Mean diffusivity related to collectivism among university students in Japan

Collectivism is an important factor for coping with stress in one’s social life. To date, no imaging studies have revealed a direct association between collectivism and white matter structure. Collectivism is positively related to independence, harm avoidance, rejection sensitivity, cooperativeness, external locus of control, and self-monitoring and negatively related to need for uniqueness. Accordingly, we hypothesised that the neural structures underpinning collectivism are those that are also involved with its relationship using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). This study aimed to identify the brain structures associated with collectivism in healthy young adults (n = 797), using regional grey and white matter volume, fractional anisotropy, and mean diffusivity (MD) analyses of MRI data. Scores on the collectivism scale were positively associated with MD values in the bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, left orbitofrontal cortex, inferior frontal gyrus, right superior temporal gyrus, ventral posterior cingulate cortex, globus pallidus, and calcarine cortex using the threshold-free cluster enhancement method with family-wise errors corrected to P < 0.05 at the whole-brain level. No significant associations between were found collectivism and other measures. Thus, the present findings supported our hypothesis that the neural correlates of collectivism are situated in regions involved in its related factors

Brain structure links trait creativity to openness to experience

Creativity is crucial to the progression of human civilization and has led to important scientific discoveries. Especially, individuals are more likely to have scientific discoveries if they possess certain personality traits of creativity (trait creativity), including imagination, curiosity, challenge and risk-taking. This study used voxel-based morphometry to identify the brain regions underlying individual differences in trait creativity, as measured by the Williams creativity aptitude test, in a large sample (n = 246). We found that creative individuals had higher gray matter volume in the right posterior middle temporal gyrus (pMTG), which might be related to semantic processing during novelty seeking (e.g. novel association, conceptual integration and metaphor understanding). More importantly, although basic personality factors such as openness to experience, extroversion, conscientiousness and agreeableness (as measured by the NEO Personality Inventory) all contributed to trait creativity, only openness to experience mediated the association between the right pMTG volume and trait creativity. Taken together, our results suggest that the basic personality trait of openness might play an important role in shaping an individual’s trait creativity

Global associations between regional gray matter volume and diverse complex cognitive functions: evidence from a large sample study

Correlations between regional gray matter volume (rGMV) and psychometric test scores have been measured to investigate the neural bases for individual differences in complex cognitive abilities (CCAs). However, such studies have yielded different rGMV correlates of the same CCA. Based on the available evidence, we hypothesized that diverse CCAs are all positively but only weakly associated with rGMV in widespread brain areas. To test this hypothesis, we used the data from a large sample of healthy young adults [776 males and 560 females; mean age: 20.8 years, standard deviation (SD) = 0.8] and investigated associations between rGMV and scores on multiple CCA tasks (including non-verbal reasoning, verbal working memory, Stroop interference, and complex processing speed tasks involving spatial cognition and reasoning). Better performance scores on all tasks except non-verbal reasoning were associated with greater rGMV across widespread brain areas. The effect sizes of individual associations were generally low, consistent with our previous studies. The lack of strong correlations between rGMV and specific CCAs, combined with stringent corrections for multiple comparisons, may lead to different and diverse findings in the field

Association of iron levels in hair with brain structures and functions in young adults

Background: Iron plays a critical role in normal brain functions and development, but it has also been known to have adverse neurological effects. Methods: Here, we investigated the associations of iron levels in hair with regional gray matter volume (rGMV), regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF), fractional anisotropy (FA), mean diffusivity (MD), and cognitive differences in a study cohort of 590 healthy young adults. Results: Our findings showed that high iron levels were associated with lower rGMV in areas including the hippocampus, lower rCBF in the anterior and posterior parts of the brain, greater FA in areas including the part of the splenium of the corpus callosum, lower MD in the overlapping area including the splenium of the corpus callosum, as well as greater MD in the left hippocampus and areas including the frontal lobe. Conclusion: These results are compatible with the notion that iron plays diverse roles in neural mechanisms in healthy young adults

Morphological Differences in Adolescent Female to Male Transsexuals before Cross-Hormone Treatment

Early-onset gender identity disorder (EO-GID) describes a strong and persistent development of cross-gender identification. Using structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI) and blood samples, we studied 13 female to male patients with EO-GID and compared them to 11 biological female controls. We found that the EO-GID group in comparison to its control group showed several significant differences in regional brain volumes. These include an increase in cerebral gray matter and a decrease in volume of cerebellar white matter in the mid anterior and posterior part of the corpus callosum. Furthermore, we showed statistically significant relationships between hormone levels and regional brain volume. These include relationships between the free thyroid hormone thyroxine (T4) and volumes of the frontal lobe, the temporal lobe and cerebral white matter; between sex-hormone binding globulin (SHGB) and the frontal lobe; as well as between thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) and cerebral gray matter. The results of regression analyses indicate that brain volume (outcome variables) decreases with the lower thyroid hormone levels (predictor variables). We propose that abnormal hormonal development of thyroid hormones influences white matter volume in our EO-GID group. Such an abnormal development further might affect both structural and functional properties of the brain

Gestão do conhecimento, reconhecimento organizacional da singularidade contributiva e capital psicológico

Este estudo aborda os efeitos da Gestão do Conhecimento (GC) e do Reconhecimento Organizacional da Singularidade Contributiva (ROSC) no PsyCap. Foi recolhida uma amostra de 1117 trabalhadores portugueses e foram distribuídos três instrumentos: (1) questionário de GC – versão reduzida; (2) questionário de ROSC e, (3) questionário de PsyCap. Recorreu-se a uma regressão linear múltipla univariada para estudar os efeitos das variáveis independentes sobre o Capital Psicológico. Os resultados revelam que a GC explica 23% da variância do PsyCap e o ROSC 29%. Se forem tidas em conta as duas variáveis independentes em simultâneo, o modelo de previsão do PsyCap explica 34% da sua variância. Este estudo abre, assim, novos caminhos para a compreensão do Capital Psicológico e da importância das práticas de gestão de pessoas nos estados psicológicos, contribuindo com novo conhecimento empírico capaz de melhorar os resultados organizacionais bem como a qualidade de vida dos trabalhadores; Knowledge management, Organizational Recognition of contributive Uniqueness and Psychological Capital Abstract: In this study it is proposed that Knowledge Management (KM) and Organizational Recognition of Contributive Uniqueness (ORCU) are important predictors of Psychological Capital. We collected a sample of 1117 portuguese workers and delivered three instruments: (1) KM questionnaire- reduced version; (2) ORCU questionnaire and, (3) PsyCap Questionnaire. The causal effect of the various dimensions of both independent variables on the Psychological Capital was studied using a univariate linear regression. The results show that KM explains 23% of the PsyCap variance and ROSC 29%. If the two independes variables are simultaneously taking into account in the predicition of PsyCap, the model explains 34% of the variance. This study opens thus new avenues for understanding the psychological capital and the importance of people management practices in psychological states, contributing new theoretical knowledge capable of improving organizational results and the quality of life of workers