Attentional Bias to Reminders of the Deceased as Compared With a Living Attachment in Grieving

Schneck, Noam; Tu, Tao; Michel, Christina A.; Bonanno, George A.; Sajda, Paul; Mann, J. John

doi:10.1016/j.bpsc.2017.08.003

Cited by 16 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…This could be interpreted as a relative inability of individuals with complicated grief to recruit the regions needed to down-regulate emotional responses in order to successfully complete the task. In the third study using the emotional Stroop and bereaved participants across the spectrum of grief severity(71), bereaved individuals did not show differential brain activation to words related to the deceased versus living attachment figures, even at a lenient statistical threshold. Notably, this was despite their finding of a behavioral attentional bias towards the deceased, with greater attentional bias associated with higher levels of complicated grief symptoms.…”

Section: Adaptation Of the Brain During Griefmentioning

confidence: 94%

Grief: A Brief History of Research on How Body, Mind, and Brain Adapt

O’Connor

2019

Psychosom Med

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Objective: Using an integrative view of psychology, neuroscience, immunology and psychophysiology, the present review of literature curates the findings that have had an impact on the field of bereavement research, and shaped its development. Methods: Beginning with Lindemann’s systematic descriptions of medical and psychological responses to the death of a loved one, specific studies that investigate medical outcomes following loss, their psychological predictors, and biopsychosocial mechanisms are discussed. This selective review culminates in recommendations for the field for future research, including greater integration of these disparate fields of inquiry. Results: Morbidity and mortality following the death of a loved one has long been a topic of research. Early researchers characterized somatic and psychological symptoms and studied immune cell changes in bereaved samples. More recent research has repeatedly demonstrated increased rates of morbidity and mortality in bereaved samples, as compared to married controls, in large epidemiological studies. Recent developments also include the development of criteria for prolonged grief disorder (also termed complicated grief). Newer methods, including neuroimaging, have observed that the greatest impact of the death of a loved one is in those who have the most severe psychological grief reactions. Mechanisms tying bereavement to medical outcomes are scarce, but differences in rumination, in inflammation and in cortisol dysregulation between those who adapt well and those who do not, have been offered with some evidence. Conclusions: Recommendations to propel the field forward include longitudinal studies to understand differences between acute reactions and later adaptation, comparing samples with grief disorders from those with more typical responses, and integrating responses in brain, mind and body.

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Section: Adaptation Of the Brain During Griefmentioning

confidence: 94%

Grief: A Brief History of Research on How Body, Mind, and Brain Adapt

O’Connor

2019

Psychosom Med

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“…MRI acquisition and pre-processing are the same as described in prior work and explained in supplemental information (Schneck et al , 2017; Schneck et al , 2018a; Schneck et al , 2018b).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To ensure that neural activity reflected attentional processing rather than neural reaction to the substantial semantic differences between deceased-related and color-congruent words, a trial level on/off regressor was included. We have previously shown that the process of d-SA likely comprises a subset within a broader process of attachment-related attention (Schneck et al , 2018b). As a result, the contrast of deceased-related vs congruent, rather than deceased-related vs living words, was used.…”

Section: Analysesmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…This type of attempted control over the mind relies on what has been termed an ironic process, which searches the mental state for undesired or inconsistent content, which the person can then attempt to suppress from reaching consciousness (Wegner, 1994). In grieving, deceased-related selective attention (d-SA) has been shown to identify reminders of the deceased presented externally (Schneck et al , 2018b) and may identify such reminders arising internally. This attention can serve several functions depending on grief style and context.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This attention can serve several functions depending on grief style and context. In general grieving, this attention increases immediate engagement with explicitly presented reminders of the deceased (Schneck et al , 2018b) and can be activated independently of conscious loss processing during mindwandering (Schneck et al , 2018a). However, in avoidant grieving during mindwandering, selective attention can serve as the ironic process that searches the internal mental space for potential reminders of the deceased to suppress from consciousness (Dehaene and Naccache, 2001).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Ongoing monitoring of mindwandering in avoidant grief through cortico-basal-ganglia interactions

Schneck

Haufe

et al. 2018

Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience

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An avoidant grief style is marked by repeated and often unsuccessful attempts to prevent thinking about loss. Prior work shows avoidant grief involves monitoring the external environment in order to avoid reminders of the loss. Here we sought to determine whether avoidant grievers also monitor the internal environment in attempts to minimize conscious awareness of loss-related thoughts. Individuals bereaved of a first-degree relative, spouse or partner within the last 14 months participated in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study (N = 29). We first applied machine learning to train neural patterns for attentional control and representation of the deceased (N = 23). The attentional pattern was trained using fMRI data from a modified Stroop task assessing selective attention to reminders of the deceased. The representational pattern was trained using fMRI data from a task presenting pictures and stories of the deceased. We observed spontaneous fluctuations in these processes occurring during a neutral mindwandering fMRI task (N = 27). At higher levels of avoidant grieving, activation of attentional control disrupted the relationship between the representational process and thoughts of loss. These findings show that avoidant grief involves attentional control to reduce the likelihood that deceased-related representations reach full conscious awareness.

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Dwelling in prolonged grief: Resting state functional connectivity during oxytocin and placebo administration

Seeley

Andrews‐Hanna

Allen

et al. 2022

Human Brain Mapping

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Clinical theories of adaptation in bereavement highlight a need for flexible shifting between mental states. However, prolonged motivational salience of the deceased partner may be a complicating factor, particularly when coupled with perseverative thinking about the loss. We investigated how prolonged grief symptoms might relate to resting state functional brain network connectivity in a sample of older adults (n = 38) who experienced the death of a partner 6-36 months prior, and whether intranasal oxytocin (as a neuropeptide involved in pair-bonding) had differential effects in participants with higher prolonged grief symptoms. Higher scores on the Inventory of Complicated Grief (ICG) were associated with lower anticorrelation (i.e., higher functional connectivity) between the default retrosplenialcingulo-opercular dACC network pair. Intranasal oxytocin increased functional connectivity in the same default retrosplenialcingulo-opercular dACC circuit but ICG scores did not moderate effects of oxytocin, contrary to our prediction. Higher ICG scores were associated with longer dwell time in a dynamic functional connectivity state featuring positive correlations among default, frontoparietal, and cingulo-opercular networks, across both placebo and oxytocin sessions. Dwell time was not significantly affected by oxytocin, and higher prolonged grief symptoms were not associated with more variability in dynamic functional connectivity states over the scan. Results offer preliminary evidence that prolonged grief symptoms in older adults are associated with patterns of static and time-varying functional network connectivity and may specifically involve a default network-salience-related circuit that is sensitive to oxytocin.

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Attentional Bias to Reminders of the Deceased as Compared With a Living Attachment in Grieving

Cited by 16 publications

References 37 publications

Grief: A Brief History of Research on How Body, Mind, and Brain Adapt

Grief: A Brief History of Research on How Body, Mind, and Brain Adapt

Ongoing monitoring of mindwandering in avoidant grief through cortico-basal-ganglia interactions

Dwelling in prolonged grief: Resting state functional connectivity during oxytocin and placebo administration

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