Amygdala and nucleus accumbens activation during reward anticipation moderates the association between life stressor frequency and depressive symptoms.

Background: Life stressors confer risk for depressive symptoms, but individuals vary in the extent of their sensitivity to life stressors. One protective factor may be an individual's level of reward sensitivity, e.g.

What if? Neural activity underlying semantic and episodic counterfactual thinking.

Counterfactual thinking (CFT) is the process of mentally simulating alternative versions of known facts. In the past decade, cognitive neuroscientists have begun to uncover the neural underpinnings of CFT, particularly episodic CFT (eCFT), which activates regions in the default network (DN) also activated by episodic memory (eM) recall. However, the engagement of DN regions is different for distinct kinds of eCFT.

Frontal-Brainstem Pathways Mediating Placebo Effects on Social Rejection.

Placebo treatments can strongly affect clinical outcomes, but research on how they shape other life experiences and emotional well-being is in its infancy. We used fMRI in humans to examine placebo effects on a particularly impactful life experience, social pain elicited by a recent romantic rejection. We compared these effects with placebo effects on physical (heat) pain, which are thought to depend on pathways connecting prefrontal cortex and periaqueductal gray (PAG).

Tracking the emergence of memories: A category-learning paradigm to explore schema-driven recognition.

Previous research has shown that prior knowledge structures or schemas affect recognition memory. However, since the acquisition of schemas occurs over prolonged periods of time, few paradigms allow the direct manipulation of schema acquisition to study their effect on memory performance. Recently, a number of parallelisms in recognition memory between studies involving schemas and studies involving category learning have been identified.

Somatic and vicarious pain are represented by dissociable multivariate brain patterns.

Understanding how humans represent others' pain is critical for understanding pro-social behavior. 'Shared experience' theories propose common brain representations for somatic and vicarious pain, but other evidence suggests that specialized circuits are required to experience others' suffering. Combining functional neuroimaging with multivariate pattern analyses, we identified dissociable patterns that predicted somatic (high versus low: 100%) and vicarious (high versus low: 100%) pain intensity in out-of-sample individuals.

Separate neural representations for physical pain and social rejection.

Current theories suggest that physical pain and social rejection share common neural mechanisms, largely by virtue of overlapping functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) activity. Here we challenge this notion by identifying distinct multivariate fMRI patterns unique to pain and rejection. Sixty participants experience painful heat and warmth and view photos of ex-partners and friends on separate trials.

Cognitive control in adolescence: neural underpinnings and relation to self-report behaviors.

Background: Adolescence is commonly characterized by impulsivity, poor decision-making, and lack of foresight. However, the developmental neural underpinnings of these characteristics are not well established.

Methodology/principal Findings: To test the hypothesis that these adolescent behaviors are linked to under-developed proactive control mechanisms, the present study employed a hybrid block/event-related functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) Stroop paradigm combined with self-report questionnaires in a large sample of adolescents and adults, ranging in age from 14 to 25.

Symptom-correlated brain regions in young adults with combined-type ADHD: their organization, variability, and relation to behavioral performance.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a widely diagnosed psychiatric disorder of childhood that may continue to manifest itself during adulthood. Across adults and children, inattention appears to be the most developmentally stable symptomatology of ADHD. To determine the neural systems that may be linked to such symptoms, the association between brain activation in a group of young adults in the face of an attentional challenge (the Stroop task) and inattentive symptoms was examined with functional magnetic resonance imaging.

Attentional control activation relates to working memory in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

Background: Attentional control difficulties in individuals with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) might reflect poor working memory (WM) ability, especially because WM ability and attentional control rely on similar brain regions. The current study examined whether WM ability might explain group differences in brain activation between adults with ADHD and normal control subjects during attentional demand.

Methods: Participants were 20 adults with ADHD combined subtype with no comorbid psychiatric or learning disorders and 23 control subjects similar in age, IQ, and gender.

The neural basis of sustained and transient attentional control in young adults with ADHD.

Differences in neural activation during performance on an attentionally demanding Stroop task were examined between 23 young adults with ADHD carefully selected to not be co-morbid for other psychiatric disorders and 23 matched controls. A hybrid blocked/single-trial design allowed for examination of more sustained vs. more transient aspects of attentional control.