Lower dorsal striatum activation in association with neuroticism during the acceptance of unfair offers.

Unfair treatment may evoke more negative emotions in individuals scoring higher on neuroticism, thereby possibly impacting their decision-making in these situations. To investigate the neural basis of social decision-making in these individuals, we examined interpersonal reactions to unfairness in the Ultimatum Game (UG). We measured brain activation with fMRI in 120 participants selected based on their neuroticism score, while they made decisions to accept or reject proposals that were either fair or unfair.

The effect of criticism on functional brain connectivity and associations with neuroticism.

Neuroticism is a robust personality trait that constitutes a risk factor for psychopathology, especially anxiety disorders and depression. High neurotic individuals tend to be more self-critical and are overly sensitive to criticism by others. Hence, we used a novel resting-state paradigm to investigate the effect of criticism on functional brain connectivity and associations with neuroticism.