Zareba Michal Rafal, Bielski Krzysztof, Costumero Victor, Visser Maya
Neuropsychology and Functional Neuroimaging Group, Department of Basic and Clinical Psychology and Psychobiology, Jaume I University, Castellon de la Plana 12-006, Spain.
Institute of Psychology, Jagiellonian University, Krakow 30-060, Poland.
Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2024 Dec 13;19(1). doi: 10.1093/scan/nsae092.
Maladaptive forms of guilt, such as excessive self-blame, are common characteristics of anxiety and depressive disorders. The underlying network consists of multiple associative areas, including the superior anterior temporal lobe (sATL), underlying the conceptual representations of social meaning, and fronto-subcortical areas involved in the affective dimension of guilt. Nevertheless, despite understanding the circuitry's anatomy, network-level changes related to subclinical anxiety and self-blaming behaviour have not been depicted. To fill this gap, we used graph theory analyses on a resting-state functional and diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging dataset of 78 healthy adults (20 females, 20-35 years old). Within the guilt network, we found increased functional contributions of the left sATL for individuals with higher self-blaming, while functional isolation of the left pars opercularis and insula was related to higher trait anxiety. Trait anxiety was also linked to the structural network's mean clustering coefficient, with the circuitry's architecture favouring increased local information processing in individuals with increased anxiety levels, however, only when a highly specific subset of connections was considered. Previous research suggests that aberrant interactions between conceptual (sATL) and affective (fronto-limbic) regions underlie maladaptive guilt, and the current results align and expand on this theory by detailing network changes associated with self-blame and trait anxiety.
适应不良的内疚形式，如过度自责，是焦虑症和抑郁症的常见特征。其潜在网络由多个联合区域组成，包括负责社会意义概念表征的颞上叶前部（sATL），以及参与内疚情感维度的额-皮质下区域。然而，尽管了解了该神经回路的解剖结构，但与亚临床焦虑和自责行为相关的网络层面变化尚未得到描述。为了填补这一空白，我们对78名健康成年人（20名女性，年龄在20 - 35岁之间）的静息态功能磁共振成像和扩散加权磁共振成像数据集进行了图论分析。在内疚网络中，我们发现自责程度较高的个体，其左sATL的功能贡献增加，而左岛盖部和脑岛的功能隔离与较高的特质焦虑有关。特质焦虑还与结构网络的平均聚类系数有关，当仅考虑一个高度特定的连接子集时，该神经回路的结构有利于焦虑水平增加的个体进行更多的局部信息处理。先前的研究表明，概念性（sATL）和情感性（额-边缘系统）区域之间的异常相互作用是适应不良内疚的基础，当前的研究结果通过详细描述与自责和特质焦虑相关的网络变化，与这一理论相一致并进行了扩展。
