Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Health Care System,Minneapolis,MN,USA.
Department of Psychology,University of Minnesota,Twin Cities,Minneapolis, MN,USA.
Dev Psychopathol. 2019 Aug;31(3):1085-1099. doi: 10.1017/S0954579419000610. Epub 2019 Jun 3.
Though theory suggests that individual differences in neuroticism (a tendency to experience negative emotions) would be associated with altered functioning of the amygdala (which has been linked with emotionality and emotion dysregulation in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood), results of functional neuroimaging studies have been contradictory and inconclusive. We aimed to clarify the relationship between neuroticism and three hypothesized neural markers derived from functional magnetic resonance imaging during negative emotion face processing: amygdala activation, amygdala habituation, and amygdala-prefrontal connectivity, each of which plays an important role in the experience and regulation of emotions. We used general linear models to examine the relationship between trait neuroticism and the hypothesized neural markers in a large sample of over 500 young adults. Although neuroticism was not significantly associated with magnitude of amygdala activation or amygdala habituation, it was associated with amygdala-ventromedial prefrontal cortex connectivity, which has been implicated in emotion regulation. Results suggest that trait neuroticism may represent a failure in top-down control and regulation of emotional reactions, rather than overactive emotion generation processes, per se. These findings suggest that neuroticism, which has been associated with increased rates of transdiagnostic psychopathology, may represent a failure in the inhibitory neurocircuitry associated with emotion regulation.
虽然理论表明神经质（倾向于体验负面情绪）的个体差异与杏仁核功能改变有关（杏仁核与儿童期、青少年期和成年期的情绪和情绪调节有关），但功能神经影像学研究的结果却相互矛盾，没有定论。我们旨在阐明神经质与三种假设的神经标记物之间的关系，这些标记物来自负面情绪面孔处理期间的功能磁共振成像：杏仁核激活、杏仁核习惯化和杏仁核-前额叶连接，它们在情绪的体验和调节中都起着重要作用。我们使用一般线性模型，在超过 500 名年轻成年人的大样本中，研究了特质神经质与假设的神经标记物之间的关系。尽管神经质与杏仁核激活或杏仁核习惯化的幅度没有显著相关，但它与杏仁核-腹内侧前额叶皮层的连接有关，后者与情绪调节有关。研究结果表明，特质神经质可能代表对情绪反应的自上而下控制和调节的失败，而不是情绪产生过程本身过度活跃。这些发现表明，神经质与更广泛的精神病理学发病率增加有关，可能代表与情绪调节相关的抑制神经回路的失败。
