Matthew Dylan Lieberman - US grants

Three studies will use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to assess the neuroanatomical circuitry involved in three social cognitive domains. In one study, the neuroanatomical of schematic social information will be examined. In a second study, the neuroanatomical differences associated with high-level abstract understanding versus low-level concrete understanding of events derived from action identification theory will be investigated. The third study will focus on the neuroanatomical correlates of outcome framing in terms of gains versus losses. This is a small grant for exploratory research aimed at establishing the utility of a cognitive neuroscience analysis of social cognitive phenomena.

The first Conference on Social Cognitive Neuroscience will be held on the UCLA campus in April 2001. This conference will highlight the new but fast growing field of Social Cognitive Neuroscience. Symposia will focus on Social Relations and Theory of Mind, Emotion, Control and Automaticity, Attitudes and Attitude Change, and Stereotyping and Social Perception. Each symposium will consist of research reports using neuroimaging, neuropsychological, or computational modeling methodologies. Additional panel discussions will allow cognitive neuroscientists and social scientists to discuss ways in which important questions from the social sciences can be tested using the methods of cognitive neuroscience. There will also infrastructure talks focusing on developing coherent training programs in social cognitive neuroscience and securing funding for this sort of interdisciplinary research. There will also be a poster session to allow for rapid transmission of other research findings. Informal sessions will allow additional opportunities for researchers to become acquainted and to share their latest research results. The conference will help to inform the new emphasis at NSF on cognitive neuroscience (NSF 01-041).

[unreadable] DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Personality theories have long tried to use self-report scales, designed to index hypothesized individual differences in neural reactivity, in order to predict cognition, behavior, and affect. With the advent of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) it is now possible to quantify these differences much more directly than we have been previously able with personality scales. We provide evidence from psychiatric disorders, neurophysiology, and computational neuroscience that together suggest the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) may play an important role in neuroticism and the social cognitive outcomes conceptually associated with neuroticism. Using a social cognitive neuroscience approach (Lieberman, 2000; Ochsner & Lieberman, 2001), we propose to look at the ways in which individual differences in ACC reactivity shape social cognition and how social factors, in turn, can shape ACC reactivity. We hypothesize that individuals with highly reactive ACC's will engage in more self-focused processing, social comparison, and self-doubt which together should lead to lower self-perceived status. Additionally, we hypothesize that social threat increases ACC reactivity while positive social contact decreases ACC reactivity. Finally, we predict that the effect of these social factors on ACC reactivity will be greater for individuals with highly reactive ACC's, compared to those with less reactive ACC's. We propose to test these hypotheses across four experiments combining fMRI and social psychological methodologies to assess: (1) the relation of dispositional ACC reactivity to self-awareness of arousal, (2) the relation of dispositional ACC reactivity to frequency of self-awareness, social comparison, and self-doubt in a daily diary study, (3) the effect of social threat on ACC reactivity, and (4) the effect of positive social contact on ACC reactivity to painful stimulation.

neurosis; cognition; neuroanatomy; biomedical resource; clinical research;

This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. Research consistently shows that stress negatively affects both mental and physical health. Yet models of stress have thus far not investigated the individual differences in neurocognitive processes that translate perceptions of threat into psychological, physiological, neuroendocrine, and immunological stress responses. That is, no studies to date have examined the complete relationship between the brain's response to threat and the ensuing biological and psychological stress responses, and how these pathways are moderated by key individual differences related to stress reactivity and coping. We hypothesize that the anterior cingulated cortex (ACC) and the amygdala are critically involved in these pathways and that the prefrontal cortex (PFC) regulates the reactivity of this pathway. We will test these relations in the proposed project. In a parent project (MH506880), participants complete individual difference measures of neuroticism, self-esteem, and optimism and participate in a laboratory stress challenge (the TSST), during which autonomic responses, cortisol, and pro-inflammatory cytokines are assessed at baseline, following the stress challenge, and following a recovery period. The current proposal seeks to add a neuroimaging component to this project. We will select a sample of 30 participants from the parent project to complete tasks previously demonstrated to evoke ACC (Cyberball and Go-NoGo tasks) and amygdala (Threat Perception task) activity;as well as PFC activity involved in negative emotion regulation (Cyberball task). We will use these measures to assess whether the magnitude of the ACC, amygdala, and PFC responses is related to individual differences in neuroticism, optimism, and self-esteem and to autonomic, neuroendocrine, and immunologic stress reactivity. We test the predictions that neuroticism will be negatively associated with PFC activity and positively associated with ACC, amygdala, and stress reactivity whereas self-esteem and optimism will show the opposite pattern, correlating positively with PFC activity and negatively with ACC, amygdala, and stress reactivity. Evidence in support of these novel hypotheses will greatly enhance understanding of stress processes and will provide the first investigation in humans of the role of neural mechanisms in mediating the pathway from environmental threat to biological stress reactivity. As such, the proposed work integrates research from health psychology, psychoneuroimmunology, and social neuroscience. Supportive evidence will flesh out the neural mechanisms through which individual differences affect biological responses to stress and elucidate the risk factors for stress- related mental and physical health problems.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The notion that putting feelings into words has mental and physical health benefits is hardly new. When individuals experience chronic or acute distress, the act of seeing a therapist, talking with supportive others, or writing in a journal can each have substantial psychological benefits. Two decades of social and clinical psychological research on expressive writing1,2 have empirically documented that a small number of brief expressive writing sessions, focused on the source of one's distress can produce demonstrable mental and physical health benefits over the course of several months. Although a number of mechanisms have been proposed over the years, none have garnered widespread support. The current proposal suggests that putting feelings into words ("affect labeling") is a form of unintentional emotion regulation that serves to diminish distress by dampening limbic responses and the physiological correlates that typically parallel limbic activity. Affect labeling is associated with increased activity in right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (RVLPFC), diminished amygdala activity, and diminished self-reported distress, similar to the pattern of effects observed during intentional emotion regulation. Additionally, it is proposed that intentional and unintentional emotion regulation both rely on a more general inhibitory control mechanism associated with RVLPFC. Thus, we will also examine whether common patterns of brain activation are associated with the performance of intentional and unintentional emotion regulation, as well as two other inhibitory control tasks from other domains (motor, social cognitive). Finally, neural responses on these tasks as well as results from an expressive writing procedure will be related to clinically-relevant individual difference variables (i.e., genes, personality, social history). All participants will participate in fMRI scans while performing the Affect Labeling &Emotion Regulation Task (ALERT), which assesses both intentional emotion regulation (using reappraisal) and unintentional emotion regulation (using affect labeling), as well as a motor inhibition task (i.e., go/no-go) and a social cognitive inhibition task (i.e., suppressing one's own perspective to appreciate another's differing perspective). Subsequently, participants will come in for four expressive writing sessions (or a control task in the control sample) and be assessed at 3 month follow-up for mental and physical health benefits. Putting feelings into words has demonstrated mental health benefits, yet the mechanism by which these benefits occur is poorly understood. The proposed research will be the first research to examine the neural bases of the benefits of expressive writing. This project will also examine whether inhibitory control in social, emotion, and motor domains rely on a common neurocognitive mechanism and whether individual differences in this mechanism relate to clinically-relevant variables (personality, social history, genes).