Sex Differences in Effective Connectivity of Amygdala and Nucleus Accumbens During Service Recovery
Poster No:
594
Submission Type:
Abstract Submission
Authors:
Yu-Chen Chan1, Chen-Ya Wang1
Institutions:
1National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan
First Author:
Co-Author:
Introduction:
Monetary compensation and humor are widely used as service recovery strategies. While previous research highlights sex differences in emotional responses during service recovery, the neural mechanisms underlying these differences remain underexplored. Building on our previous study on service recovery (Chan et al., 2023), this study examined sex differences in effective connectivity within the dopaminergic reward system during service failure and recovery using dynamic causal modeling (DCM) combined with parametric empirical Bayes (PEB) analysis.
Methods:
Participants
Forty-two healthy, right-handed adults (21 men and 21 women) participated in this study. All participants had no history of neurological disorders. The study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of National Tsing Hua University, and all participants provided written informed consent before the experiment.
Experimental design
This study employed a 2 (Sex: Men, Women) × 4 (Condition: Monetary Compensation with Humor [MH], Monetary Compensation with Non-Humor Apology [MA], Non-Monetary Compensation with Humor [H], Non-Monetary Compensation with Non-Humor Apology [CON]) two-way mixed design.
Stimuli
Sixty-four service failure and recovery scenario pairs were adapted from our previous study (Chan et al., 2023). Each scenario included a setup (service failure) and a punchline (service recovery) delivered as verbal stimuli.
Experimental procedure
Participants engaged in an event-related fMRI paradigm where they rated the funniness of each scenario using a four-button keypad. Each participant viewed 64 scenarios over four counterbalanced runs across participants. Stimuli presentation and data collection were conducted using E-Prime 3.
Image analysis
The fMRI data were preprocessed and analyzed using SPM12 and implemented with MATLAB. Dynamic causal modeling (DCM) was used to infer effective connectivity (EC) among key regions in the dopaminergic reward system, including the ventral tegmental area (VTA), substantia nigra (SN), nucleus accumbens (NAc), and amygdala. DCM analysis was performed by specifying a DCM per participant in the individual-level analysis. The parametric empirical Bayes (PEB) analysis was used to estimate group-level connectivity patterns. Leave-one-out cross-validation (LOO-CV) was applied to evaluate the predictive relationship between neural activity and satisfaction ratings.
Forty-two healthy, right-handed adults (21 men and 21 women) participated in this study. All participants had no history of neurological disorders. The study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of National Tsing Hua University, and all participants provided written informed consent before the experiment.
Experimental design
This study employed a 2 (Sex: Men, Women) × 4 (Condition: Monetary Compensation with Humor [MH], Monetary Compensation with Non-Humor Apology [MA], Non-Monetary Compensation with Humor [H], Non-Monetary Compensation with Non-Humor Apology [CON]) two-way mixed design.
Stimuli
Sixty-four service failure and recovery scenario pairs were adapted from our previous study (Chan et al., 2023). Each scenario included a setup (service failure) and a punchline (service recovery) delivered as verbal stimuli.
Experimental procedure
Participants engaged in an event-related fMRI paradigm where they rated the funniness of each scenario using a four-button keypad. Each participant viewed 64 scenarios over four counterbalanced runs across participants. Stimuli presentation and data collection were conducted using E-Prime 3.
Image analysis
The fMRI data were preprocessed and analyzed using SPM12 and implemented with MATLAB. Dynamic causal modeling (DCM) was used to infer effective connectivity (EC) among key regions in the dopaminergic reward system, including the ventral tegmental area (VTA), substantia nigra (SN), nucleus accumbens (NAc), and amygdala. DCM analysis was performed by specifying a DCM per participant in the individual-level analysis. The parametric empirical Bayes (PEB) analysis was used to estimate group-level connectivity patterns. Leave-one-out cross-validation (LOO-CV) was applied to evaluate the predictive relationship between neural activity and satisfaction ratings.
Results:
In the MH condition, men exhibited stronger effective connectivity (EC) from the amygdala to the left SN (lSN), while women demonstrated greater EC from the lSN to the NAc. For the MA condition, men showed enhanced EC from the NAc to the amygdala, correlating with satisfaction ratings (r(40) = 0.40, p = 0.045) as confirmed by LOO-CV. Women displayed stronger EC from the NAc to the VTA in the same condition.
In the H condition, men showed increased EC from the NAc to the amygdala and from the right SN (rSN) to the VTA. Women, in contrast, displayed enhanced connectivity from the amygdala to the rSN and from the lSN to the VTA. These results highlight distinct sex-based patterns of neural connectivity underlying emotional responses during service failure and recovery.
In the H condition, men showed increased EC from the NAc to the amygdala and from the right SN (rSN) to the VTA. Women, in contrast, displayed enhanced connectivity from the amygdala to the rSN and from the lSN to the VTA. These results highlight distinct sex-based patterns of neural connectivity underlying emotional responses during service failure and recovery.
·In the MA condition, men showed enhanced EC from the NAc to the amygdala, with a significant LOO-CV correlation (r(40) = 0.40, p = 0.045).
Conclusions:
The present study highlights sex-specific differences in neural connectivity within the dopaminergic reward system during service recovery. Monetary compensation was associated with enhanced connectivity in the NAc (Chan et al., 2018, 2023). Men demonstrated stronger EC involving the NAc → amygdala pathway, while women showed greater EC in the lSN → NAc and NAc → VTA pathways. For humor appreciation, connectivity was amplified in the amygdala (Chan et al., 2018, 2023), with men showing stronger NAc → amygdala EC and women exhibiting amygdala → rSN connectivity. These findings underscore the role of sex in modulating the neural dynamics of emotional responses to service recovery strategies.
Emotion, Motivation and Social Neuroscience:
Social Neuroscience Other 2
Emotion and Motivation Other 1
Modeling and Analysis Methods:
Activation (eg. BOLD task-fMRI)
Connectivity (eg. functional, effective, structural)
fMRI Connectivity and Network Modeling
Keywords:
Emotions
FUNCTIONAL MRI
Limbic Systems
Social Interactions
1|2Indicates the priority used for review
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Provide references using APA citation style.
Chan, Y. C., Hsu, W. C., & Chou, T. L. (2018). Dissociation between the processing of humorous and monetary rewards in the ‘motivation’ and ‘hedonic’ brain. Scientific Reports, 8, 15425.