A neural basis for rebelonging
Poster No:
668
Submission Type:
Abstract Submission
Authors:
Akila Kadambi1, Sofronia Ringold2, Srini Narayanan3, Antonio Damasio2, Jonas Kaplan2, Lisa Aziz-Zadeh2
Institutions:
1University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 2University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, 3Google, DeepMind, Zurich, Switzerland
First Author:
Co-Author(s):
Introduction:
Social exclusion has debilitating psychological impacts, often leading to mental health challenges and trauma. Reclaiming a sense of belonging, or "rebelonging," is crucial for recovery. While studies utilizing designs like the Cyberball tasks (Williams et al., 2000) show that social exclusion traditionally engages a network of brain regions typically co-engaged during social pain (e.g., anterior cingulate cortex, anterior insula, somatosensory cortex), the neural basis for rebelonging after exclusion remains unknown. In an attempt to identify a neural basis for rebelonging, we designed a study in which participants listened to narratives known to foster empathy and simulate feelings of belonging (Contreras & Montgomery, 2022) in the hope that the territories identified by the listening/feeling condition correspond to territories actually engaged by rebelonging.
Methods:
Thirty-nine right-handed, American participants (Mage=22.75, SDage=4.85; age range:18.5-37.5; females=21, males=18) from the Los Angeles area participated in the study. fMRI data was collected on a 3T Siemens MAGNETOM-Prisma scanner in a blocked naturalistic listening design, equipped with a 32-channel head coil. Functional data was acquired utilizing the T2*-weighted Gradient Recall Echo sequence. Scanning parameters included: repetition time=1000 ms, echo time=35 ms, voxel size=3mm3 voxels, field of view=204 mm, flip angle=52°. During fMRI, participants listened to a narrative about a personal experience, divided into the following sections: belonging, followed by a period of social exclusion, followed by a period of rebelonging – modeled in a block design with jittered rest between. Prior to scanning, trait assessments of meaning in life, empathy, loneliness, belonging, and neuroticism were measured. Following scanning, an attitudinal questionnaire was administered to measure participants' feelings toward the narrative. Standard preprocessing was applied using FSL software library. Using general linear modeling (GLM) and neural synchrony analyses on functional neuroimaging data, we compared neural activity between three blocks of the narrative: belonging, social exclusion, and rebelonging; see Figure 1, and used data from non-linguistic tasks (Cyberball) as a larger comparison point. Neural metrics were related to participant trait assessments.
·Fig 1. Narrative-listening task (N=39), involving three distinct blocks (belonging, social exclusion, rebelonging)
Results:
Our findings reveal a key role of the precuneus during rebelonging. While both social exclusion>belonging and rebelonging>belonging reflected similar activity in brain regions associated with mentalizing and visual processing as well as during the actual experience of each, the precuneus uniquely engaged for rebelonging (rebelonging>social exclusion), and was positively associated with feelings of belonging and extraversion (Malone et al., 2012; Eysenck, Eysenck, and Barrett, 1985).
During rebelonging, the precuneus more strongly connected with brain regions associated with mentalizing (temporoparietal junction, medial frontal cortex, middle and inferior frontal gyri). However, during social exclusion, the precuneus more strongly connected with regions associated with social pain (primary somatosensory cortex (S1), anterior cingulate, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices).
During social exclusion, activity in the primary somatosensory cortex (S1) was associated with individual differences in loneliness and reduced cognitive empathy ability (Davis 1983). Participants with a stronger sense of meaning in life were also more synchronized in the precuneus across blocks, while participants with more neurotic traits were more synchronized in S1 during social exclusion.
During rebelonging, the precuneus more strongly connected with brain regions associated with mentalizing (temporoparietal junction, medial frontal cortex, middle and inferior frontal gyri). However, during social exclusion, the precuneus more strongly connected with regions associated with social pain (primary somatosensory cortex (S1), anterior cingulate, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices).
During social exclusion, activity in the primary somatosensory cortex (S1) was associated with individual differences in loneliness and reduced cognitive empathy ability (Davis 1983). Participants with a stronger sense of meaning in life were also more synchronized in the precuneus across blocks, while participants with more neurotic traits were more synchronized in S1 during social exclusion.
·Fig 2. Distinct connectivity patterns with the precuneus (seed) during social exclusion and rebelonging (Z>3.1, p<0.05, cluster-corrected).
Conclusions:
Our findings shed light on the neural basis for rebelonging and reveal that listening to narratives of social exclusion and belonging engage shared and distinct neural activity that correspond to experiences of each feeling. Moreover, a stronger sense of meaning in life and sense of belonging may be protective factors to facilitate social reintegration.
Emotion, Motivation and Social Neuroscience:
Social Cognition 2
Social Neuroscience Other 1
Modeling and Analysis Methods:
Activation (eg. BOLD task-fMRI)
Connectivity (eg. functional, effective, structural)
Novel Imaging Acquisition Methods:
BOLD fMRI
Keywords:
Cognition
FUNCTIONAL MRI
Language
NORMAL HUMAN
Somatosensory
Other - social cognition
1|2Indicates the priority used for review
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Provide references using APA citation style.
Davis, M. H. (1983). Measuring individual differences in empathy: Evidence for a multidimensional approach. Journal of personality and social psychology, 44(1), 113.
Eysenck, S. B., Eysenck, H. J., & Barrett, P. (1985). A revised version of the psychoticism scale. Personality and individual differences, 6(1), 21-29.
Malone, G. P., Pillow, D. R., & Osman, A. (2012). The general belongingness scale (GBS): Assessing achieved belongingness. Personality and individual differences, 52(3), 311-316.
Williams, K. D., Cheung, C. K., & Choi, W. (2000). Cyberostracism: effects of being ignored over the Internet. Journal of personality and social psychology, 79(5), 748