Dismissing Attachment Characteristics Dynamically Modulate Brain Networks Subserving Social Aversion

Abstract

Attachment patterns influence actions, thoughts and feeling through a person’s “inner working model”. Speech charged with attachment-dependent content was proposed to modulate the activation of cognitive-emotional schemata in listeners. We performed a 7 Tesla rest-task-rest functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)-experiment, presenting auditory narratives prototypical of dismissing attachment representations to investigate their effect on 23 healthy males. We then examined effects of participants’ attachment style and childhood trauma on brain state changes using seed-based functional connectivity (FC) analyses, and finally tested whether subjective differences in responsivity to narratives could be predicted by baseline network states. In comparison to a baseline state, we observed increased FC in a previously described “social aversion network” including dorsal anterior cingulated cortex (dACC) and left anterior middle temporal gyrus (aMTG) specifically after exposure to insecure-dismissing attachment narratives. Increased dACC-seeded FC within the social aversion network was positively related to the participants’ avoidant attachment style and presence of a history of childhood trauma. Anxious attachment style on the other hand was positively correlated with FC between the dACC and a region outside of the “social aversion network”, namely the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which suggests decreased network segregation as a function of anxious attachment. Finally, the extent of subjective experience of friendliness towards the dismissing narrative was predicted by low baseline FC-values between hippocampus and inferior parietal lobule (IPL). Taken together, our study demonstrates an activation of networks related to social aversion in terms of increased connectivity after listening to insecure-dismissing attachment narratives. A causal interrelation of brain state changes and subsequent changes in social reactivity was further supported by our observation of direct prediction of neuronal responses by individual attachment and trauma characteristics and reversely prediction of subjective experience by intrinsic functional connections. We consider these findings of activation of within-network and between-network connectivity modulated by inter-individual differences as substantial for the understanding of interpersonal processes, particularly in clinical settings.

Exposure to attachment narratives dynamically modulates cortical arousal during the resting state in the listener

“…The behavioral “countertransference” reactions of listeners toward the insecure‐dismissing narrative were characterized both by the lowest inclination toward social interaction and the lowest rating of friendliness. This, firstly, supports the interpretation that a faster termination of the engagement between the listener and the interviewee occurs following exposure to the insecure‐dismissing narrative and, secondly, is consistent with observations in an earlier study (Krause et al., ).…”

“…Affective information processing can, furthermore, be influenced by internally stored representations of stimuli, ideas, or experiences that are called “latent schema.” Schemas are patterns of thought and behavior including internal representations of oneself, others, and the environment. They are activated by certain environmental events and shape how stimuli are perceived in a particular context (Krause et al., ; Nolte et al., ). Adverse experiences occurring early in life might lead to the development of negative schemas, which can simultaneously contribute to and be exacerbated by depressive symptoms (Disner, Beevers, Haigh, & Beck, ).…”

“…Further evidence for an interaction between insecure attachment and depression severity has been observed in cortico‐striato‐thalamic circuits of affect regulation (Galynker et al., ). Previous research based on resting‐state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs‐fMRI) has suggested that processing of emotional stimuli with attachment‐related content induces carryover effects and alters brain network configurations (Borchardt et al., ; Krause et al., ).…”

“…Despite little being known about whether or how emotional stimuli influence cortical arousal in the course of affective information processing, the investigation of trends in cortical arousal is crucial for the separation of vigilance‐associated signal changes from those specifically related to affective processing. While it has been shown that affective stimulation entails changes in brain network patterns at rest (Borchardt et al., ; Eryilmaz, Van De Ville, Schwartz, & Vuilleumier, ; Krause et al., ), it has not yet been investigated whether exogenous emotional stimulation has a prolonged effect on the temporal dynamics of endogenous cortical arousal.…”

Functional connectivity changes following interpersonal reactivity

“…Individual representations of attachment do not only have an influence on one's own processing of social emotional triggers, but can evoke a schema activation in the counterpart through attachment-specific speech patterns and behavior (Borchardt et al, 2015;Kirchmann, Thomas, Br€ uderle, & Strauß, 2011;Krause et al, 2016;Martin, Buchheim, Berger, & Strauss, 2007). Consequently, schema activation can be the result of an environmental trigger and can alter the mental states of the listener in terms of a 'carry-over effect' as for instance proposed in the cognitive model of depression (Beck, 1967;Disner, Beevers, Haigh, & Beck, 2011).…”