Individual differences in emotion processing

During the last decades neuroscientists have put significant efforts towards a definition of a unique and comprehensive emotion brain circuit. However, internal and external variables influencing emotion behavior are much more prominent than expected. The present doctoral thesis aims to add some crucial knowledge on individual differences of emotions, as well as their biological underpinnings, by merging evidence obtained with psychological, genetic and brain imaging assessments. In particular, I adopted a protocol of affective state induction, by which I investigated the effect of temporary variations of mood on the emotion processing in healthy subjects at both the behavioral and neuronal level. Then, I have also investigated the interaction between affective states and affective traits on the emotional behavior as well as the interaction between affective states and genetic traits. Moreover, this thesis has characterized in healthy subjects the neural correlates of the emotion intelligence ability, an additional important aspect in the emotional panorama. Finally, I studied emotion brain connectivity in a schizophrenia population and in a population of healthy subjects at familial or genetic risk for schizophrenia. Findings of the thesis demonstrated that temporary affective states are capable of modulating emotions even at an early, automatic stage of processing, at both behavioral and neuronal level. Moreover, this modulation is affected by personality and genetic traits of the individual. Furthermore, this thesis revealed that social and emotional abilities also represent a source of variability in the way brain processes the emotional information, positing the neural basis of conceivable interventions in this direction. Finally, the present work discovered that emotional anomalies in schizophrenia subtend a specific breakdown of the brain connectivity. Particularly, this breakdown is also found in healthy individuals at familial risk for schizophrenia or simply carrying a dopamine variant conferring risk for the disorder.Viime vuosikymmeninä neurotieteijlijät ovat nähneet valtavasti vaivaa määritelläkseen erillisen tunne-aivoneuroverkon. Tämän hetkisen tutkimuksen valossa kuitenkin vaikuttaa siltä, että sisäiset ja ulkoiset tekijät vaikuttavat ihmisten tunne-käyttäytymiseen odotettua enemmän. Tässä esitetty väitöskirjatukimus tähtää ymmärtämään tunteisiin vaikuttavia yksilökohtaisia, sekä biologisia tekijöitä yhdistämällä tutkimustietoa genetiiksta, psykologiasta sekä aivokuvantamisesta. Sovelsin työssäni tunnetiloja aiheuttavaa protokollaa (eng. Affective state induction-protocol), jolla tutkin mielialojen hetkellisten muutosten vaikutusta tunteiden prosessointiin käyttäytymyksellisellä, sekä neuronaalisella tasolla. Lisäksi tutkin tunnetilojen ja yksilöllisten tunnetekijöiden vaikutusta toisiinsa ja käyttäytymiseen, sekä geenien ja yksilöllisten tunnetekijöiden interaktiota. Ennenkaikkea työni kartoittaa terveiden yksilöiden tunneäly-kyvyn neuronaalisia korrelaatteja, jotka ovat niin sanotun emotionaalisen panoraman osatekijä. Lisäksi perehdyin kliinisen skitsofrenia populaation, ja geeniperimänsä tai perhtaustansa takia riskiryhmässä olevan terveen populaation tunteiden aivo-konnektiivisyyden tutkimukseen. Väitöskirjatutkimukseni tulokset näyttivät, että väliaikaiset tunnetilat moduloivat tunteita jo hyvin varhaisessa, automaatiisessa prosessoinnin vaiheessa, sekä käyttäytymyksellisesti, että neuronaalisesti. Havaitsin myös, että kyseiseen tunteiden modulointiin vaikuttaa yksilön persoonallisuuspiirteet, sekä geeneettiset tekijät. Lisäksi tutkimuksessani kävi ilmi, että sosiaaliset sekä emotionaaliset kyvyt saattavat osaksi selittää sitä vaihtelevuutta mikä havaittiin aivojen tunteiden prosessoinnissa, täten osoittaen neuronaalisten interventioiden olevan vakuuttava suunta jatkotutkimuksile. Lisäksi vaitöskrjatutkimuksessani selvisi, että skitsofreniassa havaitut tunneperäiset poikkeamat johtunevat erityisestä aivokonnektiivisesta katkosesta. Kyseinen katkos on myös havaittu terveidein yksilöiden aivoissa, jotka ovat perhetaustansa takia riskialttiita sktisofrenialle, tai joilla on skitsofrenialle altistava dopamiini variantti

Reproducible grey matter patterns index a multivariate, global alteration of brain structure in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder

Schizophrenia is a severe mental disorder characterized by numerous subtle changes in brain structure and function. Machine learning allows exploring the utility of combining structural and functional brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) measures for diagnostic application, but this approach has been hampered by sample size limitations and lack of differential diagnostic data. Here, we performed a multi-site machine learning analysis to explore brain structural patterns of T1 MRI data in 2668 individuals with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and healthy controls. We found reproducible changes of structural parameters in schizophrenia that yielded a classification accuracy of up to 76% and provided discrimination from ADHD, through it lacked specificity against bipolar disorder. The observed changes largely indexed distributed grey matter alterations that could be represented through a combination of several global brain-structural parameters. This multi-site machine learning study identified a brain-structural signature that could reproducibly differentiate schizophrenia patients from controls, but lacked specificity against bipolar disorder. While this currently limits the clinical utility of the identified signature, the present study highlights that the underlying alterations index substantial global grey matter changes in psychotic disorders, reflecting the biological similarity of these conditions, and provide a roadmap for future exploration of brain structural alterations in psychiatric patients.Peer reviewe

Association between Ability Emotional Intelligence and Left Insula during Social Judgment of Facial Emotions

The human ability of identifying, processing and regulating emotions from social stimuli is generally referred as Emotional Intelligence (EI). Within EI, Ability EI identifies a performance measure assessing individual skills at perceiving, using, understanding and managing emotions. Previous models suggest that a brain "somatic marker circuitry" (SMC) sustains emotional sub-processes included in EI. Three primary brain regions are included: the amygdala, the insula and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). Here, our aim was to investigate the relationship between Ability EI scores and SMC activity during social judgment of emotional faces. Sixty-three healthy subjects completed a test measuring Ability EI and underwent fMRI during a social decision task (i.e. approach or avoid) about emotional faces with different facial expressions. Imaging data revealed that EI scores are associated with left insula activity during social judgment of emotional faces as a function of facial expression. Specifically, higher EI scores are associated with greater left insula activity during social judgment of fearful faces but also with lower activity of this region during social judgment of angry faces. These findings indicate that the association between Ability EI and the SMC activity during social behavior is region- and emotionspecific.Peer reviewe

Implicit Processing of Visual Emotions Is Affected by Sound-Induced Affective States and Individual Affective Traits

Peer reviewe

Familial Risk and a Genome-Wide Supported DRD2 Variant for Schizophrenia Predict Lateral Prefrontal-Amygdala Effective Connectivity During Emotion Processing

The brain functional mechanisms translating genetic risk into emotional symptoms in schizophrenia (SCZ) may include abnormal functional integration between areas key for emotion processing, such as the amygdala and the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC). Indeed, investigation of these mechanisms is also complicated by emotion processing comprising different subcomponents and by disease-associated state variables. Here, our aim was to investigate the relationship between risk for SCZ and effective connectivity between the amygdala and the LPFC during different subcomponents of emotion processing. Thus, we first characterized with dynamic causal modeling (DCM) physiological patterns of LPFC amygdala effective connectivity in healthy controls (HC) during implicit and explicit emotion processing. Then, we compared DCM patterns in a subsample of HC, in patients with SCZ and in healthy siblings of patients (SIB), matched for demographics. Finally, we investigated in HC association of LPFC amygdala effective connectivity with a genome-wide supported variant increasing genetic risk for SCZ and possibly relevant to emotion processing (DRD2 rs2514218). In HC, we found that a "bottom-up" amygdala-to-LPFC pattern during implicit processing and a "top-down" LPFC-to-amygdala pattern during explicit processing were the most likely directional models of effective connectivity. Differently, implicit emotion processing in SIB, SCZ, and HC homozygous for the SCZ risk rs2514218 C allele was associated with decreased probability for the "bottom-up" as well as with increased probability for the "top-down" model. These findings suggest that task-specific anomaly in the directional flow of information or disconnection between the amygdala and the LPFC is a good candidate endophenotype of SCZ.Peer reviewe

DRD2/CHRNA5 Interaction on Prefrontal Biology and Physiology during Working Memory

Peer reviewe

DRD2 genotype predicts prefrontal activity during working memory after stimulation of D2 receptors with bromocriptine

Rationale: Pharmacological stimulation of D2 receptors modulates prefrontal neural activity associated with working memory (WM) processing. The T allele of a functional single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) within DRD2 (rs1076560 G > T) predicts reduced relative expression of the D2S receptor isoform and less efficient neural cortical responses during WM tasks. Objective: We used functional MRI to test the hypothesis that DRD2 rs1076560 genotype interacts with pharmacological stimulation of D2 receptors with bromocriptine on prefrontal responses during different loads of a spatial WM task (N-Back). Methods: Fifty-three healthy subjects (38 GG and 15 GT) underwent two 3-T functional MRI scans while performing the 1-, 2- and 3-Back versions of the N-Back WM task. Before the imaging sessions, either bromocriptine or placebo was administered to all subjects in a counterbalanced order. A factorial repeated-measures ANOVA within SPM8 (p < 0.05, family-wise error corrected) was used. Results: On bromocriptine, GG subjects had reduced prefrontal activity at 3-Back together with a significant decrement in performance, compared with placebo. On the other hand, GT subjects had lower activity for the same level of performance at 1-Back but a trend for reduced behavioral performance in the face of unchanged activity at 2-Back. Conclusions: These results indicate that bromocriptine stimulation modulates prefrontal activity in terms of disengagement or of efficiency depending on DRD2 genotype and working memory load

Prefronto-striatal physiology is associated with schizotypy and is modulated by a functional variant of DRD2

Peer reviewe

La Scienza e l'immaginario

L’attività di divulgazione della cultura scientifica ha un ruolo fondamentale sulla società, sia in termini di applicazioni innovative che di pianificazione dell’ambiente. I ricercatori dell’IAS-CNR di Capo Granitola operano da anni nell’ambito della diffusione della cultura scientifica, attraverso processi complessi e percorsi di divulgazione in partnership con istituti scolastici del territorio, realizzando attività seminariali, convegni direttamente nelle scuole, nonché visite didattiche guidate degli alunni nei laboratori dell’Istituto ed esperimenti interdisciplinari sull’ambiente marino. Tali processi divulgativi si sono sviluppati creando numerosi percorsi, in maniera per certi aspetti analoga a quella per cui dalla mescolanza dei tre colori fondamentali si è in grado di ottenere un numero pressoché illimitato di tinte diverse. Lo scopo di questa “mescolanza” è stato quello di ottenere un ventaglio di competenze e strumentazioni che consentissero di indagare i differenti aspetti dell’ecosistema marino da diversi punti di vista ed in maniera sinergica, tale da restituire un quadro il più ricco possibile di “tinte” e particolari. (Scienza e arte di Salvatore Mazzola) La Scienza e l'immaginario di Angela Cuttitta. Il progetto “La Scienza e l’Immaginario” nasce dalla collaborazione tra l’IAS - CNR di Capo Granitola e l’Accademia di Belle Arti di Palermo, che attraverso un approccio multidisciplinare ha voluto sperimentare l’unione tra il mondo scientifico e quello artistico, mettendo i giovani artisti, attraverso proiezioni e seminari scientifici, nelle condizioni di scoprire il mondo dell’ambiente marino e degli ecosistemi in esso presenti. Il progetto è nato dalla consapevolezza di come sia necessario operare sul piano della diffusione e divulgazione della cultura scientifica nei più vasti contesti sociali, a partire dall’ambito scolastico. Le azioni divulgative mirano, infatti, a diffondere la conoscenza dei processi geologici, chimico-fisici, climatici e biologici in modo pervasivo, non limitato a singole categorie/settori. La funzione strategica di tali azioni è quella di stimolare idee ed iniziative nonché di sviluppare una maggiore sensibilità nei confronti dei fenomeni che ci circondano, quale presupposto essenziale per una corretta programmazione politico-gestionale. Lo spirito che ha mosso tutte gli attori del progetto è stato quello di sensibilizzare gli studenti nei confronti della tutela delle risorse marine proprie del loro territorio e di sviluppare e promuovere la cultura come volano dello sviluppo sostenibile, della pace e dell’integrazione sociale, in armonia con quanto indicato dal Consiglio Europeo di Lisbona 2000. Grazie al lavoro di docenti e di ricercatori, l’arte come forma espressiva si è rivelata uno strumento valido e innovativo di divulgazione della cultura scientifica e ha portato alla creazione di suggestioni sui ragazzi che hanno percepito e realizzato forme e armonie espresse in questa mostra. L’impegno per questa manifestazione rappresenta, quindi, un appuntamento importante con le forze vive siciliane nel campo delle scienze del mare segnatamente ad esperti di biologia, chimica, fisica ed al mondo fantastico dell’arte, al fine di esprimere con le varie tecniche pittoriche un momento di riflessione culturale

The "imprisoned illness:" Motor tic disorder in Rainer Maria Rilke's Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge

Rainer Maria Rilke's novel The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge contains a reference of interest for the catalog of literary portrayals of tiqueurs. In this article, we report his description of a Parisian character displaying multiple motor tic symptoms, along with a brief commentary. © 2010 Movement Disorder Society