Neural substrates of
rumination tendency in
non-depressed
individuals
Xiao Chen
陈骁
[email protected]
The R-fMRI Lab, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Science
Outline
Introduction
Methods
Results
Discussion
Introduction
Rumination
“ruminations are repetitive and passive
thinking about symptoms of depression and the
possible causes and consequences of these
symptoms”
Susan Nolen-Hoeksema (1959 – 2013)
Introduction
Introduction
What am I doing to
deserve this?
Why can’t I get going?
Why do I always react
this way?
Introduction
Rumination
Depression
Rumination is an
important vulnerability
factor in the development
of depression
Constitute a maladaptive
mental habit in
depression
Introduction
Cognitive mechanisms behind rumination
Rumination
Executive
Functions
Cognitive inflexibility and difficulties in
disengaging attention from irrelevant
information
Introduction
Neural substrates of rumination
Cognitive
control
Rumination?
Emotional
Reactivity
Introduction
Subjects:
healthy participants
Subjects: 19
MDD
Subjects:
depressed
patients
Subjects:
MDD
41
healthy
patients
participants
Task:
rumination
induction
VS.
Task:
Cognitive
reappraisal
of
Methods:
factor VS.
structure
&
Results:
Tasks:
analytical
Rumination
experiential
is
abstract
distraction
Tasks:
recall
of
autobiographical
emotional pictures
A
paradigm
alternating
Results:
increased
activation in
associated
self-focus
with
greater
negative
memories
and
Subjects:
healthy
female
amygdala,
rostral
anterior
cognitive
and
emotional
tasks
difficulties
Results:
lower
in
deactivating
brooding
scores
the
subsequent
focus
on
elicited
Results:
higher
amygdala
cingulatetrait
cortex/medial
prefrontal
Results:
rumination
posterior
measured
cingulate
by
the
RRS
cortex
correlated
(PCC)
emotions
response
when
increasing
cortex
correlated
not only
with ofinthe
As
with
well
increased
as
lower
activation
activation
(PFC),
dorsolateral
negative
affectPFC, and
amygdala
but also
anterior
posterior
cingulate
midline
structures
cortex
(ACC)
parahippocampal
during
Results:
rumination
is associated
Lower medial cortex,
prefrontal
hippocampus
activity.
Other
rumination relative
to an abstract
with
activity
in
subgenual
ACC
activity
when
decreasing
distraction
regions
in task
PCC, MPFC,
(sgACC)
and affect.
medial PFC
negative
dorsolateral PFC, and anterior
insula
Introduction
Introduction
Introduction
Experiment design
Active cognitive
condition(task
switching paradigm)
Resting state
condition
Introduction
Hypothesis
Lower attentional
shifting abilities
Higher ruminative
tendencies
Ruminative
processes
Higher activation of selfrelated regions during lower
cognitive load
Reduced engagement of the
brain areas reflecting
attentional control
Methods
Participants: 20 healthy subjects ( 10 women & 10 men)
Questionnaires:
22 – items of the Ruminative Response Scale (RRS)
Beck Depression Inventory – II (BDI)
Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI)
Methods
Behavioral task (task switching paradigm)
Methods
Reaction?
EMOTION
Methods
Emotion
Gender
Color
Switch condition (high cognitive load)
Emotion
Emotion
Emotion
Repetition condition (low cognitive load)
Methods
Data analysis
Pre-processing steps:
SPM5 + Matlab R2007b
Realign: iterative rigid body transformations
Normalize: MNI EPI template
Smooth: a Gaussian kernel with FWHM of 8 mm
Co-registration: A high-resolution structural image
was co-registered with the mean image of the EPI seriesand
normalized
Methods
Cognitive task data:
A two – step analysis:
GLM for event-related design in SPM5
1. The onsets of conditions of interest were
convolved with the canonical hemodynamic response
function (HRF) and used as a regressor in the individual
design matrix (first level)
2. The individual statistical images from each
condition were used in a second-level ANOVA analysis to
create the contrasts of interest, i.e. Repetition (easy) versus
Switching (difficult)conditions.
Methods
Resting state data
Same pre-processing steps
1. independent component analysis (ICA)
using the GIFT toolbox
2. The group maps were then inspected to
select networks of interest for subsequent analyses
Methods
Contrasts from the second
level analysis of the
cognitive task
Maps from the ICA
analysis of resting state
Using a multiple linear regression model with the
scores of each individual from the RRS, BDI, and BAI.
Results
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
RRS
1
BDI
BAI
Results
Reaction times and switch cost did not correlate with
RRS, but accuracy across all trials showed a negative
correlation with RRS(r (20) = −.54, p = .011).
Results
 Resting-state fMRI data
an attentional
network map
ICA analysis
a visual network
map
DMN(medial prefrontal
activations)
DMN(medial parietal
activations)
Results
significant positive
correlation for the visual
network map between
resting activity in the
entorhinal cortex and the
score of rumination
Results
A negative correlation for
the attention network map
between rumination scores
and activity in the left
middle occipital gyrus
Results
The first frontal-dominant
DMN map showed a
negative correlation of RRS
with ACC and PCC, whereas
the second map also
showed a selective
negative correlation in PCC
and no effect in ACC.
Results
Cognitive tasks
1. Contrast Switch > Repetition
significant increases in regions associated with
attentional shifting and monitoring, including bilateral
superior parietal lobules (SPL) and PCC.
2. Contrast Repetition > Switch
significant activations in the left caudate nucleus, the
right inferior frontal gyrus, the left superior frontal gyrus,
and the right dorsomedial PFC
Results
3. the contrast “easy > difficult” and rumination
medial temporal lobe region
strikingly similar to that observed
in the previous analysis of resting
state: i.e. the left entorhinal
cortex
Results
Results
Higher RRS scores were
associated with lower activity in
the right anterior insula during
the easy vs. difficult condition
Results
Brooding is not associated with the insula during
the easy condition
This weaker effect found for brooding during rest
might reflect that ruminations at rest are also
linked to more adaptive components of rumination,
such as reflection and problem solving in
association with mind wandering, whereas
intrusive thoughts during low attention demands
are more specifically linked to the maladaptive
component associated with brooding
Discussion
Discussion
Support a hypothesis
People with a propensity to ruminate,
even when non-depressed, tend to recruit
brain systems mediating the retrieval of
personal memories and self-related
information more strongly or persistently
than non-ruminators
Discussion
Negative correlations
By contrast, the reverse correlation
observed in visual areas during rest suggests
that individual with higher self-focus and
ruminations allocate less resources to the
processing of sensory visual inputs from the
external world and/or engage less in visual
imagery during rest.
Discussion
Findings about insula
The insula is implicated in self
monitoring, saliency detection, and
interoceptive awareness, we postulate that
rumination tendencies may represent a
maladaptive style of response with a relative
lack of attention to bodily and affective
signals in favor of internal cognitions
up
Discussion
Cognitive
load
Rumination
down
Discussion
Rumination
Executive
Functions
These studies could not conclude if ruminations
diminish cognitive resources, or if insufficient
cognitive resources predispose to ruminations.
Thank you for your attention!