The Role of the Thalamus in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has a high lifetime prevalence and is one of the more serious challenges in mental health care. Fear-conditioned learning involving the amygdala has been thought to be one of the main causative factors; however, recent studies have reported abnormalities in the thalamus of PTSD patients, which may explain the mechanism of interventions such as eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR). Therefore, I conducted a miniature literature review on the potential contribution of the thalamus to the pathogenesis of PTSD and the validation of therapeutic approaches. As a result, we noticed the importance of the retinotectal pathway (superior colliculus−pulvinar−amygdala connection) and discussed therapeutic indicators.     

Neuroscience and architecture: What does the brain tell to an emotional experience of architecture via a functional MR study?

Environment psychologically affects individuals. According to the base of cognitive psychology, there is a direct relationship between human behavior, environment, and emotional process. Assuming that pleasantness and unpleasantness are associated with peripheral nervous system activation, the current study aims to explore if the pleasant or unpleasant architectural places can stimulate the brain regions engaged in emotions or not. As the main contribution, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) measuring blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) changes to effectively detect the brain's region that mainly responds to the emotional-perceptual processes. Based on the results of examining the emotional assessment model of “Pleasure-Arousal” applied to 140 students, 30 most-rated images representing 15 pleasant and 15 unpleasant places were shown to 32 participants in a 1.5-T MRI scanner. After applying standard preprocessing steps (re-alignment, slice-timing, co-registration, segmentation, normalization, and smoothing) to functional MR images, first-level analysis was applied to each subject. The results were evaluated using statistical corrections at different levels for female and male participants with the second-level analysis. In conclusion, it has been shown that there is a significant linkage between environmental experience and brain activation so that the architectural qualities can change blood flow in specific brain regions.     

Neural correlates of attitudes and risk perception for food technology topics

Food technologies provide numerous benefits to society and are extensively vetted for safety. However, many technological innovations still face high levels of skepticism from consumers. To promote development and use of food technologies, it is critical to understand the psychological and neurobiological processes associated with consumer acceptability concerns. The current study uses a neuroscience-based approach to understand consumer attitudes and perceptions of risk associated with food technologies and investigate how such attitudes impact consumer’s processing of information related to food technologies. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure brain activation while participants processed infographics related to food technology topics. For technology topics perceived as riskier (antibiotics and hormones), activation was higher in areas of the lateral prefrontal cortex that are associated with decisional uncertainty. In contrast, technology topics that were viewed more favorably (sustainability and animal welfare) tended to activate the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, a region that processes positive affect and subjective value. Moreover, for information about hormones, the lateral PFC activation was associated with individual differences in resistance to change in risk perception. These results reveal how attitudes and risk perception relate to how the brain processes information about food technologies and how people respond to information about such technologies.     

Small-world brain functional network altered by watching 2D/3DTV

With the development of display technology, the healthy problems caused by watching 2D/3DTV have received more and more attention. This paper utilized resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging to study the changes of small-world brain network before and after one-hour 2D/3DTV watching, and explored the brain fatigue mechanism caused by watching 2D/3DTV. We conclude that one-hour watching of 2DTV will not increase the burden of brain. On the contrary, one-hour watching of 3DTV requires the brain to regulate the efficiency of brain areas, such as temporal lobe and occipital lobe, which may explain the fact that watching 3DTV can easier cause brain fatigue than watching 2DTV.     

Using Bold-fMRI to detect cortical areas and visual fatigue related to stereoscopic vision

PurposeThe location of cortical areas and visual fatigue related to stereoscopic vision were explored by two types of fMRI designs, namely block stimulation and event-related stimulation. The stimulations consist of 2D/3D images and different depths of the stereoscopic 3D images.Method20 normal subjects were randomly divided into the block group and the event-related group. Blood oxygenation level-dependent functional magnetic resonance imaging (Bold-fMRI) was performed in two groups. Functional data was preprocessed and statistically analyzed by SPM8. The result was reported by REST.ResultIn the block stimulation group, compared to 2D image stimulation, 3D image stimulation results in more activated brain areas, including frontal lobes, occipital lobes and limbic lobes, especially in the frontal eye field (Brodmann Area 8, BA8) and middle occipital gyrus (BA18/19). In the event-related group, compared to 2D images, viewing 3D images causes significant activations in temporal lobe, mainly represented in BA19/13/31/37. Additionally, 3D image stimulation with the focus set at front depth can lead to the activation of more brain areas compared to the back depth, including inferior parietal lobule and posterior central gyrus.ConclusionThe formation of the stereoscopic vision requires the collaboration of more brain areas, so that viewing stereoscopic videos for a long period may result in visual fatigue; meanwhile, the front depth of field can contribute to more activated brain areas than the back depth of field. As a parameter of stereoscopic images, it is valid to state that the depth of field may affect visual fatigue.     

Comparing the neural basis of decision making in social dilemmas of people with different social value orientations, a fMRI study.

Using functional MRI, we investigate the neural correlates of intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation to cooperate by comparing people who differ in the personality trait Social Value Orientation. Participants (n = 28) played several one-shot prisoner's dilemma games (offering weak cooperative incentives) and coordination games (offering strong cooperative incentives) with anonymous partners while they were under the scanner. Behavioral results indicate that proself individuals adjust their behavior toward more cooperation when extrinsic incentives were present, while prosocials' decisions are not affected by game context. The neurological data is consistent with a priori developed hypotheses regarding different behavioral strategies, and suggest that extrinsically motivated proself strategies are driven by calculation and a situation-by-situation approach. Increased activation was found in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, posterior superior temporal sulcus (STS), and precuneus. Intrinsically motivated prosocials' strategies reflect norm compliance, routine moral judgment, and social awareness. Increased activation was found in lateral orbitofrontal cortex, anterior STS, and inferior parietal lobule. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Functional imaging of emotion reactivity in opiate-dependent borderline personality disorder.

Opiate dependence (OD) and borderline personality disorder (BPD), separately and together, are significant public health problems with poor treatment outcomes. BPD is associated with difficulties in emotion regulation, and brain-imaging studies in BPD individuals indicate differential activation in prefrontal cingulate cortices and their interactions with limbic regions. Likewise, a similar network is implicated in drug cue responsivity in substance abusers. The present, preliminary study used functional MRI to examine activation of this network in comorbid OD/BPD participants when engaged in an “oddball” task that required attention to a target in the context of emotionally negative distractors. Twelve male OD/BPD participants and 12 male healthy controls participated. All OD/BPD participants were taking the opiate replacement medication Suboxone, and a subset of participants was positive for substances of abuse on scan day. Relative to controls, OD/BPD participants demonstrated reduced activation to negative stimuli in the amygdala and anterior cingulate. Unlike previous studies that demonstrated hyperresponsivity in neural regions associated with affective processing in individuals with BPD versus healthy controls, comorbid OD/BPD participants were hyporesponsive to emotional cues. Future studies that also include BPD-only and OD-only groups are necessary to help clarify the individual and potentially synergistic effects of these two conditions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Exercise improves executive function and achievement and alters brain activation in overweight children: A randomized, controlled trial.

Objective: This experiment tested the hypothesis that exercise would improve executive function. Design: Sedentary, overweight 7- to 11-year-old children (N = 171, 56% girls, 61% Black, M ± SD age = 9.3 ± 1.0 years, body mass index [BMI] = 26 ± 4.6 kg/m2, BMI z-score = 2.1 ± 0.4) were randomized to 13 ± 1.6 weeks of an exercise program (20 or 40 min/day), or a control condition. Main Outcome Measures: Blinded, standardized psychological evaluations (Cognitive Assessment System and Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Achievement III) assessed cognition and academic achievement. Functional MRI measured brain activity during executive function tasks. Results: Intent to treat analysis revealed dose-response benefits of exercise on executive function and mathematics achievement. Preliminary evidence of increased bilateral prefrontal cortex activity and reduced bilateral posterior parietal cortex activity attributable to exercise was also observed. Conclusion: Consistent with results obtained in older adults, a specific improvement on executive function and brain activation changes attributable to exercise were observed. The cognitive and achievement results add evidence of dose-response and extend experimental evidence into childhood. This study provides information on an educational outcome. Besides its importance for maintaining weight and reducing health risks during a childhood obesity epidemic, physical activity may prove to be a simple, important method of enhancing aspects of children's mental functioning that are central to cognitive development. This information may persuade educators to implement vigorous physical activity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Neural basis for recognition confidence in younger and older adults.

Although several studies have examined the neural basis for age-related changes in objective memory performance, less is known about how the process of memory monitoring changes with aging. The authors used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine retrospective confidence in memory performance in aging. During low confidence, both younger and older adults showed behavioral evidence that they were guessing during recognition and that they were aware they were guessing when making confidence judgments. Similarly, both younger and older adults showed increased neural activity during low- compared to high-confidence responses in the lateral prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, and left intraparietal sulcus. In contrast, older adults showed more high-confidence errors than younger adults. Younger adults showed greater activity for high compared to low confidence in medial temporal lobe structures, but older adults did not show this pattern. Taken together, these findings may suggest that impairments in the confidence–accuracy relationship for memory in older adults, which are often driven by high-confidence errors, may be primarily related to altered neural signals associated with greater activity for high-confidence responses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Minding one's emotions: Mindfulness training alters the neural expression of sadness": Correction to Farb et al (2010).

Reports an error in "Minding one’s emotions: Mindfulness training alters the neural expression of sadness" by Norman A. S. Farb, Adam K. Anderson, Helen Mayberg, Jim Bean, Deborah McKeon and Zindel V. Segal (Emotion, 2010[Feb], Vol 10[1], 25-33). The DOI printed in the article was incorrect. The correct DOI is presented in the erratum. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2010-01983-008.) Recovery from emotional challenge and increased tolerance of negative affect are both hallmarks of mental health. Mindfulness training (MT) has been shown to facilitate these outcomes, yet little is known about its mechanisms of action. The present study employed functional MRI (fMRI) to compare neural reactivity to sadness provocation in participants completing 8 weeks of MT and wait-listed controls. Sadness resulted in widespread recruitment of regions associated with self-referential processes along the cortical midline. Despite equivalent self-reported sadness, MT participants demonstrated a distinct neural response, with greater right-lateralized recruitment, including visceral and somatosensory areas associated with body sensation. The greater somatic recruitment observed in the MT group during evoked sadness was associated with decreased depression scores. Restoring balance between affective and sensory neural networks—supporting conceptual and body based representations of emotion—could be one path through which mindfulness reduces vulnerability to dysphoric reactivity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)