and posterior insula, which is in line with previous studies investigating neural responses to exclusion and empathy for social exclusion (Bolling et al. 2011; Cacioppo et al. 2013; Kross et al. 2011; Masten et al. 2011a; Wudarczyk et al. 2015). However and most interestingly, as opposed to naïve exclusion we demonstrated enhanced activity in the aMCC/ dACC and anterior insula in performance-related exclusion. The direct comparison of different exclusion situations may contribute to the clarification of the roles for the aMCC/ dACC and anterior insula within social exclusion as we observed one highly important difference between both exclusion conditions. Subjective stress in the performance-related exclusion increased but there was no difference for exclusion conditions in affective ratings. This facilitates a more specific interpretation for the role of aMCC/ dACC and anterior insula. The findings oppose the assumption of a processing of affective pain components. Instead they underline the association of stress and activity in the anterior insula as suggested by a recent meta-analysis (Kogler et al. 2015) and aMCC/ dACC. Moreover, increased dACC activation in the performance game could be interpreted as the response to increased social conflict in the exclusion period in the performance game as suggested by investigations of expectancy violation contrasted to social exclusion (Bolling et al. 2011; Somerville et al. 2006). In agreement with both of these studies, the performance situation may indeed have elicited neural activation in response to expectancy violation because the aim of the game situation was more precisely defined. Hence, exclusion would have violated the participants’ expectations more strongly. In contrast to this rather cognitive component of exclusion processing, the emotional aspect of exclusion independent of the context might be associated with vmPFC activation more than with aMCC/ dACC activation.

Implications of previous neuroimaging studies would ascribe emotional salience as a main function of the insula and the aMCC/ dACC (Taylor et al. 2009). As parts of the salience network (Seeley et al. 2007), both regions may work as hubs in the neural alarm system (Eisenberger and Lieberman 2004; Kawamoto et al. 2015) detecting salient changes in the social context when being excluded. A possible and convincing explanation for the higher activation in the performance-related exclusion seems to be that both exclusion situations have a different social relevance here. Especially for the right frontoinsular cortex, a causal role in activating regions involved in moral reasoning has been suggested (Chiong et al. 2013). For an increase in social stress, public negative feedback evaluating both the performance of the participant as well as the performance of the teammates is implemented in the performance game. Consequently, the performance situation provides a context for increased self-evaluative and other related thoughts since reactions were important for the group aim.

The additional pronounced activation in mentalizing regions like the mPFC (superior medial gyrus, medial frontal gyrus) and precuneus during performance related exclusion (Schurz et al. 2014) may be a specific aspect of our paradigm. Our results suggest that social evaluative threat contributes to the negative experience of exclusion and seems to be particularly linked to an enhanced recruitment of a social monitoring and perspective taking system (Kawamoto et al. 2015), reflecting an even stronger social orientation and evaluation of the stressed individual.

Mentalizing regions have been suggested before as important structures within the dynamic process of exclusion as part of the social monitoring system (Kawamoto et al. 2015). This system is thought to adaptively regulate social behavior by processing social cues with new information regarding the current situation. Evaluation of the behavior of the excluders might determine if a situation is processed as intentional or unintentional exclusion (Chow et al. 2008). Although former studies already reported recruitment of mentalizing regions using the Cyberball task (Karremans et al. 2011; Moor et al. 2012), we demonstrated that performance-related exclusion seemed to engage mentalizing regions to a larger extent than naïve exclusion. Other studies showed that social evaluative threat related to performance results in lowered self-esteem (Dedovic et al. 2014) and rumination (Nepon et al. 2011). These self- and other-related thoughts might be reflected in the increased activation of the mentalizing network.

Together with reports of high subjective stress levels, our findings indicate that using the Cyberball task as a psychosocial stress paradigm might profit from adding performance evaluation precedent to exclusion. Exclusion seems to be more alarming and demands a stronger contention with the social environment when performance is evaluated. Future investigation of hormonal reactions, such as cortisol levels, would contribute to the understanding of exclusion related stress and its modification by increased social evaluative threat.

Emotional responses to naive and performance related exclusion

The present results confirm previous observations that the experience of exclusion is highly undesirable, leading to more negative mood and distress (Bernstein and Claypool 2012; Williams et al. 2000). In the current study, affective ratings were assessed online throughout the task, facilitating a direct report of the affective state of the participants. In contrast to previous studies, which assessed distress exclusively related to rejection, we assessed a general subjective stress level. Although our results do not support the hypothesis of a negative influence on the general stress level by the experience of exclusion compared to inclusion, the second part of our hypothesis was supported: public performance evaluation increased general stress levels both during inclusion and exclusion periods compared to the established inclusion condition (FG IN), confirming that social evaluative threat increases social stress (Dickerson and Kemeny 2004). Moreover, the relatively lower general stress level in the exclusion period in the free game Cyberball period suggests that negative public evaluation might affect subjective stress levels even more than naïve exclusion. Hence, being excluded because of a bad performance seems to be worse than being excluded without a rationale. On the other hand, in contrast to inclusion in the performance situation, the exclusion was perceived as less stressful. One might speculate that a bad performance as reason for the exclusion might have a protective effect because it offers the possibility to an external attribution for the exclusion. Wirth and Williams (2009) found a similar effect when subjects were excluded because they belonged to a random and temporary defined group and their group membership served as external attribution for the exclusion. However, in the current context it might be debatable if the attribution to a bad performance can actually have a similar protective effect. In contrast to a neutral group membership, being evaluated as worse than the teammates is unlikely to improve the evaluation of the situation. Instead, the observation of more positive feelings within the performance exclusion, compared to the performance inclusion, could reflect the relief of not receiving any negative feedback as long as one does not take part in the game anymore. Actually, receiving negative feedback – which may imply a very negative future consequence - might be worse than experiencing the negative consequence by being excluded. A confirmation of this assumption would be an interesting research aim in future studies.

As a replication of previous findings on negative effects of exclusion, we aimed to show a worsening of mood in response to exclusion. Online ratings of affective state confirmed the negative effect of exclusion. In contrast to our control condition, the unmodified inclusion, exclusion was associated with a less positive mood. Since the negative performance feedback in PG might have influenced mood ratings independently, our results are still similar to previous findings (Sebastian et al. 2011) demonstrating more negative affect in exclusion compared to an acceptance condition (unmodified inclusion, here FG IN). Importantly, the negative effect of exclusion demonstrated by subjective ratings emerged in both contexts, which validates our modification and the fMRI analyses. At the same time, in contrast to a more pronounced stress response in the performance-related exclusion compared to naïve exclusion, affective ratings were comparable for both conditions. Our interpretation of neural differences between exclusion conditions according to behavioral differences therefore is mainly related to the diverse perception of stress. In contrast, exclusion conditions compared to the control condition (FG IN) consistently differed with regard to affective ratings, which hence constitutes the basis for an interpretation of neural responses in these comparisons.

Neural responses of exclusion versus inclusion

Replicating previous findings on exclusion, in our modified paradigm the main effect of exclusion contrasted to inclusion confirmed increased activity in regions which have been described in several studies for healthy adult samples (Karremans et al. 2011; Kawamoto et al. 2012; Onoda et al. 2009; Sebastian et al. 2011). Most consistently, higher activity in exclusion has been reported for regions which are associated with emotion processing and regulation, like the ACC, the medial and lateral PFC and limbic regions (Kohn et al. 2014; Moor et al. 2012; Sebastian et al. 2011; Will et al. 2016). In agreement with these studies, exclusion compared to inclusion was associated with increased activity in the ACC, vmPFC, vlPFC and parahippocampal gyrus in the current study, although the contrast included the performance game inclusion as counterpart for the comparison. As the conjunction analysis demonstrated, the vACC, inferior OFC and IFG showed increased activity both in the performance- related exclusion as well as in the naïve exclusion, confirming that the modification of the Cyberball task is associated with a comparable network as reported by previous studies. Moreover, as behavioral results have already indicated, a reduced positive affect in exclusion conditions and the resulting need to regulate emotions may explain the increased involvement of emotion related brain regions.

The main contrast of exclusion versus inclusion did not show increased activation of the aMCC/ dACC, which has been suggested as target region for the processing of exclusion or social pain (Eisenberger et al. 2003). The “cleaner” comparison of exclusion independent of the context against a control condition (FG IN) as provided by the conjunction analysis confirmed this as there was only increased activation in the ventral portion of the ACC for both exclusion conditions, not in the dorsal portion. Methodological explanations for a missing activation of the aMCC/ dACC have been suggested by a recent meta-analysis (Rotge et al. 2014) featuring the length of exclusion periods and sample characteristics and also the construct of self-reported distress in relation to brain activity in this region. Our results concerning the contrast of exclusion and inclusion are in line with previous studies which likewise failed to replicate increased activity of the aMCC/dACC but instead found the vACC responding to exclusion and related to self-reported distress (Masten et al. 2009; Onoda et al. 2009; Sebastian et al. 2011). Likewise, in our study, the vACC was consistently found for exclusion compared to inclusion in both the classic Cyberball conditions as well as in the modified exclusion conditions. The negative effect on mood as a result of exclusion as demonstrated here has been shown reliably by numerous studies (for an overview see Hartgerink et al. 2015). Once again it supports the assumption of emotion related regions being involved in the processing of exclusion as suggested within the model of dynamic processing of exclusion (Kawamoto et al. 2015). An interesting observation in this context may be added: Note that exclusion conditions did not differ with regard to mood ratings. Likewise, activity in the vmPFC, which has previously been related to emotion processing in exclusion (Sebastian et al. 2011), did not differ between exclusion conditions. This observation could be valuable for the design of future studies, as online ratings of various affective states may contribute to the clarification of the roles for several brain regions in the processing of exclusion.

Limitations

We were able to show increased stress levels for exclusion in PG compared to a control inclusion condition, but not in the usual context (FG). In the latter, stress effects became visible in a reduced positive affect. Since we did not apply a specific exclusion related assessment of distress as in former studies (Williams and Nida 2011), this could explain the missing stress effect for the usual Cyberball condition. However, inconsistent evidence for a hormonal stress reaction (Seidel et al. 2013; Zöller et al. 2010) in the Cyberball task would support the critical notion that social exclusion does not necessarily elicit a strong stress response. Hence, the modification we propose could be an effective way to increase stress responses. Increased stress in the performance game inclusion period compared to the exclusion period of the performance game was most likely a result of not receiving any negative feedback at the time of exclusion. This may have reduced the stress, but nevertheless, the stress level was still increased compared to the free game exclusion. Furthermore, this made the exclusion conditions highly comparable, only distinct in the relevant aspect and hence increases the validity of the neural results and their interpretation. The only difference between both exclusion conditions was the threat of receiving negative feedback (which was the contextual factor of interest) and observing the teammates receiving negative feedback. Another limiting point of our study is that both the naïve exclusion and the performance-related exclusion were implemented in one paradigm, which might have influenced emotional and neural responses to the respective other game. However, a pseudo randomization ensured that half of the participants started with the PG and the other half with the FG, which controlled for this influence. Note that fundamental needs as well as specific negative emotions such as anger or disappointment were not assessed in the present study, limiting comparability with previous findings. Further, the inclusion condition during PG cannot be used as a control condition, due to differential behavioral responses and a lack of comparability. However, it served perfectly as an initiator for a more stressful preceding context for the exclusion in the performance game.

Conclusion

The applied modification of the Cyberball paradigm constitutes an improved psychosocial stressor and therefore may be more powerful for the induction of social stress and the examination of related neural responses. Behavioral findings demonstrate that subjectively perceived stress levels can be enhanced by applying social evaluative threat to the established Cyberball paradigm. Stress increased compared to naïve exclusion. Inclusion in the performance condition represents a powerful stressful situation and can hence not serve as an adequate control condition. For a future application of the Cyberball task as stress paradigm, the apposition of public performance evaluation seems to be encouraging and might thwart against the missing hormonal stress reaction on the Cyberball task reported in some studies (Seidel et al. 2013; Zwolinski 2012).

Affective responses to exclusion on a behavioral level as well as corresponding neural responses related to a less positive affect are not influenced by enhancing the stressful experience of exclusion. Underlying neural processes associated to a performance-related exclusion in contrast to naïve exclusion highlight the important role of the salience network as potential initiator for social monitoring, and the mentalizing network in exclusion processing after preceding and persisting stress. The modified Cyberball version therefore is an exemplary model showing that specifically public performance evaluation triggers a high stress response, which has behavioral and neural repercussions on exclusion processing.

Notes

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the State of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW, Germany), the European Union through the ‘NRW Ziel2 Program’ as a part of the European Fund for Regional Development and by the German Research Foundation (DFG, IRTG 1328). The authors thank Andre Schueppen, from the Brain Imaging Facility of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Clinical Research at the RWTH Aachen University and the radiographers Cordula Kemper and Maria Peters, for their assistance with data acquisition. Furthermore, the authors thank Monica Bell and Katharina Görlich for their assistance in editing the manuscript.

Supplementary material

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11682_2016_9561_MOESM2_ESM.docx (13 kb)
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Online Resource 4

Fig. 3 Significant clusters for the contrast of exclusion > inclusion (Ex > IN) are indicated in red (left part) and significant clusters for the contrast of performance context > free game context (PG > FG) are indicated in yellow (right part). A voxel level threshold of p < .05 FWE corrected was used for all clusters. (GIF 38 kb)

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High Resolution Image (TIFF 487 kb)

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Ambiguity aversion in schizophrenia: An fMRI study of decision-making under risk and ambiguity

https://doi-org.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/10.1016/j.schres.2016.09.006Get rights and content
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Abstract

When making decisions in everyday life, we often have to choose between uncertain outcomes. Economic studies have demonstrated that healthy people tend to prefer options with known probabilities (risk) than those with unknown probabilities (ambiguity), which is referred to as “ambiguity aversion.” However, it remains unclear how patients with schizophrenia behave under ambiguity, despite growing evidence of their altered decision-making under uncertainty. In this study, combining economic tools and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we assessed the attitudes toward risk/ambiguity and investigated the neural correlates during decision-making under risk/ambiguity in schizophrenia. Although no significant difference in attitudes under risk was observed, patients with schizophrenia chose ambiguity significantly more often than the healthy controls. Attitudes under risk and ambiguity did not correlate across patients with schizophrenia. Furthermore, unlike in the healthy controls, activation of the left lateral orbitofrontal cortex was not increased during decision-making under ambiguity compared to under risk in schizophrenia. These results suggest that ambiguity aversion, a well-established subjective bias, is attenuated in patients with schizophrenia, highlighting the need to distinguish between risk and ambiguity when assessing decision-making under these situations. Our findings, comprising important clinical implications, contribute to improved understanding of the mechanisms underlying altered decision-making in patients with schizophrenia.

Keywords

Schizophrenia
Decision-making
Functional magnetic resonance imaging
Orbitofrontal cortex
Risk
Ambiguity

1. Introduction

Making decisions under uncertainty is an integral part of everyday life. Recently, altered decision-making under uncertainty has been reported in various psychiatric disorders (Krug et al., 2014, Pushkarskaya et al., 2015), particularly schizophrenia, wherein patients frequently exhibit behavioral symptoms such as financial problems and interpersonal conflicts (Koelkebeck et al., 2010, Kurtz et al., 2009).
In recent years, the fields of behavioral economics and neuroeconomics have been expanding rapidly. In line with their advancements, some efforts using these disciplines have been made to assess behavioral problems observed in psychiatric disorders. Findings from these interdisciplinary studies have begun to lay the groundwork needed to improve the diagnostics and treatments for various psychiatric disorders (Lee, 2013, Sharp et al., 2012, Takahashi, 2013). Decision-making under uncertainty is one of the most studied areas in decision theory (Hasler, 2012). Therefore, applying neuroeconomics tools can help elucidate the mechanisms underlying altered decision-making under uncertainty in schizophrenia.
In economics, researchers distinguish two types of uncertainty: risk and ambiguity (Camerer and Weber, 1992). Under “risk,” the precise probabilities of outcomes can be estimated (e.g., a 50% chance of $10). In contrast, “ambiguity” refers to situations in which the probabilities of outcomes are unknown (e.g., an unknown chance of winning $10).
Although healthy people are averse to both risk and ambiguity, they tend to prefer risk over ambiguity, which is referred to as “ambiguity aversion” (Camerer and Weber, 1992, Ellsberg, 1961). Suppose there are two bowls each filled with a mix of 24 red and blue chips. One bowl has 12 red and 12 blue chips (the risky bowl), but the composition of the other bowl is unknown to the participants (the ambiguous bowl). Participants are asked to select one bowl and told that if a red chip is drawn, they qualify for a predefined payoff. For the risky bowl, the probability of drawing a red chip is 0.5. For the ambiguous bowl, the probability of drawing a red chip is unknown, but the winning probability is also 0.5 (see Supplementary materials for details regarding risk/ambiguity aversion). Nevertheless, most individuals choose the risky bowl, even if its payoff is lower than that of the ambiguous one, and the degree of ambiguity aversion is reportedly linked with various types of behavior, such as self-insurance (Alary et al., 2013) and risk-taking behavior (Tymula et al., 2012).
Several studies have investigated attitudes toward risk in schizophrenia to elucidate altered decision-making under uncertainty in this illness (Cheng et al., 2012, Lee et al., 2007; these studies are described in the Discussion section). However, in real life, the probabilities of outcomes can rarely be estimated (e.g., the likelihood of being complimented by co-workers), and clinical findings show that patients with schizophrenia often feel strong discomfort in such ambiguous situations (Combs et al., 2007). It is known that patients with schizophrenia display a strong desire to obtain a specific answer on a topic, rather than dealing with ambiguity (Couture et al., 2006). Furthermore, previous studies reported that this tendency was improved by social cognitive interventions (Combs et al., 2007). Accordingly, clarifying attitudes under ambiguity is a key to understanding and preventing real-life maladaptive behavior in schizophrenia.
To date, many studies have used the Iowa gambling task (IGT) with the purpose of investigating decision-making under ambiguity in schizophrenia (Bechara et al., 1994, Sevy et al., 2007). However, in the IGT, the probability distribution is not known to the participants at the beginning of the test, and they gradually learn this from feedbacks during the task. Therefore, the IGT is a complex measure with elements of decision-making under both risk and ambiguity, and poor performance in the task partially reflects dysfunctional learning abilities (Buckert et al., 2014). Thus, it remains unclear how attitudes toward ambiguity can be compared between patients with schizophrenia and healthy subjects.
A number of previous studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have compared neural correlates of decision-making under risk and ambiguity among healthy subjects. These studies showed that several brain areas, such as the prefrontal cortex, including orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), insula, and posterior parietal cortex, were more activated during ambiguous decision-making relative to risky decision-making (Bach et al., 2009, Bach et al., 2011, Hsu et al., 2005, Huettel et al., 2006, Levy et al., 2010), suggesting that these areas are crucial for decision-making under ambiguity. However, to the best of our knowledge, no study has directly compared neural correlates of decision-making under risk and those under ambiguity in schizophrenia. Elucidating this issue along with attitudes under risk/ambiguity should help us gain a better understanding of the mechanisms of altered decision-making in schizophrenia.
Here, we modified the fMRI task which clearly distinguished risk and ambiguity containing no feedback learning (Levy et al., 2010). Clinically, patients with schizophrenia often feel strong discomfort in socially ambiguous situations. Accordingly, one may intuitively predict that ambiguity aversion would be increased in schizophrenia. On the contrary, if patients with schizophrenia have difficulty in processing ambiguity, they may exhibit diminished ambiguity aversion together with reduced brain activation in the areas (e.g., OFC, insula, posterior parietal cortex) that have been implicated in decision-making under ambiguity in healthy volunteers.

2. Methods

2.1. Participants

Twenty-one out-patients with schizophrenia, diagnosed based on the patient edition of the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis I Disorders (SCID), participated in this study. None of the patients had current comorbid psychiatric disorders. Thirty-three healthy controls who did not meet the criteria for any psychiatric disorders according to the non-patient edition of SCID were enrolled. The control group was matched with the patient group in terms of age, gender, handedness, current smoking status, education, and predicted intelligence quotient (IQ) levels. Three healthy participants were excluded from the analyses due to the data acquisition problems. Thus, data from 21 patients and 30 controls were analyzed (Table 1). Further details are described in Supplementary Methods.

Table 1. Demographic and clinical characteristics of participants.

Empty CellPatient groupControl groupStatistics
(N = 21)(N = 30)p
Age (years)38.1 (9.5)35.6 (9.1)0.33a
Gender (female)11 (52.4%)12 (40.0%)0.38b
Handedness (right)19 (90.5%)29 (96.7%)0.36b
Smoking (current smoker)8 (38.1%)5 (16.7%)0.08b
Education level
 < 12th year1 (4.8%)0 (0%)
 High school graduate5 (23.8%)4 (13.3%)
 Junior college or special school graduate6 (28.6%)10 (33.3%)
 College or graduate school graduate9 (42.9%)16 (53.3%)0.46b
Predicted IQc102.8 (11.7)105.9 (7.8)0.29a
Age at onset25.1 (7.8)
Duration of illness (years)13.3 (9.1)
PANSSPositive12.1 (4.3)
Negative13.7 (5.0)
General26.1 (7.0)
Drug (mg/day, CP equivalent)d467.5 (353.0)
BACS-Je− 1.4 (1.3)0.0 (1.0)< 0.01a
Standard deviations or percentages in parentheses.
a
Two-sampled t test.
b
Two-tailed chi-square test.
c
Data not available for one healthy control. Predicted premorbid intelligence quotient (IQ) levels were measured using the Japanese Version of the National Adult Reading Test short form (JART) (Matsuoka and Kim, 2006).
d
All patients except for one were receiving antipsychotic medication (typical [N = 2], atypical [N = 16], combined typical and atypical [N = 2]). Chlorpromazine equivalents were calculated according to the practice guidelines for the treatment of patients with schizophrenia (Inada and Inagaki, 2015, Lehman et al., 2004).
e
Data not available for one healthy control and one patient. The composite scores were used for data analyses.
This study was approved by the Committee on Medical Ethics of Kyoto University and conducted in accordance with The Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association. After complete description of the study, written informed consent was obtained from all participants.

2.2. Assessments

To evaluate the severity of clinical symptoms, we applied the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) (Kay et al., 1987). Additionally, the composite score of the Japanese version of the brief assessment of cognition in schizophrenia (BACS-J) (Kaneda et al., 2007, Keefe et al., 2004) was used to assess the participants' cognitive functions. See Supplementary Materials.

2.3. fMRI task

We modified the task used in previous studies (Levy et al., 2010, Tanaka et al., 2015). Participants were told to play a lottery. They were shown two bowls each containing 24 red- and blue-colored chips and were told to choose one of the two bowls. From the chosen bowl, one chip was drawn. In each trial, participants were presented with a reference bowl on the left side, which contained 12 red and 12 blue chips. As for the other bowl, the entire bowl was visible in only half of the trials (risk condition). For the other half of the trials, we used a black occluder to hide the center part of the bowl (ambiguity condition). Participants had the chance of winning the points shown beside the color of the drawn chip and they were instructed to win as many points as possible throughout the task (Fig. 1A). Under risk, six winning probabilities were used in the variable bowl (Fig. 1B), and under ambiguity, three ambiguity levels were used in the variable bowl (Fig. 1C). Five winning amounts (1500, 2000, 3000, 5000, 10,000) were used per risk and ambiguity level. However, the amounts slightly varied (± 100) in each trial to prevent participants from developing automatic responses (Tables S1 and S2). Each trial was presented for 2.4 s, during which participants were required to choose between the reference and variable bowls. No feedback of the outcome was provided after each choice. Please see Supplementary Materials for details.
Fig. 1
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Fig. 1. Experimental design. (A) Examples of the stimuli in the risk and ambiguity conditions. Participants were shown two bowls each containing 24 red- or blue-colored chips. In each trial, participants were presented with a reference bowl, one of the two bowls, on the left side; it contained 12 red and 12 blue chips (same throughout the trial). In the risk condition, the composition of the variable bowl was visible. In the ambiguity condition, part of the variable bowl was hidden by a black occluder. The occluder was always placed over the center of the image. Participants could win the points next to the color of the drawn chip. For instance, as can be seen in panel A, if participants choose the bowl on the left side, they will win 2000 points if a red chip is drawn; however, no points will be won if a blue chip is drawn. If they choose the bowl on the right side, they will win 5100 points if a red chip is drawn; however, no points will be won if a blue chip is drawn. (B) The stimuli of six winning probabilities in the variable bowl under risk are shown. (C) The stimuli of three ambiguity levels in the variable bowl under ambiguity are shown.

2.4. Acquisition and pre-processing of fMRI data

We acquired fMRI images on a 3-Tesla TIM Trio scanner (Siemens, Erlangen, Germany) and pre-processed the images using SPM8 (Wellcome Trust Center for Neuroimaging, London, UK) (see Supplementary materials).

2.5. Statistical analyses

2.5.1. Behavioral data

Please refer to the Supplementary Materials for details. We estimated the participants' attitudes under risk and ambiguity, according to their choice behavior. A higher score is considered to represent a higher aversion tendency, respectively. Additionally, we checked the rate of choosing the inferior option in each participant under risk condition. Correlational analyses were performed between the behavioral data (reaction time, attitudes under risk and ambiguity) and clinical variables (duration of illness, drug, PANSS subscales, and BACS-J scores). Behavioral data were analyzed using SPSS 21 and results were considered statistically significant at p < 0.05 (two-tailed).

2.5.2. fMRI data

In the first-level analyses, the design matrix contained two task-related regressors (risk and ambiguity) as regressors of interest. We used the time point of the button press as onset (duration, 0 s) based on recent fMRI studies of decision-making (e.g., Haller and Schwabe, 2014). In addition to the above-mentioned regressors of interest, we entered winning amount/winning probability under risk and winning amount/ambiguity level under ambiguity as parametric modulators for each condition. Six movement parameters were also entered into the design matrix. Data were high-pass filtered at 128 s. The parameter estimate for each condition (i.e., risk, ambiguity) was contrasted against an implicit baseline, and these contrast images were used for second-level fMRI analyses.
In the second-level analyses, the main effect of condition and the interaction between group and condition were examined using a flexible factorial design (whole-brain analysis). Clusters surviving the family-wise error (FWE) correction for multiple comparisons across the whole brain with a cluster-level p < 0.05 (at voxel-level uncorrected p < 0.005) were reported, except for a priori hypothesized regions that were reported to be crucial in decision-making under risk/ambiguity in healthy subjects [OFC, middle/inferior frontal gyrus, anterior insula, amygdala, striatum, and posterior parietal cortex (derived from Bach et al., 2009, Bach et al., 2011, Hsu et al., 2005, Huettel et al., 2006, Levy et al., 2010)]. For the a priori hypothesized areas, clusters surviving a more lenient statistical threshold (p < 0.005, uncorrected and k = 20) were reported to reduce the risk of false negatives (Lieberman and Cunningham, 2009), based on previous fMRI studies (Kumari et al., 2007, Schirmbeck et al., 2015) using cognitive and perceptual tasks in schizophrenia.
Finally, correlations were calculated between each of the clinical variables (duration of illness, drug, PANSS subscales, and BACS-J scores) and the parameter estimates, which were extracted as the first eigenvariate from the clusters of significant group-by-condition interactions in the patient group.

3. Results

3.1. Behavioral data

Overall, the participants performed the task well and only missed an average of 1.1 ± 1.4 (S.D.) trials. Concerning the reaction time, there was a significant main effect of condition (F1, 49 = 38.78, p < 0.01), with the response time under ambiguity being longer than that under risk, but neither the main effect of group nor interaction between group and condition was significant (Table S3).
Fig. 2A and B depict the rates of choosing the variable bowl across the winning amount under risk and ambiguity. Under both conditions, there were significant main effects of the winning amount, but no interaction was observed between the group and condition. However, under only ambiguity, the main effect of the group was significant, i.e., the patient group chose the ambiguous bowl more frequently than the control group. The 2 (group) × 6 (winning probability) mixed ANOVA (Fig. 2C) showed that there was a significant main effect of winning probability, but no main effect of group or interaction between group and winning probability was observed. On the other hand, there were significant main effects of ambiguity level and group, but no interaction was observed between group and ambiguity level (Fig. 2D). See Table S4 for details.
Fig. 2
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Fig. 2. The rates of choosing the variable bowl are shown. (A) Winning amount and rate of choosing the variable bowl under risk, (B) winning amount and rate of choosing the variable bowl under ambiguity, (C) winning probability and rate of choosing the variable bowl under risk, (D) ambiguity level and rate of choosing the variable bowl under ambiguity. Group means are indicated by horizontal lines.

Fig. 3A and Table S5 show attitudes under risk and ambiguity in each group. There was no difference in attitudes under risk between the groups, but those under ambiguity were significantly lower in the schizophrenia group [one healthy control and three patients showed relatively high rates of choosing the inferior option (≥ 20%) under risk, but the results were unchanged when reanalyzing the data excluding these participants (see Tables S6 and S7)]. Correlation analyses showed that attitudes under ambiguity were significantly correlated with those under risk (r = 0.74, p < 0.01) in the control group, but not in the schizophrenia group (r = − 0.17, p = 0.45) [the slope of linear regression was higher in the control group than in the patient group (p < 0.01), Fig. 3B]. The negative symptoms and general psychopathology of PANSS subscales were positively correlated with attitudes under risk (r = 0.50, p = 0.022 and r = 0.53, p = 0.014, respectively). However, we did not find any significant correlations between the clinical variables and the behavioral data of decision-making under ambiguity (Table S8).
Fig. 3
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Fig. 3. Attitudes under risk and ambiguity. (A) There was no difference in attitudes under risk between the groups, but those under ambiguity were significantly lower in the patient group than in the control group. Group means are indicated by horizontal lines. **p < 0.01. (B) Plots and regression lines of correlation between attitudes under risk and ambiguity in the control group and in the patient group. *overlapping data points.

3.2. fMRI data

The results of the main effect of condition showed that several areas such as the prefrontal areas, including the middle frontal gyrus and OFC, and the posterior parietal cortex were more activated during ambiguous decision-making [Fig. 4A and Table 2; all clusters surviving the threshold of p < 0.005, uncorrected, k = 20 are listed in Table S9]. The group-by-condition interaction revealed significant differences between groups in the left lateral OFC, where healthy controls showed increased activation during decision-making under ambiguity compared to under risk, which was not evident in the schizophrenia group (Fig. 4B and Table 3; no clusters were observed outside a priori hypothesized regions with the threshold of p < 0.005, uncorrected, k = 20). There was no significant correlation between the neural activation (difference between ambiguity and risk) in the left OFC and the clinical variables in schizophrenia (all, p > 0.17).
Fig. 4
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Fig. 4. Results of fMRI. (A) The results of the main effect of condition showed that several areas such as the prefrontal areas, including MFG/OFC, and the posterior parietal cortex, were more activated during decision-making under ambiguity than under risk. For display purpose, the threshold is set at p < 0.005, uncorrected, and k = 20 voxels. (B) The group-by-condition interaction revealed significant differences between groups in the left lateral OFC at the threshold p < 0.005, uncorrected, and k = 20 voxels. The parameter estimates of the left OFC are shown. Group means are indicated by horizontal lines. Abbreviations: IFG = inferior frontal gyrus, L = left, MFG = middle frontal gyrus, OFC = orbitofrontal cortex, R = right.

Table 2. fMRI results (main effect of the condition).

Brain regionHCluster (voxels)TCoordinates (x, y, z)
Ambiguity > risk
Precuneus, inferior parietal lobule, superior parietal lobule, supramarginal gyrus, angular gyrus, middle temporal gyrus, occipital lobeL/R6518⁎5.6734, − 58, 40; 22, − 68, 50; 28, − 72, 44
IFG/MFG/SFGR1506⁎4.7034, 4, 66; 32, 14, 64; 46, 22, 40
MFG/SFGL313†4.20− 30, 12, 64; − 22, 6, 46
IFGR107†3.2544, 6, 20; 36, 2, 24
IFG/MFGL75†3.12− 44, 22, 32
OFC/MFGL45†3.10− 28, 50, 4

Risk > ambiguity
None
T-values are provided for the local voxel maximum of the respective cluster.
Three local maxima > 8.0 mm apart are reported.
N (21 patients, 30 controls).
The coordinates are in the MNI space.
We interpreted the anatomical location of the clusters by consulting the Talairach Daemon database (http://www.talairach.org), the Anatomic Automatic Labeling toolbox, (Tzourio-Mazoyer et al., 2002) and neuroanatomy atlas textbooks (Talairach and Tournoux, 1988, Duvernoy, 1991).
Abbreviations: FWE = family-wise error, H = hemisphere, IFG = inferior frontal gyrus, L = left, MFG = middle frontal gyrus, MNI = Montreal Neurological Institute, OFC = orbitofrontal cortex, SFG = superior frontal gyrus, R = right.
⁎
p < 0.05, cluster-level FWE corrected (at voxel-level uncorrected p < 0.005).
†
p < 0.005, uncorrected, k = 20 (a priori hypothesized regions).

Table 3. fMRI results (interaction effect of the group-by-condition).

Brain regionHCluster (voxels)FCoordinates (x, y, z)
OFCL26†11.63− 38, 52, − 2
F-value is provided for the local voxel maximum of the cluster.
N (21 patients and 30 controls).
The coordinates are in the MNI space.
Abbreviations: H = hemisphere, L = left, OFC = orbitofrontal cortex.
†
p < 0.005, uncorrected, k = 20 (a priori hypothesized regions).

4. Discussion

We found that ambiguity aversion was attenuated in schizophrenia. Furthermore, the left lateral OFC activation, which was seen in healthy controls, was not increased during decision-making under ambiguity compared to under risk in the schizophrenia group. These findings add to our understanding of the mechanisms underlying altered decision-making in schizophrenia.
The healthy controls in our research exhibited typical ambiguity aversion (see Supplementary Materials). There was no difference in attitudes under risk between the groups, but those under ambiguity were significantly lower in the schizophrenia group. The results suggest that ambiguity aversion is attenuated in schizophrenia. Although ambiguity aversion is not economically rational, it is a well-established pattern of choice behavior in healthy individuals. Furthermore, decreased ambiguity aversion is reported to be associated with risk-taking behavior in adolescents (Tymula et al., 2012). Therefore, decreased ambiguity aversion may cause risk-related behaviors (e.g., low self-protection, gambling, and substance abuse) in patients with schizophrenia.
Notably, the slope of linear regression between attitudes under risk and ambiguity was lower in the patient group compared with the control group, suggesting that attitudes under risk and ambiguity are markedly distinct phenomena in schizophrenia. Previous studies using IGT have yielded inconsistent results concerning the altered decision-making under uncertainty in schizophrenia; some studies reported poor performance of IGT in schizophrenia, but other studies did not (Sevy et al., 2007). The dissociation between attitudes under risk and ambiguity revealed in our study along with the mixed results of previous IGT studies emphasized the necessity of establishing the distinction between risk and ambiguity.
As for the fMRI results, within the whole sample, we found that areas including the prefrontal cortex and posterior parietal cortex were significantly activated during decision-making under ambiguity compared with decision-making under risk. These results are consistent with previous studies (Bach et al., 2009, Bach et al., 2011, Hsu et al., 2005, Huettel et al., 2006, Levy et al., 2010).
Intriguingly, the group-by-condition interaction revealed significant differences between the groups in the left lateral OFC. Within the left lateral OFC, healthy controls showed increased activation during decision-making under ambiguity compared to under risk, which was not seen in the schizophrenia group. The OFC, which has repeatedly been reported to be dysfunctional in patients with schizophrenia (DeLisi et al., 2006, Eack et al., 2013, Kanahara et al., 2013), plays crucial roles in complex decision-making processes (Waltz and Gold, 2007). In a previous study using a similar task to ours, higher mean activation in the lateral OFC for choice under ambiguity compared with choice under risk was also observed, and the authors proposed that this area may have a role in distinguishing between risk and ambiguity (Levy et al., 2010). Furthermore, another study reported that the level of ambiguity aversion among participants was positively correlated with the difference between its activity in the OFC under ambiguity and that under risk (Hsu et al., 2005). It also showed that patients with OFC lesions did not exhibit ambiguity aversion. Overall, a reduction in the level of ambiguity aversion could be at least partially attributed to dysfunction of the OFC in patients with schizophrenia.
The current severity of negative symptoms and the general psychopathology were positively correlated with attitudes under risk. However, we found no significant correlations between clinical variables and the experimental data of decision-making under ambiguity. These results suggest that the current psychopathology may affect the level of risk-aversion tendency; however, altered ambiguity attitudes may be trait characteristics of patients with schizophrenia. Previous studies investigated risk attitudes in schizophrenia. Some studies showed significant differences in selecting risky choices between schizophrenia patients and healthy subjects (Cheng et al., 2012), whereas others did not (Lee et al., 2007). This discrepancy may partly be due to the symptom severity of the patients.
There are several limitations to this study. First, most participating patients had relatively mild and stable symptoms, and the variation in symptom severity may have been too small to detect possible relationships. Second, because all patients but one received antipsychotics, we could not exclude the effects of medication. Previous studies showed the confounding effects of antipsychotics in IGT performance in schizophrenia (Yip et al., 2009). On the other hand, a number of studies showed no significant association between the level of antipsychotic medications and poor performance in decision-making tasks under uncertainty (Fond et al., 2013). Therefore, we consider that our findings will be useful for obtaining a better understanding of decision-making under uncertainty in schizophrenia. Third, because the current study also investigated in a clinical population, our task included a relatively small number of trials compared with previous studies on healthy subjects (Levy et al., 2010, Huettel et al., 2006). This made it difficult to obtain a more precise characterization of risk/ambiguity attitudes like these previous studies. Thus, our findings should be interpreted as preliminary, and we hope that our study will provide impetus to large-scale, future sophisticated research including non-medicated patients. In addition, previous studies have shown that individuals reacted to a particular choice in a different manner when presented as a gain or as a loss (De Martino et al., 2006), whereas we only framed choices as gains. A task that frames choices in terms of both gains and losses would lead to a better understanding of ambiguity attitudes in schizophrenia.
In conclusion, our findings suggest that ambiguity aversion is attenuated in patients with schizophrenia, highlighting the need to distinguish between risk and ambiguity when assessing decision-making in these situations. Ambiguity is highly prevalent in everyday situations. Consequently, attenuated ambiguity aversion could be expected to substantially influence multiple areas of life. Future research should address the relationship between ambiguity aversion and real-life maladaptive behavior (e.g., risk-related behavior) in schizophrenia. Applying neuroeconomic tools can help elucidate the mechanisms underlying altered decision-making under uncertainty in neuropsychiatric disorders, which may, in turn, point to possible targets of therapeutic interventions to improve their quality of everyday life.

Conflict of interest

All authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Contributors

Junya Fujino, Kimito Hirose, Shisei Tei, Ryosaku Kawada, Yujiro Yoshihara, Toshiya Murai and Hidehiko Takahashi designed the study and wrote the protocol. Junya Fujino managed the literature searches and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. Junya Fujino performed data processing and statistical analyses under technical supervision by Jun Miyata, Genichi Sugihara and Hidehiko Takahashi. Takashi Ideno and Kazuhisa Takemura contributed new analytic tools. Kosuke Tsurumi, Noriko Matsukawa, Toshihiko Aso, Hidenao Fukuyama, Toshiya Murai and Hidehiko Takahashi helped with interpretation of data. All authors contributed to and have approved the final manuscript.

Role of the funding source

This work was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (Young Scientists A 23680045, Scientific Research A 24243061, 15H01690, B 15H04893, C 26461767, and S 22220003) and Grant-in-Aid for challenging Exploratory Research (16K13106); the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan (MEXT) (on innovative areas 23118004, 23120009, 16H06572, 16H01504); the Uehara Memorial Foundation; the Smoking Research Foundation; the Takeda Science Foundation; Kobayashi Magobei Memorial Foundation; Japan Foundation for Aging and Health; and a Japan-US Brain Research Cooperation Program grant. A part of this study is the result of Development of BMI Technologies for Clinical Application carried out under the Strategic Research Program for Brain Sciences by MEXT and “Research and development of technology for enhancing functional recovery of elderly and disabled people based on non-invasive brain imaging and robotic assistive devices”, the Commissioned Research of National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Japan. These agencies had no further role in the study design, the collection, analysis and interpretation of data, the writing of the report, or in the decision to submit the article for publication.

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to extend their gratitude to the research team of the Department of Psychiatry at Kyoto University for their assistance in data acquisition.

Appendix A. Supplementary data

References

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