A Neural Signature of Affiliative Emotion in the Human Septohypothalamic Area

Abstract

Comparative studies have established that a number of structures within the rostromedial basal forebrain are critical for affiliative behaviors and social attachment. Lesion and neuroimaging studies concur with the importance of these regions for attachment and the experience of affiliation in humans as well. Yet it remains obscure whether the neural bases of affiliative experiences can be differentiated from the emotional valence with which they are inextricably associated at the experiential level. Here we show, using functional MRI, that kinship-related social scenarios evocative of affiliative emotion induce septal-preoptic-anterior hypothalamic activity that cannot be explained by positive or negative emotional valence alone. Our findings suggest that a phylogenetically conserved ensemble of basal forebrain structures, especially the septohypothalamic area, may play a key role in enabling human affiliative emotion. Our finding of a neural signature of human affiliative experience bears direct implications for the neurobiological mechanisms underpinning impaired affiliative experiences and behaviors in neuropsychiatric conditions.

Shared Neural Mechanisms Underlying Social Warmth and Physical Warmth

“…As expected, participants displayed extensive activity in the VS, the anterior and middle insula, the pACC, and the ventral tegmental area to reading the positive messages (vs. neutral messages). There was also increased activity in several neural regions previously associated with mentalizing (dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, temporal pole, precuneus) as well as increased activity in septohypothalamic regions previously implicated in affiliative responding (Moll et al, 2012;see Table 2 for a full list of activations).…”

Why we stay with our social partners: Neural mechanisms of stay/leave decision-making

“…Notably, as mPFC is a very large region, specific peak coordinates based on the search term "ToM" (e.g., Theory of Mind) which fell within the mPFC and did not overlap with our ROI for vmPFC. Finally, our ROI for septo-hypothalamic region was directly derived from an independent study (Moll et al, 2012) that investigated the neural signature of affiliative or social attachment.…”

“…Secondly, we proposed that the involvement of attachment mechanisms could underlie a greater likelihood of staying with social partners. This would be evident from increased neural activity in septo-hypothalamic region (Insel & Young, 2001;Moll et al, 2012) for social versus nonsocial "stay" decisions. Thirdly, we proposed a psychological aversion to breaking social bonds.…”

Nonlinear associations between human values and neuroanatomy

“…In the context of motivational properties of value-related behavior, Moll et al (2012) demonstrated that affiliative emotion (induced by kinship-related social scenarios) is associated with activation of basal forebrain structures, especially the septo-hypothalamic area. Moreover, in an examination of one type of value-related behavior, prosociality, Moll et al (2006) showed that the subgenual cingulate cortex and septal region were selectively activated for donations vs. selfish rewards, and the same regions tracked individual differences in beliefs about family entitativity (i.e., the perception of a group as a pure entity), which are similar to family-related values, such as family security (Rusch et al, 2014).…”