{"title":"Functional gradient variations in different neuroticism levels and its correlation with cell type-specific transcriptional signatures.","authors":"Jing Li, Xinrong Li, Ruiting Li, Jing Luo, Yong Xu, Guanqun Yao","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsag035","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsag035","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Neuroticism is significantly associated with various psychiatric disorders. Individuals exhibiting high levels of neuroticism are more susceptible to experiencing anxiety, depression, and other negative emotional responses. Research on the differences in macroscopic functional connectivity gradients among neuroticism levels and their associations with microscopic transcriptomics remains scarce. This study explores the associations between functional gradient and transcriptional expression in neuroticism across 109 individuals with low neuroticism (LNG) and 210 with medium-high neuroticism (MHNG). We analyzed functional gradient alterations in MHNG and their correlations with neurotransmitters, meta-analytic cognitive terms, and transcriptional patterns using partial least squares regression (PLS), involving similarity with major psychiatric disorders, functional enrichments, developmental stages, cortical layers, and specific cell types. MHNG exhibited functional gradient changes within the default, limbic, and visual networks, which correlated with higher-order cognitive terms and alterations in several neurotransmitters. We identified significant overlaps between PLS1 weighted genes and those dysregulated in schizophrenia and autism. Genes linked with gradient alterations were enriched in synaptic signaling, infection and metabolism, astrocytes, specific cortical layers, and developmental phases from early fetal to young adulthood. These findings offer a critical theoretical foundation for understanding the complex relationship between macroscopic functional gradients and microscopic transcriptional patterns across various neuroticism levels.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-05-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147857926","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Social Priors and Mentalizing Connectivity Across Autistic and Schizotypal Traits.","authors":"Xin Tuo, Han-Yu Zhou, Yi Wang","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsag033","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsag033","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and schizophrenia spectrum disorder (SSD) both involve social-cognitive difficulties but may rely on opposite predictive mechanisms. Predictive-coding and diametrical accounts propose weak priors in ASD versus strong priors in SSD. We tested whether autistic and positive schizotypal traits differentially shape the use of social priors when interpreting ambiguous social cues. Two studies with non-clinical adults employed an adapted Animated Triangles Task (ATT) with three cueing conditions: Random-Uncued, Random-Cued, and ToM-Cued. Study 1 (n = 71) assessed behavior; Study 2 (n = 45) combined behavioral data with task-based functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), including region-of-interest (ROI) and psychophysiological interaction (PPI) analyses of the temporoparietal junction (TPJ), medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), and cerebellar Crus II. Social-attribution ratings increased across conditions, confirming the cueing manipulation. At the uncorrected level, higher positive schizotypal traits were associated with greater social attribution without cues, whereas higher autistic traits were associated with lower intention ratings despite strong cues. ToM-Cued trials activated the mentalizing network. Both trait dimensions showed exploratory associations with reduced mentalizing-network connectivity. These preliminary findings suggest potentially shared neural patterns coupled with divergent behavioral responses across the autism-psychosis trait continuum, pending further validation with larger sample sizes and adjusted statistical analyses.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-05-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147857936","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Andrew L Lyons, Xinrui Jiang, Thomas Rawliuk, Lauryn Burleigh, Scarlett Horner, Laurent Grégoire, Steven G Greening
{"title":"VMPFC activity during extinction recall suggests successful extinction learning via mental imagery.","authors":"Andrew L Lyons, Xinrui Jiang, Thomas Rawliuk, Lauryn Burleigh, Scarlett Horner, Laurent Grégoire, Steven G Greening","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsag031","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsag031","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Mental imagery is an important element of psychological therapies for fear-related disorders. The present study evaluated the efficacy of imagery extinction using a within-subject design allowing for the comparison of a conditioned stimulus extinguished via mental imagery (CS+Ei) to an unextinguished conditioned stimulus (CS+U) during extinction recall. Twenty-eight human participants underwent differential fear conditioning during functional magnetic resonance imagining (fMRI). Successful acquisition of differential fear conditioning was confirmed by self-reported fear, skin conductance response (SCR), and activation the anterior insula (AIC) and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC). Next, participants imagined the CS+Ei without mild shock and the CS- during the Imagery Extinction Learning phase, in which fear transfer was confirmed with self-reported fear and SCR. Lastly, all stimuli were again visually presented in the Visual Extinction Recall phase. Significantly greater vmPFC activity was observed for the CS+Ei compared to the CS+U, suggestive of successful extinction recall following imagery extinction. Moreover, a vmPFC seed-based psychophysiological interaction analysis indicated that unlike the CS+Ei, the CS+U was positively connected with bilateral amygdala during extinction recall. The present study highlights dissociable vmPFC involvement during extinction recall when viewing the CS+Ei following fear extinction using mental imagery as compared to the unextinguished CS+.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-05-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147848286","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jin Li, Tiantian Tan, Guanfei Zhang, Yu Sun, Yiping Zhong
{"title":"Neural and Behavioral Dynamics of (Mis)alignment with AI versus Humans in Risky Decision Revision.","authors":"Jin Li, Tiantian Tan, Guanfei Zhang, Yu Sun, Yiping Zhong","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsag034","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsag034","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly used as social information in risky decision-making, yet little is known about how AI, versus humans, shapes decision revision at the neural level. We combined behavioral measures and event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine how feedback attributed to an AI or human counterpart influenced risky decision revision under alignment and misalignment. Participants completed a two-stage risky decision task: they first chose between a risky and a safe option, then viewed an aligned or misaligned choice attributed to either an AI or a human counterpart, and finally made a revised choice. Switching rates and attitudes toward AI were measured, and ERPs were time-locked to feedback onset. Behaviorally, participants switched more when misaligned with AI than with a human, and higher AI acceptance predicted greater switching under AI misalignment. Neurally, the N1 was more negative for human- than AI-attributed feedback, suggesting early differentiation of counterpart identity. The FRN was more negative for misalignment than alignment, with no counterpart effect. The P3 was larger for alignment than misalignment and larger for AI than human under alignment, and increased with more positive AI attitudes. These findings suggest stage-differentiated processing of AI- and human-attributed social feedback during risky decision revision.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-05-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147848247","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Tyler D Robinson, McKenzie Andries, Steven G Greening
{"title":"Both mental imagery and object-based attention regulate differential fear conditioning in the anterior insula.","authors":"Tyler D Robinson, McKenzie Andries, Steven G Greening","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsag032","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsag032","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Distraction is a common emotion regulation strategy, disrupting emotion generation by prioritizing distracter stimulus processing at the expense of the emotion elicitor. Across two experiments (experiment 1: behavioral psychophysiology, N = 44; experiment 2: neuroimaging with psychophysiology, N = 28), we predicted that both object-based (external) and mental imagery-based (internal) distraction would down-regulate differential fear responding. Participants underwent differential fear conditioning, pairing one face image with shock (CS+) while another face image was never paired with shock (CS-). Participants then viewed face/place composite images and were cued to attend to the face (CS+ or CS-) or distract themselves. Distraction was achieved either by attending to a superimposed place image (external distraction) or imagining a place image (internal distraction). Skin conductance response, self-reported fear, and anterior insula (aIn) results confirmed the acquisition of differential fear. Self-reported fear and aIn results evidenced fear down-regulation in both object-based and imagery-based distraction. Activity in stimulus-specific regions of the ventral visual stream suggested that fear down-regulation occurred via prioritization of the visually displayed or imagined distracter, inhibiting CS+ processing. Though effective, internal distraction was rated as more difficult than external distraction. Together, these findings suggest that both object-based and mental imagery-based distraction successfully down-regulated differential fear responding.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-05-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147848323","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Time and amount attributes exert distinct neural influences on gain and loss evaluation.","authors":"Ya Zheng, Chenlu Guan, Puyu Shi","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsag029","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsag029","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>People typically discount delayed gains more than delayed losses, reflecting a gain-loss asymmetry. This event-related potential study examined how neural representations of amount and time, two prominent attributes in delay discounting, are influenced by contextual valence (gains vs. losses) through the lens of neural dynamics. Forty participants performed a simple guessing task in which they experienced a gain context with varying reward amounts delivered at different time delays, and a loss context with varying loss amounts delivered similarly. Time and amount attributes were manipulated orthogonally and parametrically. Results showed that in the gain context, time attribute was first tracked during the reward positivity (RewP) period, then integrated with linearly-increasing monetary value during the P3 period, and finally processed independently from monetary value during the late positive potential (LPP) period. In the loss context, time was similarly processed during the RewP period, whereas monetary value was not tracked until the LPP period. Additionally, a correlation between behavioral and neural delay discounting was found in the loss but not gain context. Our findings demonstrate distinct evaluative processes for time and amount attributes between gain and loss contexts, providing new insights into the gain-loss asymmetry in delay discounting.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-05-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147848284","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Alicia Vallorani, Marisa N Lytle, Morgan Gilmer, Melissa Bomberger, Michael N Hallquist, Koraly Pérez-Edgar
{"title":"Effect of social interaction negative affect on within-person mentalizing network connectivity.","authors":"Alicia Vallorani, Marisa N Lytle, Morgan Gilmer, Melissa Bomberger, Michael N Hallquist, Koraly Pérez-Edgar","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsag027","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsag027","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Understanding others' intentions and emotions is supported by the mentalizing network, helping people navigate the inherently complex dynamics of social interactions. However, work investigating the mentalizing network often relies on non-naturalistic methods, limiting our understanding of individual differences most apparent within social interaction contexts. We took a naturalistic, multilevel approach to investigate relations between real-world affective expressions, social anxiety symptoms and mentalizing network connectivity. Same gender-identity friend pairs (40 participants; 62.5% Women; 87.5% White) engaged in a social interaction while videos from their individual visual perspectives were recorded. Participants were later scanned while they watched clips of the interaction from their own (self run) and their friend's (friend run) perspective. We found that expressed negative affect, not expressed positive affect, related to within-person variation in mentalizing network connectivity across perspectives. Further, participants higher in social anxiety symptoms showed more consistent mentalizing network connectivity across perspectives when expressed negative affect was higher than average, and particularly when friend negative affect expressions, rather than their own negative affect expressions, were higher. Mentalizing network connectivity may be responsive to shifts in negative affect during social interactions and individuals with higher social anxiety may find negative affect from a friend particularly salient.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-04-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147701455","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Daniel Agostinho, Daniela Sousa, Miguel Castelo-Branco, Marco Simões
{"title":"Restricted Neural Parametric modulation of emotional arousal in autism reveals a core role for the cerebellum.","authors":"Daniel Agostinho, Daniela Sousa, Miguel Castelo-Branco, Marco Simões","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsag026","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsag026","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Understanding how emotional arousal and valence are processed in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is key to uncovering underlying affective mechanisms. Prior research has yielded mixed results, particularly regarding arousal. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we examined neural responses to emotional video clips in adults with ASD (n = 20) and typically developing controls (n = 20). Stimuli were designed to elicit controlled emotional responses with standardized visual and narrative features, and parametric modulation analyses assessed neural activation as a function of self-reported arousal and valence. Behavioral ratings confirmed stimulus validity. For arousal, typically developing individuals showed widespread modulation across frontal, parietal, temporal, and subcortical regions, including the cingulate gyrus, insula, caudate, and ventral tegmental area. In contrast, ASD participants exhibited restricted modulation, primarily within the anterior cerebellum. No group differences emerged for valence, with both groups recruiting frontal and limbic regions such as the amygdala and insula. These findings highlight a dissociation between arousal and valence processing in ASD. Reduced cortical engagement and increased anterior cerebellar (including the vermis) involvement during arousal suggest compensatory mechanisms, underscoring the importance of distinguishing emotional dimensions when characterizing neural processes in autism.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-04-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147679916","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Melanni Nanni-Zepeda, Travis C Evans, Audreyana Jagger-Rickels, Gal Raz, Talma Hendler, Yan Fan, Simone Grimm, Martin Walter, Michael Esterman, Agnieszka Zuberer
{"title":"Generalizable Neural Models of Emotional Engagement and Disengagement.","authors":"Melanni Nanni-Zepeda, Travis C Evans, Audreyana Jagger-Rickels, Gal Raz, Talma Hendler, Yan Fan, Simone Grimm, Martin Walter, Michael Esterman, Agnieszka Zuberer","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsag022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsag022","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Emotional experiences are never static but continuously evolve in response to internal and external contexts. Little is known about how neural patterns change as a function of these experiences, particularly in response to complex, real-world stimuli. This study aimed to identify generalizable neural patterns as individuals collectively engage and disengage from emotions dynamically. To do so, we analyzed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) along with subjective emotional annotations from two independent studies as individuals watched negative and neutral movie clips. We used predictive modeling to test if a model trained to predict a group emotional signature response in one study generalizes to the other study and vice versa. Disengagement patterns generalized specifically across intense clips. They were supported by connections within and between the sensorimotor and salience networks, maybe reflecting the processing of feeling states as individuals regulate their emotions. Prediction success for the engagement signature was mixed, but primarily linked to connections within the visual and between the visual and dorsal attention networks, maybe supporting visual attention orienting as emotions intensify. This work offers potential pathways for identifying generalizable neural patterns contributing to future affective research and clinical applications aiming to better understand dynamic emotional responses to naturalistic stimuli.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-04-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147625207","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Carlos Ventura-Bort, Lea Kolesnyk, Marion Dopfer, Lorena Chanes, Mathias Weymar
{"title":"Prediction Strength Shapes Representations of Social Judgments and Bodily Responses to Prediction Violations.","authors":"Carlos Ventura-Bort, Lea Kolesnyk, Marion Dopfer, Lorena Chanes, Mathias Weymar","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsag025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsag025","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Perceivers' beliefs are critical to form social judgments. However, it remains unclear how the strength of these beliefs or predictions shapes social perception. Here, we investigated how the representation of social perceptions (trustworthiness and likeability ratings) and bodily responses (skin conductance response; SCR) are modulated by prediction strength, using representational similarity analysis. In two samples of university students, stronger predictions led participants to judge identities as more trustworthy and likeable when identities' facial reactions conformed to their predictions compared to when they were violated. Furthermore, the representational structure of social judgments and SCR were associated with models of prediction fulfillment/violation. More importantly, the similarity between social judgments, SCR representations, and models of prediction violation were positively linked to predictions strength. These results demonstrate that predictions strength modulates how fulfilled/violated predictions influence social judgments and bodily responses, providing new insights into the mechanisms underlying social perception.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2026-03-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147583387","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}