Summary: A new study identifies a pattern of brain activity that points to egocentric thinking, a trait associated with anxiety and depression. In experiments, this pattern emerged during mental breaks and predicted when people would rapidly turn their thoughts inward.
An analysis of more than 1,000 brain scans confirmed that people with high levels of self-involvement showed more pronounced fluctuations in the activity of this resting neuron. These findings highlight a potential biomarker for the risk of brain disease and a new target for early intervention.
Key facts
- Neural signature: A pattern of brain activity predicts when self-directed thoughts arise.
- Linked to mental health: Greater fluctuations in this pattern are associated with a higher risk of anxiety and depression.
- Mass verification: The results were replicated in more than 1,000 participants in the Human Connectome Project.
Source: SfN
People are often worried about themselves.
Selfishness is good as long as it ensures that one’s needs are met, but it can also be wrong: Research shows that the tendency to focus only on oneself promotes the onset of depression and anxiety and can even prolong these conditions.
Is there a neural representation of self-involvement? Danica Geisler and Meghan Meyer of Columbia University explore this question in their new article in the Journal of Neuroscience.
The researchers first identified a pattern of neural activity that often occurred in a sample of 32 people during a brain break. This activity could predict whether people would start thinking about themselves a few seconds after the break.
Geisler and Meyer then turned to a widely used public database, the Human Connectome Project.
Using data from 1,086 people, the researchers found that people who scored high on internalizing (a maladaptive form of autonomous thinking) also switched this pattern of neural activity on and off during rest.
Thus, the tendency to think egocentrically may be reflected in different activities of different areas of the brain during rest.
“We are curious to learn what aspects of our neural signatures of everyday life can predict self-engagement,” says Meyer. “For example, Danica is working on an exciting project investigating whether interactions with this neural signature predict people’s positions in real-world social networks.”
We are also interested in whether this neural signature can predict the onset of depression or anxiety. If so, interfering with this neural signature could prevent the development of these mental disorders.
About this neuroscience and mental health research news
Author: SfN Media
Source: SfN
Contact: SfN Media – SfN
Image: The image is credited to StackZone Neuro
Original Research: Closed access.
“A Neural Signature of the Bias Toward Self-Focus” by Danika Geisler et al. Journal of Neuroscience
Abstract
A neural signature of self-focus bias
People are known for egotism and thinking disproportionately about themselves in relation to other things.
It can focus on the self and help people meet their needs. It can also be dysfunctional and can be a risk factor for and perpetuate internalizing disorders such as depression.
However, the desire to focus on the self has not yet been fully mapped.
We discovered a brain pattern that, when activated spontaneously during a brief mental break, predicts that a person needs to focus on themselves a few seconds later.
In Study 1 (19 female and 13 male subjects), we identified a standardized neural network signature of pre-trial activity that predicted multiple indicators of self-focus within our sample.
In Study 2 (588 female and 498 male subjects), we applied our neural signature from the Human Connectome Project to independent resting-state data.
We found that people who score high on internalizing, a form of false self-focus, move in and out of this pattern in the same way during rest. This suggests a systematic pathway toward self-focused thinking.
This is the first work that attempts to ‘decode’ self-focus bias and paves the way for preventing false self-focus.
