title: Neural responses to kindness and malevolence differ in illness and recovery in women with anorexia nervosa.
abstract: In anorexia nervosa, problems with social relationships contribute to illness, and improvements in social support are associated with recovery. Using the multiround trust game and 3T MRI, we compare neural responses in a social relationship in three groups of women: women with anorexia nervosa, women in long-term weight recovery from anorexia nervosa, and healthy comparison women. Surrogate markers related to social signals in the game were computed each round to assess whether the relationship was improving (benevolence) or deteriorating (malevolence) for each subject. Compared with healthy women, neural responses to benevolence were diminished in the precuneus and right angular gyrus in both currently-ill and weight-recovered subjects with anorexia, but neural responses to malevolence differed in the left fusiform only in currently-ill subjects. Next, using a whole-brain regression, we identified an office assessment, the positive personalizing bias, that was inversely correlated with neural activity in the occipital lobe, the precuneus and posterior cingulate, the bilateral temporoparietal junctions, and dorsal anterior cingulate, during benevolence for all groups of subjects. The positive personalizing bias is a self-report measure that assesses the degree with which a person attributes positive experiences to other people. These data suggest that problems in perceiving kindness may be a consistent trait related to the development of anorexia nervosa, whereas recognizing malevolence may be related to recovery. Future work on social brain function, in both healthy and psychiatric populations, should consider positive personalizing biases as a possible marker of neural differences related to kindness perception.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Texas at Southwestern Medical School, Dallas, Texas.|Psychiatry, Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas, Dallas, Texas.
authors.forename: Carrie J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: McAdams
authors.affiliation: Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute, Virginia Tech, Roanoke, Virginia.
authors.forename: Terry
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Lohrenz
authors.affiliation: Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute, Virginia Tech, Roanoke, Virginia.|Computational Psychiatry Unit, Virginia Tech, Roanoke, Virginia.|Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, University College London, London, United Kingdom.|Department of Physics, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia.
authors.forename: P Read
authors.initials: PR
authors.lastname: Montague
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D000856:Anorexia Nervosa / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology; D026686:Beneficence; D001921:Brain / Q000473:pathology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D005260:Female; D005717:Games, Experimental; D006801:Humans; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional; D007361:Intelligence Tests; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008875:Middle Aged; D020127:Recovery of Function / Q000502:physiology*; D012044:Regression Analysis; D035502:Trust / Q000523:psychology; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: default mode network; eating disorders; fMRI; neuroeconomic; social cognition