Brain Imaging Study Uncovers: Optimists Share Highly Similar Brain Activity Patterns, Paving New Paths for Mental Health Research

                     Brain Imaging Study Uncovers: Optimists Share Highly Similar Brain Activity Patterns, Paving New Paths for Mental Health Research

Source

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Published on July 22)

Abstract

A brain imaging study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has found that optimists exhibit a common pattern in brain activity. The research team used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to scan the brain activity of 87 participants while they imagined future events of different natures, combined with assessments of their optimism levels. It was discovered that when processing events, optimists showed highly consistent thought trajectories in the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), could more clearly distinguish between positive and negative events, and processed them in different ways; in contrast, the brain activity patterns of pessimists were more unique. This finding provides new clues for exploring complex emotional mechanisms such as empathy and loneliness, as well as mental health issues like depression.

Content

"What if 'like-minded' is not just a metaphor but truly exists at the neural level?" This idea put forward by Kuniaki Yanagisawa, a social psychologist and neuroscientist at Kobe University in Japan and co-author of the study, has been interestingly confirmed in a brain imaging study.

Previous studies have shown that people with a positive mindset exhibit similar response patterns in the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), a brain region responsible for processing future thinking and emotions. This consistency in neural activity may be related to their similar personality traits, suggesting that they may interpret and process personal experiences in similar ways.

To explore further, Yanagisawa's team conducted relevant research. They used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to scan the brain activity of 87 participants while they imagined future positive, neutral, and negative events. After the fMRI scan, the participants filled out a questionnaire to assess their level of optimism.

After analyzing the activity patterns in the MPFC, the researchers found that optimists showed highly consistent thought trajectories when processing these events, while the brain activity patterns of pessimists had more unique and abnormal characteristics.

"What is most surprising is that brain activity patterns can observably reflect the similarities in people's ways of thinking," Yanagisawa said. The study speculates that optimists can more clearly distinguish between positive and negative events than pessimists, and process these two types of information in completely different ways, thus forming similar brain response patterns. Specifically, they imagine positive events more vividly and concretely, while adopting an abstract processing strategy when faced with negative events to maintain emotional distance.

Tali Sharot, a neuroscientist at University College London, believes that this finding is of great significance for mental health research, as an optimistic mindset "is negatively correlated with psychological problems such as depression". She added, "We use 'depression' to describe a variety of different phenotypes," including negative thoughts that can be interpreted as pessimism. She pointed out that the so-called "similarity among optimists" may stem from the fact that "the general population is more homogeneous than those with mental illnesses".

Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on July 22, this research achievement is expected to provide new clues and directions for the exploration of complex emotional mechanisms such as empathy and loneliness, as well as the research on mental health issues related to negative thinking like depression.