title: Happier People Show Greater Neural Connectivity during Negative Self-Referential Processing.
abstract: Life satisfaction is an essential component of subjective well-being and provides a fundamental resource for optimal everyday functioning. The goal of the present study was to examine how life satisfaction influences self-referential processing of emotionally valenced stimuli. Nineteen individuals with high life satisfaction (HLS) and 21 individuals with low life satisfaction (LLS) were scanned using functional MRI while performing a face-word relevance rating task, which consisted of 3 types of face stimuli (self, public other, and unfamiliar other) and 3 types of word stimuli (positive, negative, and neutral). We found a significant group x word valence interaction effect, most strikingly in the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex. In the positive word condition dorsal medial prefrontal cortex activity was significantly higher in the LLS group, whereas in the negative word condition it was significantly higher in the HLS group. The two groups showed distinct functional connectivity of the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex with emotional processing-related regions. The findings suggest that, in response to emotional stimuli, individuals with HLS may successfully recruit emotion regulation-related regions in contrast to individuals with LLS. The difference in functional connectivity during self-referential processing may lead to an influence of life satisfaction on responses to emotion-eliciting stimuli.
authors.affiliation: Graduate School of Education, Yonsei University, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Eun Joo
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Institute of Behavioral Science in Medicine, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Sunghyon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kyeong
authors.affiliation: Institute of Behavioral Science in Medicine, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Sang Woo
authors.initials: SW
authors.lastname: Cho
authors.affiliation: Institute of Behavioral Science in Medicine, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Ji-Won
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Chun
authors.affiliation: Department of Nuclear Medicine, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Hae-Jeong
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Park
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Yonsei University, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Jihye
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Department of Communication, Yonsei University, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Joohan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at UCL, London, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Raymond J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Dolan
authors.affiliation: Institute of Behavioral Science in Medicine, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea.|Department of Psychiatry, Yonsei University Gangnam Severance Hospital, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Jae-Jin
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Kim
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001519:Behavior; D001931:Brain Mapping; D003710:Demography; D005145:Face; D005260:Female; D006240:Happiness; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008606:Mental Processes; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000502:physiology*; D010549:Personal Satisfaction; D011930:Reaction Time; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis