The ups and downs of brain stress: Extending the triple network hypothesis
Poster No:
1045
Submission Type:
Abstract Submission
Authors:
Gina-Isabelle Henze1, Marina Giglberger2, Christoph Bärtl1, Julian Konzok2, Maja Neidhart1, Tabea Krause1, Emin Serin1, Lea Waller1, Hannah Peter2, Ludwig Kreuzpointner2, Nina Speicher2, Fabian Streit3, Ilya Veer4, Peter Kirsch3, Thomas Nichols5, Brigitte Kudielka2, Stefan Wüst2, Susanne Erk1, Henrik Walter1
Institutions:
1Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany, 2University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany, 3Central Institute of Mental Health, Mannheim, Germany, 4University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 5University of Oxford, Oxford, Oxfordshire
First Author:
Co-Author(s):
Introduction:
Stress is an ubiquitous experience triggering both adaptive and maladaptive responses in every organism, with acute stress leading to short-term mobilization of resources, while chronic stress can have serious effects on a person's mental and physical health. (De Kloet et al., 2005). Neuroscientific research has expanded our understanding of brain networks involved in stress processing (Hermans et al., 2014) with the triple network hypothesis modelling the engagement of the salience network (SN), default mode network (DMN), and central executive network (CEN) to explain the dynamics between emotional processing (SN), self-perception (DMN) and cognitive control (CEN) during short- and long-term stress coping (Van Oort et al., 2017). In the context of psychosocial stress, i.e., stress experiences resulting from interpersonal conflicts, social interactions and expectations, a prioritization of the SN and DMN over the CEN has been suggested (Hermans et al., 2014; Van Oort et al., 2017) which was tested both quantitatively and qualitatively in the present pre-registered mega-analysis.
Methods:
We reviewed psychosocial stress induction studies and conducted a mega-analysis of over 500 ScanSTRESS-datasets with harmonized preprocessing using ENIGMA HALFpipe (Waller et al., 2022). Based on existing literature on neural correlates of psychosocial stress processing, we further investigated whether responses of SN- and DMN-structures exhibit (sex-specific) relationships with reactions of other stress activation systems: We hypothesized to detect associations with acute cortisol and negative affect increases and possibly also with stress-induced heart rate elevations in SN- and DMN-structures. Furthermore, we aimed to examine whether pure task performance is associated with reactions of the CEN and DMN as both exert cognitive control and executive functions via prefrontal regions (Menon & D'Esposito, 2022).
As exploratory analysis, we investigated whether the recently described exposure-time effect can be replicated, which consists in an increasing deactivation of pre-limbic structures over the two runs of ScanSTRESS (Dahm et al., 2017; Henze et al., 2020). Finally, we explored task-based connectivity of the triple network during psychosocial stress by investigating generalized psychophysiological interactions (gPPI; Corr et al., 2022).
As exploratory analysis, we investigated whether the recently described exposure-time effect can be replicated, which consists in an increasing deactivation of pre-limbic structures over the two runs of ScanSTRESS (Dahm et al., 2017; Henze et al., 2020). Finally, we explored task-based connectivity of the triple network during psychosocial stress by investigating generalized psychophysiological interactions (gPPI; Corr et al., 2022).
Results:
We found that the original triple network hypothesis was disconfirmed, but can be differentiated and extended based on our results: There are activations as well as deactivations in all three networks which can be related in a complex way to hormonal, cardiac, subjective, and performance parameters. We identified positive associations between activations in SN- and DMN-structures and stress-induced cortisol increases as well as negative affect ratings. Additionally, deactivations in the DMN were positively associated with stress-induced heart rate, while individual error rates in the stress-inducing tasks were associated with more activations in CEN- and DMN-structures. Furthermore, we replicated an exposure-time effect of decreasing activation, found a surprising age effect of more activation in the DMN with increasing age, and demonstrated sex-specific effect patterns. From our findings we suggest a new, extended triple network hypothesis of psychosocial stress processing which was also supported by task-based connectivity results.
Conclusions:
The extended triple network hypothesis (see Figure 1) highlights a central role of the DMN during acute psychosocial stress processing by emphasizing that SN- and DMN-structures appear to orchestrate hormonal, cardiac, and subjective stress responses, while CEN- and DMN-structures process the stress-eliciting tasks. This model provides a valuable framework for investigating stress-related disorders with greater precision.
·(see Figure 1)
Disorders of the Nervous System:
Psychiatric (eg. Depression, Anxiety, Schizophrenia)
Emotion, Motivation and Social Neuroscience:
Social Interaction
Social Neuroscience Other 2
Modeling and Analysis Methods:
Activation (eg. BOLD task-fMRI) 1
Physiology, Metabolism and Neurotransmission:
Neurophysiology of Imaging Signals
Keywords:
Cognition
FUNCTIONAL MRI
MRI
Pre-registration
Psychiatric
Saliva
Other - Psychosocial Stress
1|2Indicates the priority used for review
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Provide references using APA citation style.
Dahm, A. S. et al. (2017). The burden of conscientiousness? Examining brain activation and cortisol response during social evaluative stress. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 78, 48–56.
De Kloet, E. R. et al. (2005). Stress and the brain: From adaptation to disease. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 6(6), 463–475.
Friedman, N. P., & Robbins, T. W. (2022). The role of prefrontal cortex in cognitive control and executive function. Neuropsychopharmacology, 47(1), 72–89.
Henze, G.-I. et al. (2020). Increasing deactivation of limbic structures over psychosocial stress exposure time. Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, 5(7), 697–704.
Hermans, E. J. et al. G. (2014). Dynamic adaptation of large-scale brain networks in response to acute stressors. Trends in Neurosciences, 37(6), 304–314.
Menon, V. (2011). Large-scale brain networks and psychopathology: A unifying triple network model. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 15(10), 483–506.
Menon, V., & D’Esposito, M. (2022). The role of PFC networks in cognitive control and executive function. Neuropsychopharmacology, 47(1), 90–103.
Van Oort, J. et al. (2017). How the brain connects in response to acute stress: A review at the human brain systems level. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 83, 281–297.
Waller, L. et al. (2022). ENIGMA HALFpipe: Interactive, reproducible, and efficient analysis for resting-state and task-based fMRI data. Human Brain Mapping, 43(9).