School of Public Affairs and Administration, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China.
The Clinical Hospital of Chengdu Brain Science Institute, School of Life Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China; MOE Key Lab for Neuroinformation; High-Field Magnetic Resonance Brain Imaging Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China.
Prog Neuropsychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry. 2022 Dec 20;119:110595. doi: 10.1016/j.pnpbp.2022.110595. Epub 2022 Jul 1.
Massive theoretical studies in clinical psychology have implicated the self in understanding internalizing disorders (i.e., anxiety and mood disorders), in which self-related tasks were frequently used to investigate internalizing psychopathology. As one of the most frequently seen internalizing disorder in primary care, patients with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) are characterized by inappropriate self-related processing such as negative self-referential thinking. However, relevant neural mechanisms remain unknown. In this study, participants underwent a self-related task which they were presented with several positive and negative trait words and were required to judge the extent to which these traits matched themselves when compared to their average peers. Aberrant brain activation and functional connectivity of GAD were detected during processing positive and negative traits. Compared to healthy controls (HCs), patients with GAD exhibited abnormal self-processing which manifested as lower biased self-rating scores particularly for negative traits and weaker brain activity in the left dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, inferior frontal gyrus, superior temporal sulcus (STS), and bilateral lingual gyrus when processing trait words. Abnormal functional connections between these hypoactive regions and regions associated with reward, emotion, and theory of mind were observed in subsequent psychophysiological interaction analysis. An attenuation of connectivity between the left insula and left STS was associated with greater severity of anxiety symptom in GAD patients. These findings provide insight into the abnormal neurocognitive mechanisms of biased self-related processing in GAD patients, which involves distorted self-schema accompanied by abnormal activation and functional connections of regions implicated in self-related and social cognition processing.
大量的临床心理学理论研究表明，自我在理解内化障碍（即焦虑和情绪障碍）中起着重要作用，其中自我相关任务经常被用于研究内化精神病理学。广泛性焦虑障碍（GAD）是初级保健中最常见的内化障碍之一，其特征是自我相关处理不当，例如消极的自我参照思维。然而，相关的神经机制仍不清楚。在这项研究中，参与者接受了一项自我相关任务，他们被呈现了几个积极和消极的特质词，并被要求判断这些特质与自己相比与自己的平均同龄人相比的匹配程度。在处理积极和消极特质时，发现 GAD 患者的大脑激活和功能连接异常。与健康对照组（HCs）相比，GAD 患者表现出异常的自我处理，表现为对消极特质的自我评分偏差较小，对特质词的处理时左背内侧前额叶皮质、下额回、上颞回（STS）和双侧舌回的大脑活动较弱。在后续的心理生理交互分析中观察到这些低活性区域与与奖励、情感和心理理论相关的区域之间的异常功能连接。左岛叶和左 STS 之间连接的减弱与 GAD 患者焦虑症状的严重程度有关。这些发现为 GAD 患者中偏向自我相关处理的异常神经认知机制提供了深入了解，涉及到扭曲的自我图式，伴随着与自我相关和社会认知处理相关的区域的异常激活和功能连接。
