Interpersonal neurobiology

Social interactions are a ubiquitous part of engaging in the world around us, and determining what makes an interaction successful is necessary for social well-being. This study examined the separate contributions of individual social cognitive ability and partner similarity toward social interaction success among strangers, measured by a cooperative communication task and self-reported interaction quality. Sixty participants engaged in a one-hour virtual social interaction with an unfamiliar partner (a lab confederate) including a 30-minute cooperative "mind-reading" game, and then completed several individual tasks and surveys...

Openness is a multifaceted behavioral disposition that encompasses personal, interpersonal, and cultural dimensions. It has been suggested that the interindividual variability in openness as a personality trait is influenced by various environmental and genetic factors, as well as differences in brain functional and structural connectivity patterns along with their various associated cognitive processes. Alterations in degree of openness have been linked to several aspects of health and disease, being impacted by both physical and mental health, substance use, and neurologic conditions...

Individuals with a diagnosis of schizophrenia face a myriad of obstacles to wellness, beginning with diagnostic discrepancies including over- and misdiagnoses on the schizophrenia spectrum. People with schizophrenia experience profound amounts of stigmatization from the general population, their healthcare providers, and even themselves. Such stigmatization creates a barrier for wellness, poorer prognoses, and often limits adherence to physical and mental healthcare. Moreover, it can exacerbate the already stifling symptomatology of their diagnoses, including specific bodily-related symptomatology...

Volunteering and charitable donations are two common forms of prosocial behavior, yet it is unclear whether these other-benefitting behaviors are supported by the same or different neurobiological mechanisms. During a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) task, 40 participants (20 female-identifying; age: mean = 18.92 years, range = 18.32-19.92 years) contributed their time (in minutes) and money (in dollars) to a variety of local charities. With the maximum amount of time and money that participants could spend on these charities, they did not differentially donate their time and money...

Previous work in incarcerated boys and adult men and women suggest that individuals scoring high on psychopathic traits show altered resting-state limbic/paralimbic, and default mode functional network properties. However, it is unclear whether similar results extend to high-risk adolescent girls with elevated psychopathic traits. This study examined whether psychopathic traits [assessed via the Hare Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version (PCL:YV)] were associated with altered inter-network connectivity, intra-network connectivity (i...

The interpersonal distance (IPD) theory provides a novel approach to studying autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In this article, we present recent findings on the neurobiological underpinnings of IPD regulation that are distinct in individuals with ASD. We also discuss the potential influence of environmental factors on IPD. We suggest that different IPD regulation may have implications for cognitive performance in experimental and diagnostic settings, may influence the effectiveness of training and therapy, and may play a role in the typical forms of social communication and leisure activities chosen by autistic individuals...

Attachment is a prominent area of psychological research, with its relevance linked to executive functions, mindfulness, and emotional regulation. The purpose of this study is to examine this relationship among these aforementioned four constructs and propose a model to be tested in the future. Based on the current trends using the Interpersonal Neurobiology approach, which assumes prefrontal cortex functions to include other socioemotional resources such as empathy, morality, insight, behavior, and body regulation...

This article examines how family rejection, religious/spiritual violence, homelessness, adverse school experience, interpersonal violence, and other experiences common among LGBTQ+ people and communities can be reframed as part of a stress-trauma continuum. The pressures and compulsions of white heteropatriarchal society (e.g., of identification, heterosexuality, monogamy, gender expression, etc.) harm us all, yet uniquely expose LGBTQ+ folks to a life of surveillance, stigma, prejudice, erasure, regulation, discipline, and violence...

Large-scale clinical trials and meta-analyses have determined neurobiological and linguistic predictors of recovery from aphasia, while more recent work is opening the field to factors of efficacy previously established in psychiatry-and little known in neurology. To map this evolving area of research, the present essay explores key factors of efficacy in psychotherapy as potential predictors of recovery from aphasia. In particular, the essay addresses (1) working alliance, including consensus between patient and therapist on treatment goals and tasks alongside interpersonal bonds, as well as (2) focus on resources rather than deficits in language performance...

Different psychotherapeutic approaches demonstrated their efficacy but the possible neurobiological mechanism underlying the effect of psychotherapy in borderline personality disorder (BPD) patients is poorly investigated. We assessed the effects of metacognitive interpersonal therapy (MIT) on BPD features and other dimensions compared to structured clinical management (SCM). We also assessed changes in amygdala activation by viewing emotional pictures after psychotherapy. One hundred forty-one patients were referred and 78 BPD outpatients were included and randomized to MIT or SCM...

Progress in understanding borderline personality disorder has unfolded in the last decade, landing in a new COVID-19-influenced world. Borderline personality disorder is now firmly established as a valid diagnosis, distinct from its co-occurring mood, anxiety, trauma-related, and behavioral disorders. Further, it is also understood as a reflection of general personality dysfunction, capturing essential features shared among all personality disorders. Neuroimaging research, representing the vast neurobiological advances made in the last decade, illustrates that the disorder shares frontolimbic dysfunction with many psychiatric diagnoses but has a distinct signature of interpersonal and emotional hypersensitivity...

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is among the most common mental disorders in children and adolescents. While most studies in this field have focused on the genetic and neurobiological underpinnings of the disorder, research focusing on the family environment as a critical context contributing toward the manifestation and maintenance of child ADHD symptoms is still less extensive. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine longitudinal and bidirectional associations between child hyperactivity, mother-child negativity, and sibling dyad negativity...

BACKGROUND: Intimate partner violence (IPV) alters women's neurobiological stress response systems. We propose that individual differences early in the attentional processing of threats are associated with these neurobiological mechanisms and contribute to mental illness in this population. METHODS: We assessed attentional bias in relation to threat (AB) in women survivors of IPV ( n = 69) and controls ( n = 36), and examined overall cortisol secretion using hair cortisol (HC), and stress responsiveness measuring salivary cortisol and α -amylase (sAA) before (T0), and after (T1, T2) an acute psychosocial stress task (Trier Social Stress Test)...

Psychopathology has been criticized for decades for its reliance on a brain-centred and over-reductionist approach which views mental disorders as disease-like natural kinds. While criticisms of brain-centred psychopathologies abound, these criticisms sometimes ignore important advances in the neurosciences which view the brain as embodied, embedded, extended and enactive, and as fundamentally plastic. A new onto-epistemology for mental disorders is proposed, focusing on a biocultural model, in which human brains are understood as embodied and embedded in ecosocial niches, and with which individuals enact particular transactions characterized by circular causality...

BACKGROUND: There is limited experimentally controlled neuroimaging research available that could explain how dissociative states occur and which neurobiological changes are involved in acute post-traumatic dissociation. AIMS: To test the causal hypothesis that acute dissociation is triggered bottom-up by a selective noradrenergic-mediated increase in amygdala activation during the processing of autobiographical trauma memories. METHOD: Women with post-traumatic stress disorder ( n = 47) and a history of interpersonal childhood trauma underwent a within-participant, placebo-controlled pharmacological challenge paradigm (4...

Background: Stockholm syndrome or traumatic bonding (Painter & Dutton, Patterns of emotional bonding in battered women: Traumatic bonding. International Journal of Women's Studies , 8 (4), 363-375, 1985) has been used in mainstream culture, legal, and some clinical settings to describe a hypothetical phenomenon of trauma survivors developing powerful emotional attachments to their abuser. It has frequently been used to explain the reported 'positive bond' between some kidnap victims and their captor's, although scarce empirical research has supported this assertion...

From the point of view of the prevention of suicidal behaviour, the recognition of acute suicidal risk is of particular importance, therefore one of the most important goals of recent suicidal research is the more precise detection of the psychological symptoms leading to a suicidal act. Classic risk factors can often be discovered in the background of suicidal thoughts, but they are not suitable for screening out those who will turn their thoughts into action. Since many people have suicidal thoughts, why, how and when suicidal thoughts are followed by a self-destructive act is a particularly important question...

AIM: Departing from existing neurobiological models of dissociation, the current study aims at conducting a quantitative meta-analytic review of neural responses to emotional stimuli among individuals ascribed to the dissociative spectrum (DS). Accordingly, the study explored common and specific brain mechanisms across borderline personality disorder, conversion/somatoform disorders, posttraumatic stress disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder related to repeated interpersonal traumatic experiences, and dissociative disorders...

BACKGROUND: Despite the growth of psychedelic research, psychedelic-assisted group psychotherapy (PAGP) has received little attention in comparison to individual psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy models. METHODS: In this article, we aim to discuss the therapeutic potential of PAGP, as well as outline existing models and the challenges of this approach. Using Irvin Yalom's 11 therapeutic factors of group therapy as a basic framework, we analyse current literature from clinical studies and neurobiological research relative to the topic of PAGP...

Distressed couples often become polarized and caught up in power struggles, with competing claims and perspectives. When escalated, partners may become reactive and unkind. The competitive-individualistic worldview of the Euro-American culture feeds polarization between partners. This article explores relational views of the self and relational ethics developed in philosophy, psychology, feminist theory, neurobiology, and couple and family therapy that counter this individualistic view. A major focus is on the ways in which partners impact each other's identity and well-being for better or worse, and the ethical responsibility this entails...