Neural correlates of product attachment to cosmetics

The neurobiological basis of brand and product attachment has received much attention in consumer neuroscience research, although it remains unclear. In this study, we conducted functional MRI experiments involving female users of famous luxury brand cosmetics as participants, based on the regions of interest involved in human attachment and object attachment. The results showed that the left ventral pallidum (VP), which is involved in positive reward, and the right posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), which is involved in self-concept, a key concept in object attachment, are the core regions in cosmetic attachment. Moreover, the performed psychophysiological interaction analyses showed that VP-temporoparietal junction connectivity positively correlated with activity in the dorsal raphe nucleus, and PCC–anterior hippocampus (aHC) connectivity positively correlated with subjective evaluation of attachment. The former suggests that object attachment is a human-like attachment and a stronger tendency of anthropomorphism is associated with stronger feelings of security. The latter suggests that the individual’s concept of attachment as well as the relationships with the attached cosmetics are represented in the aHC, and the PCC–aHC associations produce subjective awareness of the attachment relationships. These associations between memory and reward systems have been shown to play critical roles in cosmetic attachment.

Prefrontal-Striatal Mechanisms of Behavioral Impulsivity During Consumption of Delayed Real Liquid Rewards

Intertemporal choice involves the evaluation of future rewards and reflects behavioral impulsivity. After choosing a delayed reward in an intertemporal choice, a behavioral agent waits for, receives, and then consumes the reward. The current study focused on the consumption of the delayed reward and examined the neural mechanisms of behavioral impulsivity. In humans consuming delayed real liquid rewards in an intertemporal choice, the ventral striatum (VS) showed differential activity between anterior (aVS) and posterior (pVS) regions depending on the degree of behavioral impulsivity. Additionally, impulsive individuals showed activity in the anterior prefrontal cortex (aPFC). An analysis of task-related effective connectivity based on psychophysiological interaction (PPI) revealed that PPI was robust from the aPFC to pVS, but not in the opposite direction. On the other hand, strong bidirectional PPIs were observed between the aVS and pVS, but PPIs from the pVS to aVS were enhanced in impulsive individuals. These results suggest that behavioral impulsivity is reflected in aPFC-VS mechanisms during the consumption of delayed real liquid rewards.

Athlete, coach and practitioner knowledge and perceptions of post-exercise cold-water immersion for recovery: a qualitative and quantitative exploration

This survey sought to establish current use, knowledge and perceptions of cold-water immersion (CWI) when used for recovery. 111 athletes, coaches and support practitioners completed the anonymous online survey, answering questions about their current CWI protocols, perceptions of benefits associated with CWI and knowledge of controlling mechanisms. Respondents were largely involved in elite sport at international, national and club level, with many having used CWI previously (86%) and finding its use beneficial for recovery (78%). Protocols differed, with the duration of immersion one aspect that failed to align with recommendations in the scientific literature. Whilst many respondents were aware of benefits associated with CWI, there remains some confusion. There also seems to be a gap in mechanistic knowledge, where respondents are aware of benefits associated with CWI, but failed to identify the underlying mechanisms. This identifies the need for an improved method of knowledge transfer between scientific and applied practice communities. Moreover, data herein emphasises the important role of the ‘support practitioner’ as respondents in this role tended to favour CWI protocols more aligned to recommendations within the literature. With a significant number of respondents claiming they were made aware of CWI for recovery through a colleague (43%), the importance of knowledge transfer and context being appropriately applied to data is as important as ever. With the firm belief that CWI is useful for recovery in sport, the focus should now be on investigating the psychophysiological interaction and correct use of this methodology.

Representation of motion concepts in occipitotemporal cortex: fMRI activation, decoding and connectivity analyses

Embodied theories of semantic cognition predict that brain regions involved in motion perception are engaged when people comprehend motion concepts expressed in language. Left lateral occipitotemporal cortex (LOTC) is implicated in both motion perception and motion concept processing but prior studies have produced mixed findings regarding which parts of this region are engaged by motion language. We scanned participants performing semantic judgements about sentences describing motion events and static events. We performed univariate analyses, multivariate pattern analyses (MVPA) and psychophysiological interaction (PPI) analyses to investigate the effect of motion on activity and connectivity in different parts of LOTC. In multivariate analyses that decoded whether a sentence described motion or not, the whole of LOTC showed above-chance level performance, with performance exceeding that of other brain regions. Univariate ROI analyses found that the middle part of LOTC was more active for motion events than static ones. Finally, PPI analyses found that when processing motion events, the middle and posterior parts of LOTC, overlapping with motion perception regions, increased their connectivity with cognitive control regions. Taken together, these results indicate that the whole of the LOTC responds differently to motion vs. static event descriptions, and that these effects are most pronounced in more posterior sites. These findings are consistent with embodiment accounts of semantic processing, and suggest that understanding verbal descriptions of motion engages areas of the occipitotemporal cortex involved in perceiving motion.

Neural correlates of emotional reactivity and regulation in traumatized North Korean refugees

Refugees often report heightened emotional reactivity and emotion regulation difficulties and are at high risk for mental health problems. Given that refugees are repeatedly exposed to traumatic events that may cause changes in the brain, the present study examined neural correlates of emotional reactivity and regulation and their associations with refugee features (e.g., cumulative trauma) and the severity of psychiatric symptoms (e.g., post-traumatic stress disorder [PTSD]) in North Korean (NK) refugees. Forty NK refugees with trauma exposure and varying levels of psychopathology and 41 healthy South Korean (SK) controls without trauma exposure participated in this study. They performed an emotion regulation task during a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) assessment. Region of interest (ROI), whole brain, and generalized psychophysiological interaction (gPPI) analyses were conducted. NK refugees with trauma exposure and varying levels of psychopathology showed increased activation in response to negative socio-affective pictures in regions involved in affective processing, including the amygdala and hippocampus, relative to healthy SK controls without trauma exposure. They also exhibited greater prefrontal cortex (PFC) activation, amygdala–PFC functional connectivity (FC), and hippocampal–PFC FC during emotion regulation. More severe PTSD symptoms were associated with greater hippocampal response to negative pictures (vs. neutral pictures) in NK refugees. This study provides neuroscientific evidence for neural alterations in association with emotional reactivity and regulation in traumatized refugees. These findings may contribute to a better mechanistic understanding of emotional reactivity and regulation in refugees and suggest potential ways to address the emotional and mental problems of traumatized refugees.

Reward Enhances Connectivity between the Ventral Striatum and the Default Mode Network

One of the central topics in cognitive neuroscience revolves around understanding how responses in the default mode network (DMN) relate to cognitive process and disease states. While there has been many investigations of the intrinsic patterns of activation and connectivity of the DMN with other networks at rest, i.e. when an individual is not engaged in any particular behavior, to truly understand the influence and significance of the DMN activation and connectivity, we must study it in association with a particular process. Reward processing is an integral part of goal-directed behavior that has been shown to rely on the striatum, a subcortical brain region that is connected to multiple regions of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) that belong to the DMN. Yet, it remains unclear how the DMN interacts with the striatum during reward processing. To investigate this issue, we analyzed card-guessing task data of 453 subjects from the Human Connectome Project and applied a novel network-based psychophysiological interaction analysis (nPPI) that quantified reward-dependent connectivity of the DMN. We show that only the DMN exhibits increased connectivity with the ventral striatum (VS) during the receipt of reward. This result was specific to the DMN and the strength of connectivity was associated with the personality characteristic of openness. These findings point to a novel role of the DMN during reward processing, and to the nPPI approach being able to capture a unique contribution of a collection of regions to task performance.

The Neural Determinants of Beauty

What are the conditions that determine whether the medial orbito-frontal cortex (mOFC), in which activity correlates with the experience of beauty derived from different sources, becomes co-active with sensory areas of the brain during the experience of sensory beauty? We addressed this question by studying the neural determinants of facial beauty. The perception of faces correlates with activity in a number of brain areas, but only when a face is perceived as beautiful is the mOFC also engaged. The enquiry thus revolved around the question of whether a particular pattern of activity, within or between areas implicated in face perception, emerges when a face is perceived as beautiful, and which determines that there is, as a correlate, activity in mOFC. 17 subjects of both genders viewed and rated facial stimuli according to how beautiful they perceived them to be while the activity in their brains was imaged with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). A univariate analysis revealed parametrically scaled activity within several areas in which the strength of activity correlated with the declared intensity of the aesthetic experience of faces; the list included the mOFC and two core areas strongly implicated in the perception of faces - the occipital face area (OFA), fusiform face area (FFA)- and, additionally, the cuneus. Multivariate analyses, which reveal the more fine-grained distribution of activity in brain areas, revealed strong and distinctive patterns of activation in the FFA and the cuneus and weaker ones in the OFA and posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS). It is only when distinctive patterns emerged in these areas that there was co-activation of the mOFC, in which a strong pattern of activity also emerged during the experience of facial beauty. A psychophysiological interaction analysis with mOFC as the seed area revealed the involvement of the right FFA and the right OFA, but only when faces were experienced as beautiful. We conjecture that these collective patterns of activity constitute the neural basis for the experience of facial beauty, bringing us a step closer to understanding the neural determinants of aesthetic experience.

The Effects of Functionally Guided, Connectivity-Based rTMS on Amygdala Activation

While repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) is widely used to treat psychiatric disorders, innovations are needed to improve its efficacy. An important limitation is that while psychiatric disorders are associated with fronto-limbic dysregulation, rTMS does not have sufficient depth penetration to modulate affected subcortical structures. Recent advances in task-related functional connectivity provide a means to better link superficial and deeper cortical sources with the possibility of increasing fronto-limbic modulation to induce stronger therapeutic effects. The objective of this pilot study was to test whether task-related, connectivity-based rTMS could modulate amygdala activation through its connectivity with the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). fMRI was collected to identify a node in the mPFC showing the strongest connectivity with the amygdala, as defined by psychophysiological interaction analysis. To promote Hebbian-like plasticity, and potentially stronger modulation, 5 Hz rTMS was applied while participants viewed frightening video-clips that engaged the fronto-limbic network. Significant increases in both the mPFC and amygdala were found for active rTMS compared to sham, offering promising preliminary evidence that functional connectivity-based targeting may provide a useful approach to treat network dysregulation. Further research is needed to better understand connectivity influences on rTMS effects to leverage this information to improve therapeutic applications.

Reported maternal childhood maltreatment experiences, amygdala activation and functional connectivity to infant cry

Maternal childhood maltreatment experiences (CMEs) may influence responses to infants and affect child outcomes. We examined associations between CME and mothers’ neural responses and functional connectivity to infant distress. We hypothesized that mothers with greater CME would exhibit higher amygdala reactivity and amygdala–supplementary motor area (SMA) functional connectivity to own infant’s cries. Postpartum mothers (N = 57) assessed for CME completed an functional magnetic resonance imaging task with cry and white-noise stimuli. Amygdala region-of-interest and psychophysiological interaction analyses were performed. Our models tested associations of CME with activation and connectivity during task conditions (own/other and cry/noise). Exploratory analyses with parenting behaviors were performed. Mothers with higher CME exhibited higher amygdala activation to own baby’s cries vs other stimuli (F1,392 = 6.9, P < 0.01, N = 57) and higher differential connectivity to cry vs noise between amygdala and SMA (F1,165 = 22.3, P < 0.001). Exploratory analyses revealed positive associations between both amygdala activation and connectivity and maternal non-intrusiveness (Ps < 0.05). Increased amygdala activation to own infant’s cry and higher amygdala–SMA functional connectivity suggest motor responses to baby’s distress. These findings were associated with less intrusive maternal behaviors. Follow-up studies might replicate these findings, add more granular parenting assessments and explore how cue processing leads to a motivated maternal approach in clinical populations.