Human brain state dynamics are highly reproducible and associated with neural and behavioral features Neural activity and behavior vary within an individual (states) and between individuals (traits). However, the mapping of state-trait neural variation to behavior is not well understood. To address this gap, we quantify moment-to-moment changes in brain-wide co-activation patterns derived from resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging. In healthy young adults, we identify reproducible spatiotemporal features of co-activation patterns at the single-subject level. We demonstrate that a joint analysis of state-trait neural variations and feature reduction reveal general motifs of individual differences, encompassing state-specific and general neural features that exhibit day-to-day variability. The principal neural variations co-vary with the principal variations of behavioral phenotypes, highlighting cognitive function, emotion regulation, alcohol and substance use. Person-specific probability of occupying a particular co-activation pattern is reproducible and associated with neural and behavioral features. This combined analysis of state-trait variations holds promise for developing reproducible neuroimaging markers of individual life functional outcome.
Investigating the role of mental imagery use in the assessment of anhedonia Anhedonia, or a deficit in the liking, wanting, and seeking of rewards, is typically assessed via self-reported “in-the-moment” emotional and motivational responses to reward stimuli and activities. Given that mental imagery is known to evoke emotion and motivational responses, we conducted two studies to investigate the relationship between mental imagery use and self-reported anhedonia. Using a novel Reward Response Scale (adapted from the Dimensional Anhedonia Rating Scale, DARS; Rizvi et al.,) modified to assess deliberate and spontaneous mental imagery use, Study 1 (N = 394) compared uninstructed and instructed mental imagery use, and Study 2 (N = 586) conducted a test of replication of uninstructed mental imagery use. Results showed that greater mental imagery use was associated with higher reward response scores (Study 1 & 2), and this relationship was not moderated by whether imagery use was uninstructed or instructed (Study 1). Importantly, mental imagery use moderated the convergence between reward response and depression scale measures of anhedonia, with lower convergence for those reporting higher mental imagery use (Study 1 & 2). Results suggest that higher spontaneous mental imagery use may increase self-reported reward response and reduce the convergence between reward response scale and depression questionnaire measures of anhedonia. [199 / 200 words]
Causal relational problem solving in toddlers We investigate young children’s capacity for “causal relational reasoning”: the ability to use relational reasoning to design novel interventions and bring about novel outcomes. In two experiments, we show that 24–30-month-old toddlers and three-year-old preschoolers use relational reasoning in a causal problem-solving task. Even toddlers rapidly inferred relational causal rules and applied this knowledge to solve novel problems––thus demonstrating both surprisingly early competence in relational reasoning and sophisticated causal inference. In both experiments, children observed a handful of trials in which a mechanistically opaque machine made objects larger or smaller. When prompted to solve a new problem, they used the machine to change the relative size of a novel object – even though its appearance and absolute size differed from previous observations, and even though subjects had never seen the machine generate objects of the required size before. This suggests that children quickly inferred abstract causal relations and then generalized these relations to determine which intervention would bring about the novel outcome required to solve the problem. These findings suggest a close link between early relational reasoning and active causal learning and inference.
Prospective Interrelation Between Sensory Sensitivity and Fine Motor Skills During the First 18 Months Predicts Later Autistic Features Sensory features are included in the diagnostic criteria of autism and atypical sensory responsiveness may produce “cascading effects” on later development. Similarly, autistic individuals often struggle with motor coordination and early delays in the motor domain appear to be linked to later development. However, the longitudinal interrelation between early sensory profiles and motor features on later socio-communicative skills remains to be defined. This study aimed to investigate whether sensory sensitivity impacts fine motor abilities and vice versa from 12 to 18 months of age and to examine how sensory-motor interplay would be associated with later autistic traits at 24–36 months of age. The sample included 118 infant siblings of autistic children recruited at 12 months of age. Sensory sensitivity and eye–hand coordination were assessed at 12 and 18 months of age and autistic traits were evaluated at 24–36 months of age. Cross-lagged panel analysis revealed significant within-domain effects for sensory sensitivity and eye–hand coordination from 12 to 18 months. Furthermore, a significant association between these two domains on later autistic traits was found. In analyzing the longitudinal bidirectional relationship, we found that lower eye–hand coordination skills at 12 months predicted later sensory sensitivity at 18 months, and in turn, social communication skills at 24–36 months. The present study offers new empirical evidence supporting the potential clinical value of including sensory and motor measures besides social communication skills within early autism surveillance programs.
Role of the nucleus accumbens in signaled avoidance actions Animals, humans included, navigate their environments guided by sensory cues, responding adaptively to potential dangers and rewards. Avoidance behaviors serve as adaptive strategies in the face of signaled threats, but the neural mechanisms orchestrating these behaviors remain elusive. Current circuit models of avoidance behaviors indicate that the nucleus accumbens (NAc) in the ventral striatum plays a key role in signaled avoidance behaviors, but the nature of this engagement is unclear. Evolving perspectives propose the NAc as a pivotal hub for action selection, integrating cognitive and affective information to heighten the efficiency of both appetitive and aversive motivated behaviors. To unravel the engagement of the NAc during active and passive avoidance, we used calcium imaging fiber photometry to examine NAc GABAergic neuron activity in freely moving mice performing avoidance behaviors. We then probed the functional significance of NAc neurons using optogenetics, and genetically targeted or electrolytic lesions. We found that NAc neurons code contraversive orienting movements and avoidance actions. However, direct optogenetic inhibition or lesions of NAc neurons did not impair active or passive avoidance behaviors, challenging the notion of their purported pivotal role in adaptive avoidance. The findings emphasize that while the NAc encodes avoidance movements, it is not required for avoidance behaviors, highlighting the distinction between behavior encoding or representation and mediation or generation.
The Big, the Dark, and the Biopsychosocial Shades of Harmony: Personality Traits and Harmony in Life Our current understanding of the relationship between personality traits and subjective well-being, or happiness, is limited to the conceptualization of subjective well-being as being life satisfaction and a positive affective experience (i.e., the presence of positive emotions and the absence of negative ones), thus lacking the sense of acceptance, balance, adaptation, and self-transcendent unity (i.e., harmony in life) that is appreciated as part of the good life in many ancient and modern cultures. Moreover, most studies use the Big Five Model to understand which personality traits predict subjective well-being. Here, I examine the predictive power of personality on harmony in life using the Big Five Model, the Dark Triad, and Cloninger’s Biopsychosocial Model. The present study utilized past published data from three cross-sectional studies. In each separate sample, participants self-reported personality by answering the Big Five Inventory (N1 = 297), the Short Dark Triad (N2 = 1876), or the Temperament and Character Inventory (N3 = 436). All participants (NTotal = 3698) answered to the Harmony in Life Scale. The traits in the Biopsychosocial Model explained the highest variance in harmony in life (R2 = 0.435, F(7, 428) = 47.136, p < 0.001), followed by the Big Five (R2 = 0.341, F(5, 291) = 30.110, p < 0.001) and the Dark Triad (R2 = 0.096, F(3, 1872) = 66.055, p < 0.001). The key significant predictors were Self-Directedness, Self-Transcendence, and Harm Avoidance from the Biopsychosocial Model and Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Neuroticism from the Big Five. Narcissism was the only predictor from the Dark Triad, although this relationship was very small. The findings underscore the importance of a multidimensional approach for understanding subjective well-being and the inclusion of harmony in life as its third component. The Biopsychosocial Model’s inclusion of both temperament and character dimensions provided the most comprehensive understanding of harmony in life. While positive traits like Agreeableness, Self-Directedness, and Self-Transcendence enhance harmony, negative traits like Neuroticism and Harm Avoidance diminish it. Moreover, research only including “dark traits” might give the impression that an inflated sense of self-importance, a deep need for admiration, and a lack of empathy for others (i.e., Narcissism) is predictive of balance in life. However, this association was not only extremely low but can be interpreted as misguided since the results using the other models showed that helpful, empathetic, kind, and self-transcendent behavior predicted harmony. These results suggest that interventions aimed at enhancing well-being should consider a broad range of personality traits, especially those that are not present in the Big Five Model, thus advocating for a biopsychosocial approach to well-being interventions.
How Threats Shape the Organization of our Memories Bad experiences can shape our lives in unconscious ways. If you, say, tried a new dish at a restaurant and got food poisoning, you may not only avoid that restaurant in the future but potentially that dish, even in other settings. Researchers have documented in many studies how negative emotions can shape our memories and decision-making. Less known, however, is how those negative events are organized in our memories – which is the subject of a new study in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.
“We wanted to go beyond the well-known pattern of having strong memories for threatening events, to understand how this experience would be organized in our memory,” says Elizabeth Horwath, lead author of the paper and who was part of the Murty Lab at Temple University. Past work has found that positive experiences are organized together based on their positive aspects as opposed to chronologically.
“We were curious as to whether threat memories would be structured in the same way,” Horwath explains. “Thinking back to the restaurant, it is possible that you may remember your experiences at restaurants in the order in which you went to them, or you may group together all negative experiences you’ve had to avoid possible bad dishes in the future.”
Al-Ghazālī (c. 1056–1111) Al-Ghazālī did not regard himself as a philosopher, given that during his period in Islamic intellectual history, philosophy was associated with the Aristotelian tradition promulgated primarily by Avicenna (Ibn Sina), and, for al-Ghazālī, Avicenna was undoubtedly considered to be an unbeliever whose philosophical views (such as his commitment to the eternity of the world) fell outside the scope of orthodox Sunni Islam. There would be a serious stigma attached, from the perspective of Islamic orthodoxy, with al-Ghazālī identifying with the philosophers. Instead, al-Ghazālī regarded himself primarily as a Sufi (mystic), theologian, and jurist.
Yet despite his aversion to particular philosophical theses, it is clear that Al-Ghazālī is not only sympathetic to particular disciplines and methodologies of philosophy (for example, logic and ethics), but produces work that would certainly qualify as philosophical both in his day and ours. Indeed, he contributed immensely to the history of Islamic philosophy and the history of philosophy more generally, and he is considered to be one of the greatest and most influential thinkers in Islamic intellectual history. Al-Ghazālī’s philosophical work spans epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, natural philosophy, and ethics. His philosophical work had a wide-reaching influence within the Islamic world, and his Incoherence of the Philosophers, in particular, was well-received by other medieval philosophers and the Latin philosophical tradition.