Laboratory for Behavioral Neurology and Imaging of Cognition, Department of Fundamental Neurosciences, University Medical School of Geneva, Geneva 1202, Switzerland.
Psychology Program, Division of Science, New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, UAE.
Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2024 Feb 16;19(1). doi: 10.1093/scan/nsae012.
Neuroticism is a personality trait with great clinical relevance, defined as a tendency to experience negative affect, sustained self-generated negative thoughts and impaired emotion regulation. Here, we investigated spontaneous brain dynamics in the aftermath of negative emotional events and their links with neuroticism in order to shed light on the prolonged activity of large-scale brain networks associated with the control of affect. We recorded electroencephalography (EEG) from 36 participants who were asked to rest after watching neutral or fearful video clips. Four topographic maps (i.e. microstates classes A, B, C and D) explained the majority of the variance in spontaneous EEG. Participants showed greater presence of microstate D and lesser presence of microstate C following exposure to fearful stimuli, pointing to changes in attention- and introspection-related networks previously associated with these microstates. These emotional effects were more pronounced for participants with low neuroticism. Moreover, neuroticism scores were positively correlated with microstate C and negatively correlated with microstate D, regardless of previous emotional stimulation. Our results reveal distinctive effects of emotional context on resting-state EEG, consistent with a prolonged impact of negative affect on the brain, and suggest a possible link with neuroticism.
神经质是一种具有重要临床相关性的人格特质，定义为体验负面情绪、持续自我产生负面想法和情绪调节受损的倾向。在这里，我们研究了负面情绪事件后的自发大脑动力学及其与神经质的关系，以期揭示与情感控制相关的大规模脑网络的持续活动。我们从 36 名参与者那里记录了脑电图 (EEG)，他们被要求在观看中性或恐惧视频剪辑后休息。四个地形图（即微状态 A、B、C 和 D 类）解释了自发 EEG 中大部分方差。与这些微状态先前相关的注意力和内省相关网络的变化表明，参与者在接触恐惧刺激后表现出微状态 D 的出现更多，微状态 C 的出现更少。对于神经质程度较低的参与者，这些情绪影响更为明显。此外，神经质评分与微状态 C 呈正相关，与微状态 D 呈负相关，无论之前是否有情绪刺激。我们的结果揭示了情绪背景对静息态 EEG 的独特影响，这与负面情绪对大脑的持续影响一致，并表明与神经质可能存在联系。
