title: Dismissing Attachment Characteristics Dynamically Modulate Brain Networks Subserving Social Aversion.
abstract: Attachment patterns influence actions, thoughts and feeling through a person's "inner working model". Speech charged with attachment-dependent content was proposed to modulate the activation of cognitive-emotional schemata in listeners. We performed a 7 Tesla rest-task-rest functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)-experiment, presenting auditory narratives prototypical of dismissing attachment representations to investigate their effect on 23 healthy males. We then examined effects of participants' attachment style and childhood trauma on brain state changes using seed-based functional connectivity (FC) analyses, and finally tested whether subjective differences in responsivity to narratives could be predicted by baseline network states. In comparison to a baseline state, we observed increased FC in a previously described "social aversion network" including dorsal anterior cingulated cortex (dACC) and left anterior middle temporal gyrus (aMTG) specifically after exposure to insecure-dismissing attachment narratives. Increased dACC-seeded FC within the social aversion network was positively related to the participants' avoidant attachment style and presence of a history of childhood trauma. Anxious attachment style on the other hand was positively correlated with FC between the dACC and a region outside of the "social aversion network", namely the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which suggests decreased network segregation as a function of anxious attachment. Finally, the extent of subjective experience of friendliness towards the dismissing narrative was predicted by low baseline FC-values between hippocampus and inferior parietal lobule (IPL). Taken together, our study demonstrates an activation of networks related to social aversion in terms of increased connectivity after listening to insecure-dismissing attachment narratives. A causal interrelation of brain state changes and subsequent changes in social reactivity was further supported by our observation of direct prediction of neuronal responses by individual attachment and trauma characteristics and reversely prediction of subjective experience by intrinsic functional connections. We consider these findings of activation of within-network and between-network connectivity modulated by inter-individual differences as substantial for the understanding of interpersonal processes, particularly in clinical settings.
authors.affiliation: Clinical Affective Neuroimaging Laboratory, Otto von Guericke UniversityMagdeburg, Germany; Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Otto von Guericke UniversityMagdeburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Anna Linda
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Krause
authors.affiliation: Clinical Affective Neuroimaging Laboratory, Otto von Guericke UniversityMagdeburg, Germany; Leibniz Institute for NeurobiologyMagdeburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Viola
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Borchardt
authors.affiliation: Clinical Affective Neuroimaging Laboratory, Otto von Guericke UniversityMagdeburg, Germany; Department of Neurology, Otto von Guericke University, MagdeburgGermany.
authors.forename: Meng
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: University of Groningen, Neuroimaging Center, University Medical Center Groningen Groningen, Netherlands.
authors.forename: Marie-José
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: van Tol
authors.affiliation: Clinical Affective Neuroimaging Laboratory, Otto von Guericke UniversityMagdeburg, Germany; Department of Neurology, Otto von Guericke University, MagdeburgGermany.
authors.forename: Liliana Ramona
authors.initials: LR
authors.lastname: Demenescu
authors.affiliation: Institute of Psychosocial Medicine and Psychotherapy, University Hospital Jena Jena, Germany.
authors.forename: Bernhard
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Strauss
authors.affiliation: Institute of Psychosocial Medicine and Psychotherapy, University Hospital Jena Jena, Germany.
authors.forename: Helmut
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kirchmann
authors.affiliation: Institute of Psychology, University of Innsbruck Innsbruck, Austria.
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Buchheim
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Otto von Guericke UniversityMagdeburg, Germany; Leibniz Institute for NeurobiologyMagdeburg, Germany; Center for Behavioral Brain Sciences (CBBS)Magdeburg, Germany; Institute for Cognitive Neurology and Dementia Research (IKND)Magdeburg, Germany; German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE)Magdeburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Coraline D
authors.initials: CD
authors.lastname: Metzger
authors.affiliation: Anna Freud CentreLondon, UK; Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, University College of LondonLondon, UK.
authors.forename: Tobias
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nolte
authors.affiliation: Clinical Affective Neuroimaging Laboratory, Otto von Guericke UniversityMagdeburg, Germany; Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Otto von Guericke UniversityMagdeburg, Germany; Leibniz Institute for NeurobiologyMagdeburg, Germany; Center for Behavioral Brain Sciences (CBBS)Magdeburg, Germany; Department of Psychiatry, Eberhard Karls UniversityTübingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Walter
keywords: attachment; cognitive schema; functional connectivity; individual differences; resting-state