Huaxi MR Research Center (HMRRC), Department of Radiology, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu 610041, China.
Huaxi MR Research Center (HMRRC), Department of Radiology, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu 610041, China; Department of Psychiatry, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, China.
Neuroimage. 2017 Aug 15;157:439-447. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2017.05.056. Epub 2017 May 27.
As a central research topic in the field of positive psychology, hope refers to an individual's goal-oriented expectations that include both agency thinking (i.e., the motivation to initiate and sustain actions to achieve goals) and pathway thinking (i.e., the capacity to find ways toward goals). Evidence from many previous studies has shown the role of hope in protecting against anxiety. However, little is known about the neurobiological basis of hope and the underlying mechanism that how hope reduces anxiety in the brain. Here, we employed fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (fALFF) to investigate these issues in 231 high school students using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (RS-fMRI). The whole-brain correlation analyses revealed that higher trait hope was related to lower fALFF in the bilateral medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC), which is involved in reward-related processing, motivation production, problem solving and goal-directed behaviors. Furthermore, mediation analyses suggested that trait hope acted as a mediator in the association between mOFC spontaneous activity and anxiety. These results persisted even after adjusting for the effects of positive and negative affect. Overall, this study provides the first evidence for functional brain substrates underlying trait hope and reveals a potential mechanism that trait hope mediates the protective role of spontaneous brain activity against anxiety.
作为积极心理学领域的一个核心研究课题，希望是指个体以目标为导向的期望，包括能动性思维（即发起和维持行动以实现目标的动机）和路径思维（即寻找实现目标的方法的能力）。许多先前的研究证据表明，希望在预防焦虑方面起着作用。然而，关于希望的神经生物学基础以及希望如何在大脑中减轻焦虑的潜在机制知之甚少。在这里，我们使用静息态功能磁共振成像 (RS-fMRI) 对 231 名高中生进行了研究，采用分数低频振幅 (fALFF) 来研究这些问题。全脑相关分析显示，特质希望与双侧眶额内侧回（mOFC）的 fALFF 降低有关，mOFC 参与与奖励相关的处理、动机产生、解决问题和目标导向行为。此外，中介分析表明，特质希望在 mOFC 自发活动与焦虑之间的关联中起中介作用。这些结果在调整积极和消极情绪的影响后仍然存在。总的来说，这项研究为特质希望的功能脑基础提供了第一个证据，并揭示了特质希望介导自发脑活动对焦虑的保护作用的潜在机制。
