Resting-state functional connectivity and socioemotional processes in male perpetrators of intimate partner violence against women

Intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) is a serious and overwhelming public concern. Neuroimaging techniques have provided insights into the brain mechanisms underlying IPVAW perpetration. The purpose of this study is to examine the resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) involving the process of social decision-making of male perpetrators. Twenty-six male perpetrators convicted for an IPVAW crime were compared to 29 men convicted for crimes other than IPVAW (other offenders) and 29 men with no criminal records (non-offenders) using a seed-based approach. Seeds were located in areas involved in reflective (prefrontal), impulsive (amygdala and striatum) and interoceptive (insula) processing. Then, as an exploratory analysis, the connectivity networks on male perpetrators were correlated with measures of executive functions and socioemotional self-report measures. Male perpetrators in comparison to other offenders and non-offenders, presented higher rsFC between prefrontal, limbic, brainstem, temporal and basal ganglia areas. Also male perpetrators showed higher rsFC between insula, default mode network and basal ganglia, while lower rsFC was found between prefrontal and motor areas and between amygdala, occipital and parietal areas. Exploratory correlations suggest that the specific rsFC in male perpetrators might be more related to socioemotional processes than to executive functions. These results showed that male perpetrators present a specific rsFC in brain systems that are essential for an adaptive social decision-making

Individual differences in structural and functional connectivity predict speed of emotion discrimination.

In social interactions, individuals who are slower at differentiating between facial expressions signalling direct and indirect threat might be at a serious disadvantage. However, the neurobiological underpinnings of individual differences in face processing are not yet fully understood. The aim of this study was to use multimodal neuroimaging to investigate how the speed of emotion recognition is related to the structural and functional connectivity underlying the differentiation of direct and indirect threat displays. Our results demonstrate that individuals, who are faster at discriminating angry faces, engaged areas of the extended emotional system more strongly than individuals with slower reaction times, showed higher white matter integrity in the inferior longitudinal fasciculus (ILF), as well as stronger functional connectivity with the right amygdala. In contrast, individuals, who were faster at discriminating fearful faces, engaged visual-attentional regions outside of the face processing network more strongly than individuals with slower reaction times, showed higher white matter integrity in the ILF, as well as reduced functional connectivity with the right amygdala. Our findings suggest that the high survival value of rapid and appropriate responses to threat has defined but separate neurobiological correlates for angry and fearful facial expressions

Passive and Motivated Perception of Emotional Faces: Qualitative and Quantitative Changes in the Face Processing Network

Emotionally expressive faces are processed by a distributed network of interacting sub-cortical and cortical brain regions. The components of this network have been identified and described in large part by the stimulus properties to which they are sensitive, but as face processing research matures interest has broadened to also probe dynamic interactions between these regions and top-down influences such as task demand and context. While some research has tested the robustness of affective face processing by restricting available attentional resources, it is not known whether face network processing can be augmented by increased motivation to attend to affective face stimuli. Short videos of people expressing emotions were presented to healthy participants during functional magnetic resonance imaging. Motivation to attend to the videos was manipulated by providing an incentive for improved recall performance. During the motivated condition, there was greater coherence among nodes of the face processing network, more widespread correlation between signal intensity and performance, and selective signal increases in a task-relevant subset of face processing regions, including the posterior superior temporal sulcus and right amygdala. In addition, an unexpected task-related laterality effect was seen in the amygdala. These findings provide strong evidence that motivation augmentsco-activity among nodes of the face processing network and the impact of neural activity on performance. These within-subject effects highlight the necessity to consider motivation when interpreting neural function in special populations, and to further explore the effect of task demands on face processing in healthy brains

Maternal Systemic Interleukin-6 During Pregnancy Is Associated With Newborn Amygdala Phenotypes and Subsequent Behavior at 2 Years of Age

Background Maternal inflammation during pregnancy increases the risk for offspring psychiatric disorders and other adverse long-term health outcomes. The influence of inflammation on the developing fetal brain is hypothesized as one potential mechanism but has not been examined in humans. Methods Participants were adult women (N = 86) who were recruited during early pregnancy and whose offspring were born after 34 weeks’ gestation. A biological indicator of maternal inflammation (interleukin-6) that has been shown to influence fetal brain development in animal models was quantified serially in early, mid-, and late pregnancy. Structural and functional brain magnetic resonance imaging scans were acquired in neonates shortly after birth. Infants’ amygdalae were individually segmented for measures of volume and as seeds for resting state functional connectivity. At 24 months of age, children completed a snack delay task to assess impulse control. Results Higher average maternal interleukin-6 concentration during pregnancy was prospectively associated with larger right amygdala volume and stronger bilateral amygdala connectivity to brain regions involved in sensory processing and integration (fusiform, somatosensory cortex, and thalamus), salience detection (anterior insula), and learning and memory (caudate and parahippocampal gyrus). Larger newborn right amygdala volume and stronger left amygdala connectivity were in turn associated with lower impulse control at 24 months of age, and mediated the association between higher maternal interleukin-6 concentrations and lower impulse control. Conclusions These findings provide new evidence in humans linking maternal inflammation during pregnancy with newborn brain and emerging behavioral phenotypes relevant for psychiatric disorders. A better understanding of intrauterine conditions that influence offspring disease susceptibility is warranted to inform targeted early intervention and prevention efforts

Structural and effective connectivity reveals potential network-based influences on category-sensitive visual areas

Visual category perception is thought to depend on brain areas that respond specifically when certain categories are viewed. These category-sensitive areas are often assumed to be modules (with some degree of processing autonomy) and to act predominantly on feedforward visual input. This modular view can be complemented by a view that treats brain areas as elements within more complex networks and as influenced by network properties. This network-oriented viewpoint is emerging from studies using either diffusion tensor imaging to map structural connections or effective connectivity analyses to measure how their functional responses influence each other. This literature motivates several hypotheses that predict category-sensitive activity based on network properties. Large, long-range fiber bundles such as inferior fronto-occipital, arcuate and inferior longitudinal fasciculi are associated with behavioural recognition and could play crucial roles in conveying backward influences on visual cortex from anterior temporal and frontal areas. Such backward influences could support top-down functions such as visual search and emotion-based visual modulation. Within visual cortex itself, areas sensitive to different categories appear well-connected (e.g., face areas connect to object- and motion sensitive areas) and their responses can be predicted by backward modulation. Evidence supporting these propositions remains incomplete and underscores the need for better integration of DTI and functional imaging

Experimental manipulation of infant temperament affects amygdala functional connectivity

Development Psychopathology in context: famil

Impact of Breathing Phases on Social Stimuli Processing

Master's ThesisRecent studies have demonstrated the respiratory entrainment of brain cycles, leading to implications for cognitive and emotional processes. Notably, the preBötzinger complex, an important breathing area, sends out inhalation-modulated projections to the locus coeruleus, amygdala, and hippocampus, essential for arousal, emotion, and memory. Using a breathing phase-locked face processing task (with neutral face pictures), this study investigated breathing phases’ effect on emotion and memory processing at behavioral and neural levels, using negativity ratings, memory performance, and ERP (event-related-potential) measures of early (N170) and later (P300) processing. Participants provided negativity ratings to faces that were presented either at the inhalation or exhalation phase of breathing cycles, while their neural activity was being recorded using EEG (electroencephalograph). Their memory for the faces was later tested and their trait anxiety and depression were measured using questionnaires. It was hypothesized that the negativity ratings, memory accuracy, N170 and P300 amplitude will be greater for inhalation versus exhalation phases. Results indicated no differences in negativity ratings and overall face recognition memory between the two breathing phase conditions. However, we found evidence that recognition memory was enhanced for faces encoded at inhalation and retrieved at exhalation. Accuracy of correct rejection was enhanced during the inhalation versus exhalation phase. There were no breathing phase differences between a priori selected electrodes P9/P10 for ERP N170 and Pz/POz for P300. However, N170 at other electrodes in the parietal regions showed a greater negative amplitude for the inhalation versus exhalation phase. A significant correlation was found between high levels of depression and negativity rating differences between the phases. Taken together, our results support the idea that the limbic system, and related cognitive/affective processes, can be modulated by different phases of breathing cycles, which justifies further mechanistic investigations on how breathing rhythms and techniques affect human emotion and cognition.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/163668/1/Purkayestha, Sharmi - Impact of Breathing Phases on Social Stimuli Processing.pdfc5a42028-499d-4e85-9fdc-dc71e2baca26Description of Purkayestha, Sharmi - Impact of Breathing Phases on Social Stimuli Processing.pdf : Master's ThesisSEL

Bidirectional communication between amygdala and fusiform gyrus during facial recognition

Decades of research have documented the specialization of fusiform gyrus (FG) for facial information processes. Recent theories indicate that FG activity is shaped by input from amygdala, but effective connectivity from amygdala to FG remains undocumented. In this fMRI study, 39 participants completed a face recognition task. 11 participants underwent the same experiment approximately four months later. Robust face-selective activation of FG, amygdala, and lateral occipital cortex were observed. Dynamic causal modeling and Bayesian Model Selection (BMS) were used to test the intrinsic connections between these structures, and their modulation by face perception. BMS results strongly favored a dynamic causal model with bidirectional, face-modulated amygdala-FG connections. However, the right hemisphere connections diminished at time 2, with the face modulation parameter no longer surviving Bonferroni correction. These findings suggest that amygdala strongly influences FG function during face perception, and that this influence is shaped by experience and stimulus salience.8 page(s

The effects of emotionally salient unimodal and multimodal stimuli on low-level visual perception

Sensory information can both impair and enhance low-level visual feature processing, and this can be significantly modulated depending on the whether this information matches the visual sensory modality. Emotionally significant visual and auditory stimuli can have opposing effects on attention. While task-irrelevant emotionally salient visual stimuli can often impair task attention, task-irrelevant emotionally salient auditory stimuli have been shown to enhance aspects of attention. To date, no study has directly compared how emotionally salient information presented to different sensory modalities can affect low-level vision. Using Gabor patches of differing contrasts to measure the threshold of visual perception, we hypothesized that emotionally salient visual stimuli would impair low-level vision, while emotionally salient auditory stimuli would enhance low-level vision. We found that sensory modulation may be dependant on matched sensory domain presentation, as visual emotional stimuli impaired low-level vision, but emotional auditory stimuli did not affect low-level vision