Higher affective congruency in the approach-avoidance task is associated with insular deactivation to dynamic facial expressions

doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2020.107734

Neuropsychologia

Volume 151, 22 January 2021, 107734

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2020.107734 Get rights and content

Highlights

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Approach-avoidance action tendencies may be altered in psychiatric conditions.
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Congruency-focused AAT may improve neural processing of social-affective cues.
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High congruency AAT was associated with lower right anterior insula recruitment.
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A high congruency AAT condition may help reduce affective processing of social cues.

Abstract

Individuals exhibit a natural bias to approach positive social cues (e.g., smiling face) and to avoid negative ones, which may be altered in psychiatric conditions. Computerized approach/avoidance training to promote affectively congruent behavior has proven useful in modulating such biases. Here, we investigate how exposure to a higher rate of congruency impacts neural processing of social-affective cues.

While undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), twenty-four individuals completed two versions of the approach-avoidance task (AAT), in which they had to approach or avoid dynamic facial expressions of either happiness or disgust. In the high congruency condition, congruent responses (i.e. approaching happy faces, avoiding disgusted faces) were more frequent. The balanced condition had equal amounts of congruent and incongruent responses.

Processing of congruent approach-avoidance actions towards social cues was associated with lower recruitment of the right anterior insula in the congruency-intensive relative to the balanced condition. Differential activation between the high congruency and balanced condition in the right hippocampus was negatively related to individuals’ trait avoidance tendency. These findings are consistent with reduced affective neural processing of social cues when being exposed to congruent AAT contexts. These neural foci could be important targets when assessing the effectiveness of affective congruency training protocols.

Section snippets

Author contribution

Katia M. Harlé: Formal analysis, Writing – original draft, Methodology. Alan N. Simmons: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – review & editing. Jessica Bomyea: Writing – review & editing. Andrea D. Spadoni: Writing – review & editing. Charles T. Taylor: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – review & editing.

Participants

Twenty-four individuals (mean age = 26.8, SD = 6.7; 55% female) were recruited through flyers and participated in this study, which was approved by the Human Research Protections Program at University of California, San Diego. Participants had an average of 15.8 (SD = 1.9) years of education and the majority (75%) were non-Hispanic (25% Hispanic). All participants signed informed consent, and were compensated $50 for completing the study. Exclusion criteria included current use of psychotropic

Behavioral performance

Two miixed-effect generalized linear models were applied to participants’ raw reaction times (RT) on correct trials as well as binary trial accuracy, each model treating subject as a random factor to account for with-subject effects (Baayen et al., 2008). Given the positive skew of the reaction times, an inverse Gaussian distribution was used to model RTs (Lo and Andrews, 2015). A binomial logit distribution was used for trial accuracy.

Consistent with previously observed congruency effects in

Discussion

In this study, we aimed to identify how performing a higher rate of affectively congruent responses to dynamic social cues, which could be implemented as a form of CBM training, impacts the neural processing of these cues. This assessment may provide insight into what neural systems support improved emotion regulation following such interventions. Using the AAT paradigm, we assessed whether individuals display a different neural signature when exposed to a higher proportion of congruent

Declaration of competing interest

None.

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the Veterans Health Administration IK2CX001584, CX001600, and IK2CX000864 awarded to Katia Harlé, Jessica Bomyea, and Andrea Spadoni, respectively, as well as Merit I01-CX001542 and I01-CX000715, awarded to Alan Simmons, and NIMH funding (R00MH090243) awarded to Charles Taylor.