Yoshihiko Kunisato

Cognitive behavioral therapy for depression changes medial prefrontal and ventral anterior cingulate cortex activity associated with self-referential processing

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), an effective treatment for depression, targets self-referential processing of emotional stimuli. We examined the effects of CBT on brain functioning during self-referential processing in depressive patients using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Depressive patients (n = 23) and healthy participants (n = 15) underwent fMRI scans during a self-referential task using emotional trait words. The depressive patients had fMRI scans before and after completing a total of 12 weekly sessions of group CBT for depression, whereas the healthy participants underwent fMRI scans 12 weeks apart with no intervention. Before undergoing CBT, the depressive patients showed hyperactivity in the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) during self-referential processing of negative words. Following CBT, MPFC and ventral anterior cingulate cortex (vACC) activity during self-referential processing among depressive patients was increased for positive stimuli, whereas it was decreased for negative stimuli. Improvements in depressive symptoms were negatively correlated with vACC activity during self-referential processing of negative stimuli. These results suggest that CBT-related improvements in depressive symptoms are associated with changes in MPFC and vACC activation during self-referential processing of emotional stimuli.

Distinctive spontaneous regional neural activity in patients with somatoform pain disorder: A preliminary resting-state fMRI study

This resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging study found that nine patients with somatoform pain disorder exhibited atypical precentral gyrus activation compared with 20 healthy controls. The role of the precentral gyrus in pain-related processing is discussed.

Cognitive behavioral therapy changes functional connectivity between medial prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortices

BACKGROUND Depression is characterized by negative self-cognition. Our previous study (Yoshimura et al. 2014) revealed changes in brain activity after cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for depression, but changes in functional connectivity were not assessed. METHOD This study included 29 depressive patients and 15 healthy control participants. Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging was used to investigate possible CBT-related functional connectivity changes associated with negative emotional self-referential processing. Depressed and healthy participants (overlapping with our previous study, Yoshimura et al. 2014) were included. We defined a seed region (medial prefrontal cortex) and coupled region (ACC) based on our previous study, and we examined changes in MPFC-ACC functional connectivity from pretreatment to posttreatment. RESULTS CBT was associated with reduced functional connectivity between the MPFC and ACC. Symptom change with CBT was positively correlated with change in MPFC-ACC functional connectivity. LIMITATIONS Patients received pharmacotherapy including antidepressant. The present sample size was quite small and more study is needed. Statistical threshold in fMRI analysis was relatively liberal. CONCLUSIONS CBT for depression may disrupt MPFC-ACC connectivity, with associated improvements in depressive symptoms and dysfunctional cognition.

fMRI study of social anxiety during social ostracism with and without emotional support.

Social anxiety is characterized by an excessive fear of being embarrassed in social interactions or social performance situations. Emotional support can help to decrease or diminish social distress. Such support may play an important role at different points of social interaction. However, it is unclear how the beneficial effects of social support are represented in the brains of socially anxious individuals. To explore this, we used the same paradigm previously used to examine the effects of emotional support on social pain caused by exclusion. Undergraduates (n = 46) showing a wide range of social anxiety scores underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while participating in a Cyberball game. Participants were initially included and later excluded from the game. In the latter half of the session in which participants were excluded, they were provided with supportive messages. In line with our previous work, we found that social exclusion led to increased anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) activity, whereas emotional support led to increased left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) activity. Despite validation of the paradigm, social anxiety was not associated with increased ACC activity during social exclusion, or during perceived emotional support. Instead, fear of negative evaluation as assessed by the Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation (BFNE) scale showed positive associations with left DLPFC activation while receiving emotional support, compared to while being socially excluded. The more socially anxious an individual was, the greater was the left DLPFC activity increased during receipt of messages. This suggests that highly socially anxious people still have the ability to perceive social support, but that they are nevertheless susceptible to negative evaluation by others.

Validation of brain-derived signals in near-infrared spectroscopy through multivoxel analysis of concurrent functional magnetic resonance imaging

Near‐infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is a convenient and safe brain‐mapping tool. However, its inevitable confounding with hemodynamic responses outside the brain, especially in the frontotemporal head, has questioned its validity. Some researchers attempted to validate NIRS signals through concurrent measurements with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), but, counterintuitively, NIRS signals rarely correlate with local fMRI signals in NIRS channels, although both mapping techniques should measure the same hemoglobin concentration. Here, we tested a novel hypothesis that different voxels within the scalp and the brain tissues might have substantially different hemoglobin absorption rates of near‐infrared light, which might differentially contribute to NIRS signals across channels. Therefore, we newly applied a multivariate approach, a partial least squares regression, to explain NIRS signals with multivoxel information from fMRI within the brain and soft tissues in the head. We concurrently obtained fMRI and NIRS signals in 9 healthy human subjects engaging in an n‐back task. The multivariate fMRI model was quite successfully able to predict the NIRS signals by cross‐validation (interclass correlation coefficient = ∼0.85). This result confirmed that fMRI and NIRS surely measure the same hemoglobin concentration. Additional application of Monte‐Carlo permutation tests confirmed that the model surely reflects temporal and spatial hemodynamic information, not random noise. After this thorough validation, we calculated the ratios of the contributions of the brain and soft‐tissue hemodynamics to the NIRS signals, and found that the contribution ratios were quite different across different NIRS channels in reality, presumably because of the structural complexity of the frontotemporal regions. Hum Brain Mapp 38:5274–5291, 2017.

Do Individuals with Alcohol Dependence Show Higher Unfairness Sensitivity? The Relationship Between Impulsivity and Unfairness Sensitivity in Alcohol-Dependent Adults.

BACKGROUND Alcohol-dependent patients are known to be generally more unfairness sensitive. The ultimatum game (UG) is an experimental task designed to provoke feelings of perceived unfairness. A previous study using the UG has reported more unfairness sensitivity in patients with alcohol dependence than in a nondependent control group; it has been speculated that this increased sensitivity might be due to a difficulty in impulse control. However, the mechanism of this relationship has not been clarified. Therefore, the relationship between unfairness sensitivity in interpersonal relationships and impulsivity was investigated using UG and delay discounting (DD) paradigms. METHODS Subjects were 32 individuals with alcohol dependency and 36 healthy control individuals; both groups performed UG and DD tasks. RESULTS Participants with alcohol dependence rejected monetary offers deemed unfair at a significantly higher rate than did control participants. Moreover, the proportion of accepting unfairness was negatively correlated with impulsivity in patients with alcohol dependence. CONCLUSIONS Perceived unfairness is related to impulsivity in patients with alcohol dependence. These results provide insights concerning the psychopathology of alcohol dependence.

Depressive rumination and urgency have mutually enhancing relationships but both predict unique variance in future depression: A longitudinal study

Abstract This study examined possible associations between rumination and impulsivity and if these variables make unique contributions to increasing depression. A three-wave longitudinal study was conducted with an interval of four weeks between waves. University students in five Japanese universities completed the Japanese version of the Beck Depression Inventory-Second Edition, Ruminative Responses Scale, and UPPS-P Impulsive Behavior Scale on the three occasions (Time 1, n = 284, Mean age = 20.07 years, SD = 2.50, Age range 18–43 years; Time 2, n = 198; Time 3, n = 165). We conducted linear mixed model analyses to examine longitudinal relationships between variables with depression, rumination, and either UPPS-P subscale as fixed factors and the same variables assessed four weeks later as dependent variables. Results indicated that both negative and positive urgency predicted subsequent rumination, and rumination predicted subsequent negative but not positive urgency. Furthermore, rumination explained the unique variance in subsequent depression, even after controlling for the initial depression and negative or positive urgency score, and as did negative and positive urgency after controlling for initial depression and rumination. These findings suggest that rumination and urgency have a mutually enhancing relationship, although they make unique contributions to intensifying depression.

Neural bases of affective anticipation : an fMRI study

We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study the neural activation associated with anticipations of emotional pictures by comparing findings obtained under negative and positive anticipation conditions. While being scanned with fMRI, healthy participants (n = 18) were cued to anticipate and then perceive emotional stimuli having predictable emotional valences (positive and negative). In some cases the subjects could accurately predict the emotional valance of the following stimuli based on the preceding cues, while in other cases, the cues were useless for making such predictions. During the anticipation of negative pictures, activities of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, insula, amygdala, thalamus, and visual cortex were enhanced, relative to the activity levels in those regions under the positive anticipation condition. This result suggests that these brain regions are involved in anticipation of negative images. Furthermore, path analysis demonstrated that activation of the amygdala influenced the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex via the anterior cingulate cortex. This finding suggests that anticipatory activation of the limbic system may facilitate preparatory processes in the prefrontal cortex. (Japanese Journal of Physiological Psychology and Psychophysiology, 26(3) : 229-235, 2008.)