Neural correlates of personality dimensions and affective measures during the anticipation of emotional stimuli

Abstract

Neuroticism and extraversion are proposed personality dimensions for individual emotion processing. Neuroticism is correlated with depression and anxiety disorders, implicating a common neurobiological basis. Extraversion is rather inversely correlated with anxiety and depression. We examined neural correlates of personality in relation to depressiveness and anxiety in healthy adult subjects with functional magnetic resonance imaging during the cued anticipation of emotional stimuli. Distributed particularly prefrontal but also other cortical regions and the thalamus were associated with extraversion. Parieto-occipital and temporal regions and subcortically the caudate were correlated with neuroticism and affective measures. Neuroticism-related regions were partially cross-correlated with anxiety and depression and vice versa. Extraversion-related activity was not correlated with the other measures. The neural correlates of extraversion compared with those of neuroticism and affective measures fit with concepts of different neurobiological bases of the personality dimensions and point at predispositions for affective disorders.

Extraversion mediates the relationship between structural variations in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and social well-being

“…Previous functional imaging studies have shown that extraversion and neuroticism measures are associated with the activities of specific PFC regions including the DLPFC and orbitofrontal cortex in the resting state (Adelstein et al, 2011;Johnson et al, 1999;Kunisato et al, 2011;Wei et al, 2011Wei et al, , 2014 or in response to some specific activation procedures (Brühl et al, 2011;Canli et al, 2001;Canli, 2004;Gioia et al, 2009;Gray et al, 2005;Harenski et al, 2009;Kumari et al, 2004). This is in accordance with previous VBM studies that reported the associations between regions of the PFC and extraversion and neuroticism (Coutinho et al, 2013;DeYoung et al, 2010;Forbes et al, 2014;Iidaka et al, 2006;Lu et al, 2014;Rauch et al, 2005;Wright et al, 2007).…”

Neuroticism modulates the effects of intranasal vasopressin treatment on the neural response to positive and negative social interactions

“…Our findings complement previous reports that Neuroticism is positively correlated with the neural response to positive pictures in brain regions associated with salience (Brühl, et al, 2011; Schaefer, et al, 2011) and with the neural response to negative pictures/words in brain areas related to emotion regulation (Canli, et al, 2001; Harenski, et al, 2009; Jimura, et al, 2009; Servaas, et al, 2013). These findings suggest that Neuroticism modulates neuropsychological processing of both negative and positive events.…”

“…Notably, we did not find expected relations between Neuroticism and neural response to negative events in salience-related brain regions (e.g., insula and amygdala). Although several previous studies have reported that individual high in Neuroticism showed stronger neural response to negative stimuli in the insula or amygdala (Brühl, et al, 2011; Harenski, et al, 2009; Paulus, et al, 2003), a recent meta-analysis concluded that there is no consistent correlation between Neuroticism and amygdala/insula activity to emotional stimuli (Servaas, et al, 2013). We speculate that enhanced activation in emotion regulation areas among individuals high in Neuroticism might inhibit hyperactivity of salience-related areas to negative events.…”

“…These findings suggest Neuroticism is associated with greater perceived salience of social aversiveness (Eisenberger & Lieberman, 2005). Accordingly, a growing body of neuroimaging studies has demonstrated that Neuroticism shows a positive correlation with the neural response to negative stimuli in brain regions involved in salience and emotion processing, such as the insula, striatum and amygdala (Brühl, Viebke, Baumgartner, Kaffenberger, & Herwig, 2011; Harenski, Kim, & Hamann, 2009; Paulus, Rogalsky, Simmons, Feinstein, & Stein, 2003), as well as regions implicated in emotion regulation, such as dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and lateral temporal lobe (Canli, et al, 2001; Haas, Constable, & Canli, 2008; Harenski, et al, 2009; Jimura, Konishi, & Miyashita, 2009; Servaas, et al, 2013). Notably, Neuroticism is also positively correlated with the neural response to positive stimuli in the striatum (Brühl, et al, 2011; Schaefer, Knuth, & Rumpel, 2011), suggesting that Neuroticism is associated with enhanced salience of both negative and positive stimuli.…”

A Preliminary Study of the Opioid System and Personality Traits Using Positron Emission Tomography

“…Past research has shown that differences in personality traits can also be linked to brain structure and function at rest as measured by structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), functional MRI (fMRI), and fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) [10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19]. Personality traits have also been shown to influence task-elicited brain function, as demonstrated by imaging studies using emotionally valenced tasks [20,21,22,23,24,25]. …”