A thalamo-centric neural signature for restructuring negative self-beliefs

Negative self-beliefs are a core feature of psychopathology. Despite this, we have a limited understanding of the brain mechanisms by which negative self-beliefs are cognitively restructured. Using a novel paradigm, we had participants use Socratic questioning techniques to restructure negative beli...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Molecular psychiatry 2022-03, Vol.27 (3), p.1611-1617
Main Authors: Steward, Trevor, Kung, Po-Han, Davey, Christopher G., Moffat, Bradford A., Glarin, Rebecca K., Jamieson, Alec J., Felmingham, Kim L., Harrison, Ben J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
59/36
59/57
631/378
631/477
692/699/476
Basal ganglia
Behavioral Sciences
Biological Psychology
Brain
Brain mapping
Cognition & reasoning
Cognitive ability
Functional magnetic resonance imaging
Magnetic resonance imaging
Medicine
Medicine & Public Health
Mental disorders
Neural networks
Neuroimaging
Neurosciences
Pharmacotherapy
Prefrontal cortex
Psychiatry
Psychopathology
Psychotherapy
Questionnaires
Thalamus
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Negative self-beliefs are a core feature of psychopathology. Despite this, we have a limited understanding of the brain mechanisms by which negative self-beliefs are cognitively restructured. Using a novel paradigm, we had participants use Socratic questioning techniques to restructure negative beliefs during ultra-high resolution 7-Tesla functional magnetic resonance imaging (UHF 7 T fMRI) scanning. Cognitive restructuring elicited prominent activation in a fronto-striato-thalamic circuit, including the mediodorsal thalamus (MD), a group of deep subcortical nuclei believed to synchronize and integrate prefrontal cortex activity, but which has seldom been directly examined with fMRI due to its small size. Increased activity was also identified in the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), a region consistently activated by internally focused mental processing, as well as in lateral prefrontal regions associated with regulating emotional reactivity. Using Dynamic Causal Modelling (DCM), evidence was found to support the MD as having a strong excitatory effect on the activity of regions within the broader network mediating cognitive restructuring. Moreover, the degree to which participants modulated MPFC-to-MD effective connectivity during cognitive restructuring predicted their individual tendency to engage in repetitive negative thinking. Our findings represent a major shift from a cortico-centric framework of cognition and provide important mechanistic insights into how the MD facilitates key processes in cognitive interventions for common psychiatric disorders. In addition to relaying integrative information across basal ganglia and the cortex, we propose a multifaceted role for the MD whose broad excitatory pathways act to increase synchrony between cortical regions to sustain complex mental representations, including the self.
ISSN:1359-4184
1476-5578
DOI:10.1038/s41380-021-01402-9