Kross Ethan, Egner Tobias, Ochsner Kevin, Hirsch Joy, Downey Geraldine
Psychology Department, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA.
J Cogn Neurosci. 2007 Jun;19(6):945-56. doi: 10.1162/jocn.2007.19.6.945.
Rejection sensitivity (RS) is the tendency to anxiously expect, readily perceive, and intensely react to rejection. This study used functional magnetic resonance imaging to explore whether individual differences in RS are mediated by differential recruitment of brain regions involved in emotional appraisal and/or cognitive control. High and low RS participants were scanned while viewing either representational paintings depicting themes of rejection and acceptance or nonrepresentational control paintings matched for positive or negative valence, arousal and interest level. Across all participants, rejection versus acceptance images activated regions of the brain involved in processing affective stimuli (posterior cingulate, insula), and cognitive control (dorsal anterior cingulate cortex; medial frontal cortex). Low and high RS individuals' responses to rejection versus acceptance images were not, however, identical. Low RS individuals displayed significantly more activity in left inferior and right dorsal frontal regions, and activity in these areas correlated negatively with participants' self-report distress ratings. In addition, control analyses revealed no effect of viewing negative versus positive images in any of the areas described above, suggesting that the aforementioned activations were involved in rejection-relevant processing rather than processing negatively valenced stimuli per se. Taken together, these findings suggest that responses in regions traditionally implicated in emotional processing and cognitive control are sensitive to rejection stimuli irrespective of RS, but that low RS individuals may activate prefrontal structures to regulate distress associated with viewing such images.
拒绝敏感性（RS）是指个体倾向于焦虑地预期、容易察觉到拒绝，并对其产生强烈反应。本研究使用功能磁共振成像技术，探究RS的个体差异是否由参与情绪评估和/或认知控制的脑区募集差异所介导。在观看描绘拒绝和接纳主题的具象画或在正性或负性效价、唤醒度和兴趣水平上匹配的抽象对照画时，对高RS和低RS参与者进行扫描。在所有参与者中，与接纳图像相比，拒绝图像激活了参与处理情感刺激（后扣带回、脑岛）和认知控制（背侧前扣带回皮质；内侧前额叶皮质）的脑区。然而，低RS和高RS个体对拒绝与接纳图像的反应并不相同。低RS个体在左额叶下部和右背侧额叶区域表现出显著更多的活动，并且这些区域的活动与参与者的自我报告痛苦评分呈负相关。此外，对照分析显示，在上述任何区域中，观看负性与正性图像均无影响，这表明上述激活参与了与拒绝相关的处理，而非仅仅处理负性效价的刺激本身。综上所述，这些发现表明，传统上与情绪处理和认知控制相关的脑区反应对拒绝刺激敏感，而与RS无关，但低RS个体可能会激活前额叶结构来调节与观看此类图像相关的痛苦。
