School of Marxism, China University of Geosciences (Beijing), Beijing, China.
Department of Psychology, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China.
Sci Rep. 2018 Nov 20;8(1):17141. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-34793-x.
Self-esteem refers to the extent to which we feel positive or negative about ourselves, and reflects an individual's subjective evaluation of personal worth and attitudes about the self. As one kind of positive psychosocial resources, high self-esteem has been found to buffer the effects of stress on physical health. However, little is known about the possible neural basis underlying the association between physical health and self-esteem. In the present study, we investigated whether the hippocampus served as a neuroanatomical basis for the association between self-esteem and physical health in a large population of healthy young adults. We examined self-esteem and self-reported physical health with the Rosenberg Self Esteem Scale (RSES) and the Chinese Constitution Questionnaire (CCQ) respectively, and gray matter volume of the hippocampus was measured using magnetic resonance imaging. As expected, we found that individuals with higher levels of self-esteem had better self-reported physical health. Importantly, the mediation analysis showed that the gray matter volume of the hippocampus mediated the link between self-esteem and physical health, suggesting its critical role in the neural circuitry through which self-esteem is related to physical health.
自尊是指我们对自己的积极或消极感受的程度，反映了个体对个人价值的主观评价和对自我的态度。作为一种积极的心理社会资源，高自尊已被发现可以缓冲压力对身体健康的影响。然而，对于身体健康和自尊之间的关联的潜在神经基础知之甚少。在本研究中，我们调查了在大量健康年轻成年人中，海马体是否是自尊和身体健康之间关联的神经解剖学基础。我们分别使用罗森伯格自尊量表（RSES）和中国宪法问卷（CCQ）来评估自尊和自我报告的身体健康状况，并使用磁共振成像来测量海马体的灰质体积。正如预期的那样，我们发现自尊水平较高的个体自我报告的身体健康状况更好。重要的是，中介分析表明，海马体的灰质体积介导了自尊和身体健康之间的联系，这表明它在自尊与身体健康相关的神经回路中起着关键作用。
