Older adults are disproportionately vulnerable to fraud, and federal agencies have speculated that excessive trust explains their greater vulnerability. Two studies, one behavioral and one using neuroimaging methodology, identified age differences in trust and their neural underpinnings. Older and younger adults rated faces high in trust cues similarly, but older adults perceived faces with cues to untrustworthiness to be significantly more trustworthy and approachable than younger adults. This age-related pattern was mirrored in neural activation to cues of trustworthiness. Whereas younger adults showed greater anterior insula activation to untrustworthy versus trustworthy faces, older adults showed muted activation of the anterior insula to untrustworthy faces. The insula has been shown to support interoceptive awareness that forms the basis of "gut feelings," which represent expected risk and predict risk-avoidant behavior. Thus, a diminished "gut" response to cues of untrustworthiness may partially underlie older adults' vulnerability to fraud. (1) and the Federal Trade Commission (2) have conjectured that older adults' excessive positive responses to other people may underlie their vulnerability. Consistent with this idea, a large body of literature indicates that older adults shape their experiences and social networks in ways that lead to positive socioemotional outcomes (3). As such, older adults' judgments of the trustworthiness of others may also be skewed in a positive direction. Affective judgments of trustworthiness implicate processing in limbic regions, including the amygdala and insula (4, 5). Accordingly, age differences in trust may be reflected in altered patterns of activation in these neural regions.We report the results of two investigations that address how older adults process facial cues indicative of trust differently from younger adults. The first is a behavioral study in which participants rated faces that varied in cues conveying trustworthiness (trustworthy, neutral, untrustworthy) (4). The second study used functional neuroimaging to identify whether facial cues of trustworthiness are processed differently in the brains of older vs. younger adults. We predicted that older adults would perceive people to be more trustworthy and that this pattern would be reflected in lesser insula and/or amygdala responses to the stimuli. Study 1People make many inferences about personal attributes from facial features (6, 7). One fundamental such judgment is whether a person is inherently trustworthy or not (5,8). The present study investigated whether there are reliable age differences in how older and younger adults infer trust from facial cues.Results. Older and younger adults observed faces that had previously been selected to convey cues regarding trustworthiness (trustworthy, neutral, or untrustworthy) (4) and rated them on how trustworthy and approachable the person seemed to be. These ratings were subjected to Age group (younger vs. older) by Face Type (trustworthy, neutral, untrustworthy)...

Much remains unknown regarding the relationship between anxiety, worry, sustained attention, and frontal function. Here, we addressed this using a sustained attention task adapted for functional magnetic resonance imaging. Participants responded to presentation of simple stimuli, withholding responses to an infrequent “No Go” stimulus. Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) activity to “Go” trials, and dorsal anterior cingulate (dACC) activity to “No Go” trials were associated with faster error-free performance; consistent with DLPFC and dACC facilitating proactive and reactive control, respectively. Trait anxiety was linked to reduced recruitment of these regions, slower error-free performance, and decreased frontal-thalamo-striatal connectivity. This indicates an association between trait anxiety and impoverished frontal control of attention, even when external distractors are absent. In task blocks where commission errors were made, greater DLPFC-precuneus and DLPFC-posterior cingulate connectivity were associated with both trait anxiety and worry, indicative of increased off-task thought. Notably, unlike trait anxiety, worry was not linked to reduced frontal-striatal-thalamo connectivity, impoverished frontal recruitment, or slowed responding during blocks without commission errors, contrary to accounts proposing a direct causal link between worry and impoverished attentional control. This leads us to propose a new model of the relationship between anxiety, worry and frontal engagement in attentional control versus off-task thought.

This study examined neural activation during the experience of compassion, an emotion that orients people toward vulnerable others and prompts caregiving, and pride, a self-focused emotion that signals individual strength and heightened status. Functional magnetic resonance images (fMRI) were acquired as participants viewed 55 s continuous sequences of slides to induce either compassion or pride, presented in alternation with sequences of neutral slides. Emotion self-report data were collected after each slide condition within the fMRI scanner. Compassion induction was associated with activation in the midbrain periaqueductal gray (PAG), a region that is activated during pain and the perception of others' pain, and that has been implicated in parental nurturance behaviors. Pride induction engaged the posterior medial cortex, a region that has been associated with self-referent processing. Self-reports of compassion experience were correlated with increased activation in a region near the PAG, and in the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). Self-reports of pride experience, in contrast, were correlated with reduced activation in the IFG and the anterior insula. These results provide preliminary evidence towards understanding the neural correlates of important interpersonal dimensions of compassion and pride. Caring (compassion) and self-focus (pride) may represent core appraisals that differentiate the response profiles of many emotions.

Background Empathy improves our ability to communicate in social interactions and motivates prosocial behavior. The neuropeptides arginine vasopressin and oxytocin play key roles in socioemotional processes such as pair bonding and parental care, which suggests that they may be involved in empathic processing. Methods We investigated how vasopressin and oxytocin affect empathic responding in a randomized, double-blind, placebo controlled, between-subjects study design. We also examined the moderating role of parental warmth, as reported in the early family environment, on empathic responding following vasopressin, oxytocin, or placebo administration. Results Among participants who reported higher levels of paternal warmth (but not maternal warmth), vasopressin (vs. placebo and oxytocin) increased ratings of empathic concern after viewing distressing and uplifting videos. No main or interaction effects were found for individuals who received oxytocin. Conclusions Vasopressin has a role in enhancing empathy among individuals who received higher levels of paternal warmth. Trial registration NCT01680718

Research examining oxytocin and vasopressin in humans has the potential to elucidate neurobiological mechanisms underlying human sociality that have been previously unknown or not well characterized. A primary goal of this work is to increase our knowledge about neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders characterized by impairments in social cognition. However, years of research highlighting wide-ranging effects of, in particular, intranasal oxytocin administration have been tempered as the fields of psychology, neuroscience, and other disciplines have been addressing concerns over the reproducibility and validity of research findings. We present a series of behavioral tasks that were conducted using a randomized, double-blind, placebo controlled, between-subjects design, in which our research group found no main effects of oxytocin and vasopressin on a host of social outcomes. In addition to null hypothesis significance testing, we implemented equivalence testing and Bayesian hypothesis testing to examine the sensitivity of our findings. These analyses indicated that 47-83% of our results (depending on the method of post-hoc analysis) had enough sensitivity to detect the absence of a main effect. Our results add to evidence that intranasal oxytocin may have a more limited direct effect on human social processes than initially assumed and suggest that the direct effects of intranasal vasopressin may be similarly limited. Randomized controlled trial registration: NCT01680718.

Individuals with social anxiety are characterized by a high degree of social sensitivity, which can coincide with impairments in social cognitive functioning (e.g. theory of mind). Oxytocin (OT) and vasopressin (AVP) have been shown to improve social cognition, and OT has been theorized as a potential therapeutic agent for individuals with social anxiety disorder. However, no study has investigated whether these neuropeptides improve social cognitive ability among socially anxious individuals. In a randomized, double-blind, placebo controlled, between-subjects design we investigated whether social anxiety moderated the effects of OT or AVP (vs placebo) on social working memory (i.e. working memory that involves manipulating social information) and non-social working memory. OT vs placebo impaired social working memory accuracy in participants with higher levels of social anxiety. No differences were found for non-social working memory or for AVP vs placebo. Results suggest that OT administration in individuals with higher levels of social anxiety may impair social cognitive functioning. Randomized-controlled trial registration: NCT01680718.

Anxiety is associated with increased attentional capture by threat. Previous studies have used simultaneous or briefly separated (<1 s) presentation of threat distractors and target stimuli. Here, we tested the hypothesis that high trait anxious participants would show a longer time window within which distractors cause disruption to subsequent task processing, and that this would particularly be observed for stimuli of moderate or ambiguous threat value. A novel temporally separated emotional distractor task was used. Face or house distractors were presented for 250 ms at short (∼1.6 s) or long (∼3 s) intervals prior to a letter string comprising Xs or Ns. Trait anxiety was associated with slowed identification of letter strings presented at long intervals after face distractors with part surprise/part fear expressions. In other words, these distractors had an impact on high anxious individuals’ speed of target identification seconds after their offset. This was associated with increased activity in the fusiform gyrus and amygdala and reduced dorsal anterior cingulate recruitment. This pattern of activity may reflect impoverished recruitment of reactive control mechanisms to damp down stimulus-specific processing in subcortical and higher visual regions. These findings have implications for understanding how threat-related attentional biases in anxiety may lead to dysfunction in everyday settings where stimuli of moderate, potentially ambiguous, threat value such as those used here are fairly common, and where attentional disruption lasting several seconds may have a profound impact.

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