Department of Psychology, The University of Alabama at Birmingham, CIRC 235H, 1720 2nd Ave S., Birmingham, AL, 35294, USA.
Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine, Pasadena, CA, USA.
Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci. 2020 Dec;20(6):1261-1277. doi: 10.3758/s13415-020-00833-1. Epub 2020 Sep 30.
Chronic childhood stress is linked to greater susceptibility to internalizing disorders in adulthood. Specifically, chronic stress leads to changes in brain connectivity patterns, and, in turn, affects psychological functioning. Violence exposure, a chronic stressor, increases stress reactivity and disrupts emotion regulation processes. However, it is unclear to what extent violence exposure affects the neural circuitry underlying emotion regulation. Individual differences in affective style also moderate the impact of stress on psychological function and can thus alter the relationship between violence exposure and brain function. Resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) is an index of intrinsic brain activity. Stress-induced changes in rsFC between the amygdala, hippocampus, and prefrontal cortex (PFC) are associated with emotion dysregulation and may elucidate how affective style modulates the relationship between violence exposure and brain connectivity. Therefore, the present study examined the impact of violence exposure and affective style on stress-induced changes in rsFC. Participants (n = 233) completed two 6-minute resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging scans, one before (pre-stress) and one after (post-stress) a psychosocial stress task. The bilateral amygdala, hippocampus, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) were used as seed regions for rsFC analyses. Significant stress-induced changes in the prefrontal, fronto-limbic, and parieto-limbic rsFC were observed. Further, pre-stress to post-stress differences in rsFC varied with violence exposure and affective style. These findings suggest that prefrontal, fronto-limbic, and parieto-limbic connectivity is associated with the emotional response to stress and provide new insight into the neural mechanisms through which affective style moderates the impact violence exposure has on the brain.
慢性儿童期压力与成年后患内化障碍的易感性增加有关。具体而言，慢性压力会导致大脑连接模式发生变化，进而影响心理功能。暴力暴露是一种慢性压力源，会增加应激反应并破坏情绪调节过程。然而，暴力暴露对情绪调节的神经回路的影响程度尚不清楚。情感风格的个体差异也会调节压力对心理功能的影响，从而改变暴力暴露与大脑功能之间的关系。静息态功能连接（rsFC）是大脑活动的内在指标。杏仁核、海马体和前额叶皮层（PFC）之间 rsFC 的应激诱导变化与情绪失调有关，可能阐明情感风格如何调节暴力暴露与大脑连接之间的关系。因此，本研究探讨了暴力暴露和情感风格对 rsFC 中应激诱导变化的影响。参与者（n=233）完成了两次 6 分钟的静息态功能磁共振成像扫描，一次在（应激前）和一次在（应激后）心理社会应激任务之前。双侧杏仁核、海马体和腹内侧前额叶皮层（vmPFC）被用作 rsFC 分析的种子区域。观察到前额叶、额-边缘和顶-边缘 rsFC 的显著应激诱导变化。此外，rsFC 的应激前到应激后差异随暴力暴露和情感风格而异。这些发现表明，前额叶、额-边缘和顶-边缘连接与应激的情绪反应有关，并为情感风格调节暴力暴露对大脑影响的神经机制提供了新的见解。
