The optimistic brain: Trait optimism mediates the influence of resting‐state brain activity and connectivity on anxiety in late adolescence

Abstract

As a hot research topic in the field of psychology and psychiatry, trait optimism reflects the tendency to expect positive outcomes in the future. Consistent evidence has demonstrated the role of trait optimism in reducing anxiety among different populations. However, less is known about the neural bases of trait optimism and the underlying mechanisms for how trait optimism protects against anxiety in the healthy brain. In this investigation, we examined these issues in 231 healthy adolescent students by assessing resting-state brain activity (i.e., fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations, fALFF) and connectivity (i.e., resting-state functional connectivity, RSFC). Whole-brain correlation analyses revealed that higher levels of trait optimism were linked with decreased fALFF in the right orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and increased RSFC between the right OFC and left supplementary motor cortex (SMC). Mediation analyses further showed that trait optimism mediated the influence of the right OFC activity and the OFC-SMC connectivity on anxiety. Our results remained significant even after excluding the impact of head motion, positive and negative affect and depression. Taken together, this study reveals that fALFF and RSFC are functional neural markers of trait optimism and provides a brain-personality-symptom pathway for protection against anxiety in which fALFF and RSFC affect anxiety through trait optimism.

Stress and the brain: Perceived stress mediates the impact of the superior frontal gyrus spontaneous activity on depressive symptoms in late adolescence

“…In total, 234 healthy 12th‐grade students (122 females; mean age = 18.60 ± 0.78 years) from five local public high schools participated in this study, which is a part of our ongoing project to investigate the neurobiological substrates of adolescents' personality traits, well‐being and academic achievement in Chengdu, China (Li et al, ; Wang, Kong, et al, ; Wang, Xu, et al, ; Wang, Dai, et al, ; Wang, Zhao, et al, ). Seventeen participants were excluded because of incidental MRI findings (i.e., unusual cysts, three participants) or a lack of behavioral data (14 participants); thus, 217 participants (110 females; mean age = 18.50 ± 0.55 years) were included in our data analyses.…”

“…The DPARSF toolbox (Yan, Wang, Zuo, & Zang, ), which utilizes Statistical Parametric Mapping software (SPM8, Wellcome Department of Cognitive Neurology, London, UK), was employed to preprocess the RS‐fMRI data. As described in our previous studies (Wang, Xu, et al, ; Wang, Zhao, et al, ), the data preprocessing was conducted with the following steps: discarding the first 10 images to ensure signal stabilization, correcting for slice timing and head motion, realigning, normalizing with 3 × 3 × 3 mm 3 resolution, smoothing using an 8‐mm full‐width at half‐maximum Gaussian kernel, and removing linear trends. No participants were excluded during preprocessing because the rotational or translational parameters were less than ±1.5 mm or ± 1.5°.…”

Neurostructural correlates of optimism: Gray matter density in the putamen predicts dispositional optimism in late adolescence

“…Two hundred thirty‐four local high school students aged 16 to 20 years (112 males, mean age = 18.6 years, SD = 0.78) participated in the study, all of whom were right‐handed native Mandarin Chinese speakers and were recruited from an ongoing neuroimaging project with the purpose of exploring the behavioral and neural substrates underlying social abilities, personality, and academic achievement among adolescents in Chengdu, China (Li et al, ; Wang et al, , ; Wang, Dai, et al, ; Wang, Zhao, et al, ). All participants were healthy and had no history of psychiatric or neurological diseases according to their records in the student archives from the schools and their self‐reports for two items (i.e., “Have you and your parents ever had any neurological illnesses?” and “Have you and your parents ever had any psychiatric illnesses?”) (Wang et al, ).…”

“…After reverse scoring the negatively worded items, we added together the responses for all six items to generate an individual's LOT‐R score, with a higher score suggesting higher dispositional optimism. The Chinese version of the LOT‐R has shown adequate reliability and validity in different populations (Shi, Liu, Wang, & Wang, ; Wang, Zhao, et al, ; Wang, Liu, Shi, & Wang, ; Yang et al, ). In our sample, the Cronbach's alpha coefficient for LOT‐R was .74, indicating acceptable internal reliability.…”

“…Moreover, evidence from a resting‐state fMRI study revealed that increased dispositional optimism was associated with decreased functional connectivity between the IFG and VMPFC (Ran et al, ), which has been shown to be a prominent brain region in reward value processing (Kuzmanovic et al, ). Another resting‐state fMRI study further suggested that higher levels of dispositional optimism were associated with lower local spontaneous activity in the OFC (Wang, Zhao, et al, ), which serves a role in encoding reward values (O'Doherty, ). However, we could still not ascertain which regional variations in human brain morphology were associated with interindividual differences in dispositional optimism, given that the functional and structural correlates of a trait or an ability may not necessarily situate in the same brain areas (Basten, Hilger, & Fiebach, ; Kanai & Rees, ).…”