{"title":"The vocal side of empathy: neural correlates of pain perception in spoken complaints","authors":"Maël Mauchand, Jorge L Armony, Marc D Pell","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsad075","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsad075","url":null,"abstract":"In the extensive neuroimaging literature on empathy for pain, few studies have investigated how this phenomenon may relate to everyday social situations such as spoken interactions. The present study used fMRI to assess how complaints, as vocal expressions of pain, are empathically processed by listeners and how these empathic responses may vary based on speakers’ vocal expression and cultural identity. Twenty-four French participants listened to short utterances describing a painful event, that were either produced in a neutral-sounding or complaining voice by both ingroup (French) and outgroup (French-Canadian) speakers. Results suggest that the perception of suffering from a complaining voice increased activity in the Emotional Voice Areas (EVAs), composed of voice-sensitive temporal regions interacting with prefrontal cortices and the amygdala. The Salience and Theory of Mind networks, associated with affective and cognitive aspects of empathy, also showed prosody-related activity and specifically correlated with behavioral evaluations of suffering by listeners. Complaints produced by in- vs. outgroup speakers elicited sensorimotor and default-mode activity, respectively, suggesting accent-based changes in empathic perspective. These results, while reaffirming the role of key networks in tasks involving empathy, highlight the importance of vocal expression information and social categorization processes when perceiving another’s suffering during social interactions.","PeriodicalId":21789,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2023-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138690486","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Does pain hurt more in Spanish? The Neurobiology of Pain among Spanish-English Bilingual Adults","authors":"Morgan Gianola, Maria Llabre, Elizabeth Losin","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsad074","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsad074","url":null,"abstract":"We previously found Spanish-English bilingual adults reported higher pain intensity when exposed to painful heat in the language of their stronger cultural orientation. Here, we elucidate brain systems involved in language-driven alterations in pain responses. During separate English- and Spanish-speaking fMRI scanning runs, 39 (21 female) bilingual adults rated painful heat intermixed between culturally evocative images and completed sentence reading tasks. Surveys of cultural identity and language use measured relative preference for US-American vs Hispanic culture (cultural orientation). Participants produced higher intensity ratings in Spanish compared to English. Group-level whole-brain differences in pain-evoked activity between languages emerged in somatosensory, cingulate, precuneus, and cerebellar cortex. Regions of interest associated with semantic, attention, and somatosensory processing showed higher average pain-evoked responses in participants’ culturally preferred language, as did expression of a multivariate pain-predictive pattern. Follow-up moderated mediation analyses showed somatosensory activity mediated language effects on pain intensity, particularly for Hispanic oriented participants. These findings relate to distinct (“meddler”, “spotlight”, and “inducer”) hypotheses about the nature of language effects on perception and cognition. Knowledge of language influences on pain could improve efficacy of culturally sensitive treatment approaches across the diversity of Hispanic adults to mitigate documented health disparities in this population.","PeriodicalId":21789,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2023-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138690254","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Speed of Race","authors":"Peter de Lissa, Pauline Schaller, Roberto Caldara","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsad076","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsad076","url":null,"abstract":"When asked to categorize faces according to ‘race’, people typically categorize other-race faces faster than faces belonging to their own race. This Other Race Categorization Advantage is thought to reflect enhanced sensitivity to early visual signals characteristic of other-race faces, and can manifest within 200 ms of face presentation. However, recent research has highlighted the importance of signal intensity in this effect, where visual-degradation of the face images significantly enhances the effect and exposes a behavioural threshold at very low levels of visual quality where other-race visual signals are able to be perceived while same-race signals are not. The current study investigated the effect of signal intensity in race categorization processes in the brain through electroencephalography and in accuracy/reaction times. While replicating the previously observed enhancement of the other-race categorization advantage, we also found enhanced sensitivity to other-race faces in early P1 peaks, as well as later N170, and N250 peaks. These effects, however, related to the varying levels of signal intensity in the face stimuli, suggesting that race categorization may involve different types of perceptual and neural processes rather than one discrete process. The speed at which race is perceived depends on the intensity of the face signal.","PeriodicalId":21789,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2023-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138690501","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Effector-specific motor simulation supplements core action recognition processes in adverse conditions.","authors":"Gilles Vannuscorps, Alfonso Caramazza","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsad046","DOIUrl":"10.1093/scan/nsad046","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Observing other people acting activates imitative motor plans in the observer. Whether, and if so when and how, such 'effector-specific motor simulation' contributes to action recognition remains unclear. We report that individuals born without upper limbs (IDs)-who cannot covertly imitate upper-limb movements-are significantly less accurate at recognizing degraded (but not intact) upper-limb than lower-limb actions (i.e. point-light animations). This finding emphasizes the need to reframe the current controversy regarding the role of effector-specific motor simulation in action recognition: instead of focusing on the dichotomy between motor and non-motor theories, the field would benefit from new hypotheses specifying when and how effector-specific motor simulation may supplement core action recognition processes to accommodate the full variety of action stimuli that humans can recognize.</p>","PeriodicalId":21789,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2023-10-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10576201/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10542250","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Mothers exhibit higher neural activity in gaining rewards for their children than for themselves.","authors":"Yan Zhang, Yachao Rong, Ping Wei","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsad048","DOIUrl":"10.1093/scan/nsad048","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Are people willing to exert greater effort to obtain rewards for their children than they are for themselves? Although previous studies have demonstrated that social distance influences neural responses to altruistic reward processing, the distinction between winning rewards for oneself and winning them for one's child is unclear. In the present study, a group of 31 mothers performed a monetary incentive delay task in which cue-induced reward anticipations of winning a reward for themselves, their children and donation to a charity program were manipulated trial-wise, followed by performance-contingent feedback. Behaviorally, the anticipation of winning a reward for their children accelerated participants' responses. Importantly, the electroencephalogram results revealed that across the reward anticipation and consumption phases, the child condition elicited comparable or higher brain responses of participants than the self condition did. The source localization results showed that participants' reward anticipations for their children were associated with more activation in the social brain regions, compared to winning a reward for themselves or a charity donation. Overall, these findings advance our understanding of the neural mechanisms of altruistic reward processing and suggest that the priority of winning a reward for one's child may transcend the limits of the self-advantage effect in reward processing.</p>","PeriodicalId":21789,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2023-10-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10558201/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10227403","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Similarity in functional connectome architecture predicts teenage grit.","authors":"Sujin Park, Daeun Park, M Justin Kim","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsad047","DOIUrl":"10.1093/scan/nsad047","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Grit is a personality trait that encapsulates the tendency to persevere and maintain consistent interest for long-term goals. While prior studies found that grit predicts positive behavioral outcomes, there is a paucity of work providing explanatory evidence from a neurodevelopmental perspective. Based on previous research suggesting the utility of the functional connectome (FC) as a developmental measure, we tested the idea that individual differences in grit might be, in part, rooted in brain development in adolescence and emerging adulthood (N = 64, 11-19 years of age). Our analysis showed that grit was associated with connectome stability across conditions and connectome similarity across individuals. Notably, inter-subject representational similarity analysis revealed that teenagers who were grittier shared similar FC architecture with each other, more so than those with lower grit. Our findings suggest that individuals with high levels of grit are more likely to exhibit a converging pattern of whole-brain functional connectivity, which may underpin subsequent beneficial behavioral outcomes.</p>","PeriodicalId":21789,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2023-10-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pmc/oa_pdf/49/e5/nsad047.PMC10549957.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10214803","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Christopher Stolz, Ariane Bulla, Joram Soch, Björn H Schott, Anni Richter
{"title":"Openness to Experience is associated with neural and performance measures of memory in older adults.","authors":"Christopher Stolz, Ariane Bulla, Joram Soch, Björn H Schott, Anni Richter","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsad041","DOIUrl":"10.1093/scan/nsad041","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Age-related decline in episodic memory performance is a well-replicated finding across numerous studies. Recent studies focusing on aging and individual differences found that the Big Five personality trait Openness to Experience (hereafter: Openness) is associated with better episodic memory performance in older adults, but the associated neural mechanisms are largely unclear. Here, we investigated the relationship between Openness and memory network function in a sample of 352 participants (143 older adults, 50-80 years; 209 young adults, 18-35 years). Participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during a visual memory encoding task. Functional memory brain-network integrity was assessed using the similarity of activations during memory encoding (SAME) scores, which reflect the similarity of a participant's memory network activity compared to prototypical fMRI activity patterns of young adults. Openness was assessed using the NEO Five-Factor Inventory. Older vs young adults showed lower memory performance and higher deviation of fMRI activity patterns (i.e. lower SAME scores). Specifically in older adults, high Openness was associated with better memory performance, and mediation analysis showed that this relationship was partially mediated by higher SAME scores. Our results suggest that trait Openness may constitute a protective factor in cognitive aging by better preservation of the brain's memory network.</p>","PeriodicalId":21789,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2023-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10533339/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10073428","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Sarah L Dziura, Aditi Hosangadi, Deena Shariq, Junaid S Merchant, Elizabeth Redcay
{"title":"Partner similarity and social cognitive traits predict social interaction success among strangers.","authors":"Sarah L Dziura, Aditi Hosangadi, Deena Shariq, Junaid S Merchant, Elizabeth Redcay","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsad045","DOIUrl":"10.1093/scan/nsad045","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Social interactions are a ubiquitous part of engaging in the world around us, and determining what makes an interaction successful is necessary for social well-being. This study examined the separate contributions of individual social cognitive ability and partner similarity to social interaction success among strangers, measured by a cooperative communication task and self-reported interaction quality. Sixty participants engaged in a 1-h virtual social interaction with an unfamiliar partner (a laboratory confederate) including a 30-min cooperative 'mind-reading' game and then completed several individual tasks and surveys. They then underwent a separate functional MRI session in which they passively viewed video clips that varied in content. The neural responses to these videos were correlated with those of their confederate interaction partners to yield a measure of pairwise neural similarity. We found that trait empathy (assessed by the interpersonal reactivity index) and neural similarity to partner both predicted communication success in the mind-reading game. In contrast, perceived similarity to partner and (to a much lesser extent) trait mind-reading motivation predicted self-reported interaction quality. These results highlight the importance of sharing perspectives in successful communication as well as differences between neurobiological similarity and perceived similarity in supporting different types of interaction success.</p>","PeriodicalId":21789,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2023-09-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10516339/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10214435","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Johanna Basten-Günther, Laura Jutz, Madelon L Peters, Janosch A Priebe, Stefan Lautenbacher
{"title":"The effect of induced optimism on early pain processing: indication by contact heat evoked potentials (CHEPs) and the sympathetic skin response (SSR).","authors":"Johanna Basten-Günther, Laura Jutz, Madelon L Peters, Janosch A Priebe, Stefan Lautenbacher","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsad042","DOIUrl":"10.1093/scan/nsad042","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Situationally induced optimism has been shown to influence several components of experimental pain. The aim of the present study was to enlarge these findings for the first time to the earliest components of the pain response by measuring contact heat evoked potentials (CHEPs) and the sympathetic skin response (SSR). Forty-seven healthy participants underwent two blocks of phasic thermal stimulation. CHEPs, the SSR and self-report pain ratings were recorded. Between the blocks of stimulation, the 'Best Possible Self' imagery and writing task was performed to induce situational optimism. The optimism manipulation was successful in increasing state optimism. It did, however, neither affect pain-evoked potentials nor the SSR nor self-report pain ratings. These results suggest that optimism does not alter early responses to pain. The higher-level cognitive processes involved in optimistic thinking might only act on later stages of pain processing. Therefore, more research is needed targeting different time frames of stimulus processing and response measures for early and late pain processing in parallel.</p>","PeriodicalId":21789,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2023-09-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10508319/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10652343","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cheryl L Grady, Jenny R Rieck, Giulia Baracchini, Brennan DeSouza
{"title":"Relation of resting brain signal variability to cognitive and socioemotional measures in an adult lifespan sample.","authors":"Cheryl L Grady, Jenny R Rieck, Giulia Baracchini, Brennan DeSouza","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsad044","DOIUrl":"10.1093/scan/nsad044","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Temporal variability of the fMRI-derived blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) signal during cognitive tasks shows important associations with individual differences in age and performance. Less is known about relations between spontaneous BOLD variability measured at rest and relatively stable cognitive measures, such as IQ or socioemotional function. Here, we examined associations among resting BOLD variability, cognitive/socioemotional scores from the NIH Toolbox and optimal time of day for alertness (chronotype) in a sample of 157 adults from 20 to 86 years of age. To investigate individual differences in these associations independently of age, we regressed age out from both behavioral and BOLD variability scores. We hypothesized that greater BOLD variability would be related to higher fluid cognition scores, more positive scores on socioemotional scales and a morningness chronotype. Consistent with this idea, we found positive correlations between resting BOLD variability, positive socioemotional scores (e.g. self-efficacy) and morning chronotype, as well as negative correlations between variability and negative emotional scores (e.g. loneliness). Unexpectedly, we found negative correlations between BOLD variability and fluid cognition. These results suggest that greater resting brain signal variability facilitates optimal socioemotional function and characterizes those with morning-type circadian rhythms, but individuals with greater fluid cognition may be more likely to show less temporal variability in spontaneous measures of BOLD activity.</p>","PeriodicalId":21789,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2023-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10508322/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10670368","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}