{"title":"Cerebellar contribution to emotion regulation and its association with medial frontal GABA level.","authors":"Yumi Oboshi, Toshiki Iwabuchi, Yohei Takata, Tomoyasu Bunai, Yasuomi Ouchi","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsae091","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsae091","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>As a tactic to regulate emotions, distancing involves changing perspectives to alter the psychological distance from stimuli that elicit emotional reactions. Using magnetic resonance spectroscopy and functional magnetic resonance imaging, this study aimed to examine (i) whether the neural correlates of emotion upregulation via distancing differ across emotional valence (i.e. emotional responses toward positive and negative pictures), and (ii) whether the gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) concentration in the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), one of the crucial areas of emotion regulation, is correlated with brain activity related to either negative or positive emotion upregulation. Thirty-four healthy Japanese adults participated in this study. Compared to the condition involving positive emotion upregulation, negative emotion upregulation induced increased activation in the MPFC, left temporoparietal junction, bilateral anterior insula, pre-supplementary motor area, and bilateral cerebellum. In contrast, when comparing positive emotion upregulation with negative emotion upregulation, no significant activation was found. Right cerebellar activity during negative emotion upregulation was positively correlated with GABA concentration in the MPFC. These findings provide evidence of cerebellar involvement in the upregulation of negative emotion via distancing and its association with the prefrontal GABA concentration.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":"20 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144129917","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":"ERP correlates of agency processing in joint action.","authors":"Gethin Hughes, Peter Leslie Thomas Gooding","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsaf006","DOIUrl":"10.1093/scan/nsaf006","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In the Ouija board phenomenon, the lack of agency experienced by the players leads them to attribute the movement of the planchette to spirits. The aim of this study was to investigate the neural and cognitive mechanisms involved in generating the sense of agency in such a joint action context. Two players (a participant and a confederate) jointly moved a Ouija board-style planchette containing a wireless mouse. This, in turn, moved a digital board on the screen. Participants reported a greater sense of agency in the condition where they had complete control of the planchette (the 'self' condition), and least agency when they passively held the planchette while it was moved by the confederate ('other' condition), with the two 'joint' action conditions in between. While the N1 peak did not differ between conditions, the early part of the N1 differentiated between the joint action conditions, and the solo action conditions. In contrast, the Tb and P2 components differed between the 'other' condition and the 'self' and 'joint' conditions. These findings are discussed with reference to motor-prediction and attentional mechanisms.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11776751/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143019277","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"ERP correlates of agency processing in joint action.","authors":"Gethin Hughes, Peter Leslie Thomas Gooding","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsaf006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsaf006","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In the Ouija board phenomenon, the lack of agency experienced by the players leads them to attribute the movement of the planchette to spirits. The aim of this study was to investigate the neural and cognitive mechanisms involved in generating the sense of agency in such a joint action context. Two players (a participant and a confederate) jointly moved a Ouija board-style planchette containing a wireless mouse. This, in turn, moved a digital board on the screen. Participants reported a greater sense of agency in the condition where they had complete control of the planchette (the 'self' condition), and least agency when they passively held the planchette while it was moved by the confederate ('other' condition), with the two 'joint' action conditions in between. While the N1 peak did not differ between conditions, the early part of the N1 differentiated between the joint action conditions, and the solo action conditions. In contrast, the Tb and P2 components differed between the 'other' condition and the 'self' and 'joint' conditions. These findings are discussed with reference to motor-prediction and attentional mechanisms.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":"20 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144129896","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}
Mehran Emadi Andani, Miriam Braga, Francesco Da Dalt, Alessandro Piedimonte, Elisa Carlino, Mirta Fiorio
{"title":"Premovement activity in the corticospinal tract is amplified by the placebo effect: an active inference account.","authors":"Mehran Emadi Andani, Miriam Braga, Francesco Da Dalt, Alessandro Piedimonte, Elisa Carlino, Mirta Fiorio","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsaf014","DOIUrl":"10.1093/scan/nsaf014","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The aim of this study is to investigate whether expectancy, induced through a placebo procedure, favors the activation of the corticospinal tract before movement initiation. By adopting the premovement facilitation paradigm, we applied transcranial magnetic stimulation over the left or right primary motor cortex at rest and 100 ms or 50 ms before movement onset while healthy volunteers performed a reaction time (RT) motor task consisting of abductions of the right or left thumb after a go signal. Participants in the placebo group received an inert electrical device applied on the right forearm along with information on its speed-enhancing properties. A control group received the same device with overt information about its inert nature, while another control group underwent no intervention. Along with RT, we measured the amplitude of the motor evoked potential (MEP) before and after the procedure. Compared to the control groups, the placebo group had faster RT and greater MEP amplitude before movement initiation. This study demonstrates that the placebo effect can boost the activity of the corticospinal tract before movement onset, and this modulation positively impacts motor performance. These results give experimental support to the active inference account.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11799862/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143076422","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Targeting the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex to enhance memory control: divergent effects on social and non-social memories.","authors":"Hui Xie, Jialin Liang, Yun Luo, Weimao Chen, Xiaoqing Hu, Dandan Zhang","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsaf052","DOIUrl":"10.1093/scan/nsaf052","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Voluntary forgetting, governed by top-down inhibitory control in the prefrontal cortex, plays a critical role in adaptive memory regulation. This study investigated the causal role of the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (rDLPFC) in the forgetting of social and non-social memories. Employing high-frequency (10 Hz) repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) in an offline protocol, we modulated rDLPFC activity (Active TMS condition) and compared it to a Control TMS condition targeting the vertex. Participants completed a directed forgetting (DF) task framed in social and non-social contexts. Results revealed a dissociation in rDLPFC involvement: stimulation significantly enhanced the forgetting of negative non-social memories but did not affect social memories. Furthermore, rTMS moderated the relationship between social anxiety and forgetting performance: individuals with higher social anxiety struggled to forget negative social feedback in the Control TMS condition, a difficulty alleviated by rDLPFC stimulation. These findings suggest that voluntary forgetting of social and non-social memories engages distinct neural mechanisms and highlighting rDLPFC stimulation as a potential intervention for reducing maladaptive memory biases associated with social anxiety.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-01-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12322311/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144083061","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hannah Carling, Elisabeth Thibaudeau, Geneviève Sauvé, Danielle Penney, Katie M Lavigne, Martin Lepage, Delphine Raucher-Chéné
{"title":"How do negative symptoms and social cognitive impairments overlap? Clustering analyses on patients living with schizophrenia-spectrum disorder.","authors":"Hannah Carling, Elisabeth Thibaudeau, Geneviève Sauvé, Danielle Penney, Katie M Lavigne, Martin Lepage, Delphine Raucher-Chéné","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsaf061","DOIUrl":"10.1093/scan/nsaf061","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Negative symptoms and social cognition (SC) are intertwined in schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSD), but the structure of this interaction is not yet fully understood. We employed cluster analyses to advance our understanding of the relationship between negative symptom severity and SC. We sought to identify discrete groups of patients as a function of two factors of negative symptoms-Motivation and Pleasure (MAP) and Expressivity (EXP)-and two domains of SC: emotion recognition (ER) and theory of mind (ToM). We conducted two cluster analyses to determine data-driven subgroups using two independent samples of SSD participants. The first was conducted with an open dataset (n = 296) and the second with a local sample (n = 138), to assess replicability. The first cluster analysis revealed a three-cluster solution. Both analyses highlighted distinct profiles: a 'Relatively Preserved' profile; a 'Combined Impairment' profile, with high negative symptoms and impaired ER and ToM; and a 'MAP' profile, with high MAP symptoms, some EXP symptoms, and slightly to moderately impaired ER and ToM. Reducing the heterogeneity in clinical presentations of SSD patients on these dimensions of negative symptoms and SC provides relevant information that could contribute to a more effective selection of interventions.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-01-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12322306/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144510168","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Correction to: Executive dysfunction and cortical variations among intimate partner violence perpetrators and the association with sexism.","authors":"","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsaf073","DOIUrl":"10.1093/scan/nsaf073","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":"20 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-01-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12404343/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144984486","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Neural responses to social touch with different emotional valences: an fNIRS study.","authors":"Zhe Tang, Qin Luo, Yixian Huang, Shuo Zhao","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsaf066","DOIUrl":"10.1093/scan/nsaf066","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Social touch conveys a wealth of social and emotional information in interpersonal contexts. Despite the complexity of social touch in real-life situations, past research has often focused on CT-targeted social touch, neglecting the social-emotional expression in real social touch. Thus, we created a social touch paradigm in which the stimuli were derived from the Social Affective Touch Database. Using fNIRS, we investigated neural responses to social touch under different emotional valences. Our study found that under different touch conditions, the primary somatosensory cortex (S1), the superior temporal sulcus (STS), and the prefrontal cortex (PFC) were broadly activated. Additionally, we also found that the PFC mediates the pathway between S1 and Premotor Cortex-Somatomotor Cortex (PMC-SMC) for different emotional valence stimuli in the tactile modality. Our findings contribute to a deeper understanding of how social touch is linked to social emotions of different valences and ultimately heightened our awareness of the PFC function in social cognition and emotional processing.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-01-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12380468/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144532177","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Alison M Harris, Chandlyr M Denaro, Catherine L Reed
{"title":"Aperiodic activity masks sensorimotor mu suppression during human action observation.","authors":"Alison M Harris, Chandlyr M Denaro, Catherine L Reed","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsaf059","DOIUrl":"10.1093/scan/nsaf059","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In electroencephalography (EEG), action execution (AE) is reliably associated with reductions in the mu rhythm, a periodic oscillation (8-14 Hz) over sensorimotor cortex. Similar patterns of \"mu suppression\" have been reported during observations of others' actions, leading to claims that the mu rhythm indexes motor contributions to social perception. However, evidence for mu suppression during action observation (AO) is mixed, possibly due to methodological considerations (e.g. sample size, recording sites) and perceptual and attentional confounds. Moreover, measurements of periodic oscillations may be conflated with underlying aperiodic (\"1/f-like\") neural activity, potentially influencing estimation of the EEG power spectrum. Here we examined the influence of aperiodic factors on mu suppression using 128-channel EEG in a large sample (N = 109), both during AE and in an AO task with appropriate visual and attentional controls. Whereas AE was consistently associated with significant mu suppression, we initially failed to find significant mu suppression for AO, suggesting that attentional and perceptual confounds may bias mu estimation during AO. However, removing the aperiodic component restored mu suppression over central electrodes. Although significant, mu suppression for AO appears less robust than originally reported, with aperiodic activity contributing to variability in the estimation of mu suppression during AO.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":"20 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-01-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12355377/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144857275","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cristina E Salvador, Kirby T Lam, Mayumi Karasawa, Anthony King, Nirmala Rajaram, Michele J Gelfand, Shinobu Kitayama
{"title":"Genes, culture, and neural sensitivity to norm violations: a DRD4 × culture interaction study.","authors":"Cristina E Salvador, Kirby T Lam, Mayumi Karasawa, Anthony King, Nirmala Rajaram, Michele J Gelfand, Shinobu Kitayama","doi":"10.1093/scan/nsaf083","DOIUrl":"10.1093/scan/nsaf083","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Cultures, such as Japan, are characterized by tighter or more rigid norms than others, like the United States. However, the mechanism underlying this cultural difference remains unclear. We tested the hypothesis that individuals carrying genetic polymorphisms linked to cultural learning, particularly the 7- or 2-repeat variable number of tandem repeat variants of the dopamine D4 receptor gene, DRD4, would show heightened sensitivity to norm violations if they are from tight cultures but not in loose cultures. A total of 214 Japanese and 236 European American young adults (total N = 450) evaluated the normativity of various behaviors while their electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded. Consistent with previous findings, norm violations elicited a robust N400 response, an electrocortical marker of expectancy violation. Critically, this N400 norm-violation effect was significantly stronger for Japanese carriers of the DRD4 alleles linked to cultural learning, but no such genetic moderation was observed among European Americans. Moreover, Japanese non-carriers showed a significantly weaker N400 response than their American counterparts. These results suggest that in a tight culture like Japan, heightened neural sensitivity to norm violations may be concentrated among individuals with genetic predispositions for enhanced reward processing, pointing to the dynamic interplay between genetic variations and cultural environments.</p>","PeriodicalId":94208,"journal":{"name":"Social cognitive and affective neuroscience","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-01-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12422781/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144839569","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}