Ran Qian, Yang Junyi, Yang Wenjing, Wei Dongtao, Qiu Jiang, Zhang Dong
Department of Radiology, Xin Qiao Hospital, The Third Military Medical University, Sha Pingba, Chongqing, China.
Key laboratory of cognition and personality (SWU), Ministry of Education, Chongqing, China.
PLoS One. 2017 Jul 12;12(7):e0180334. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0180334. eCollection 2017.
Dispositional optimism is an individual characteristic that plays an important role in human experience. Optimists are people who tend to hold positive expectations for their future. Previous studies have focused on the neural basis of optimism, such as task response neural activity and brain structure volume. However, the functional connectivity between brain regions of the dispositional optimists are poorly understood. Previous study suggested that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) are associated with individual differences in dispositional optimism, but it is unclear whether there are other brain regions that combine with the vmPFC to contribute to dispositional optimism. Thus, the present study used the resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) approach and set the vmPFC as the seed region to examine if differences in functional brain connectivity between the vmPFC and other brain regions would be associated with individual differences in dispositional optimism. The results found that dispositional optimism was significantly positively correlated with the strength of the RSFC between vmPFC and middle temporal gyrus (mTG) and negativly correlated with RSFC between vmPFC and inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). These findings may be suggested that mTG and IFG which associated with emotion processes and emotion regulation also play an important role in the dispositional optimism.
气质性乐观是一种在人类体验中发挥重要作用的个体特征。乐观主义者是那些对自己的未来倾向于持有积极期望的人。以往的研究主要集中在乐观主义的神经基础上，比如任务反应神经活动和脑结构体积。然而，气质性乐观者脑区之间的功能连接却鲜为人知。先前的研究表明，腹内侧前额叶皮层（vmPFC）与气质性乐观的个体差异有关，但尚不清楚是否有其他脑区与vmPFC共同作用来影响气质性乐观。因此，本研究采用静息态功能连接（RSFC）方法，将vmPFC作为种子区域，以检验vmPFC与其他脑区之间的功能性脑连接差异是否与气质性乐观的个体差异相关。结果发现，气质性乐观与vmPFC和颞中回（mTG）之间的RSFC强度显著正相关，与vmPFC和额下回（IFG）之间的RSFC呈负相关。这些发现可能表明，与情绪过程和情绪调节相关的mTG和IFG在气质性乐观中也起着重要作用。
