Neural Correlates of Three Neurocognitive Intervention Strategies: A Preliminary Step Towards Personalized Treatment for Psychological Disorders

Abstract

Brain-based behavioral interventions targeting specific neurocognitive mechanisms show initial promise in the treatment of emotional disorders, but personalization of such approaches will be facilitated if brain targets are empirically established. As a preliminary step, we conducted a proof-of-concept study to test whether particular emotion regulatory neural circuitry can be differentially targeted by specific neurocognitive tasks, and whether these tasks effectively inhibit amygdala activity. Eleven healthy individuals underwent an idiographic sadness and guilt induction. Brain response was measured via fMRI during 4 subsequent emotion regulation conditions: fixation, cognitive reappraisal (selected to target the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex), working memory practice (selected to target the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex), and visual distraction (Tetris; selected to target occipital cortex). In whole-brain comparisons to fixation, hypotheses were upheld. Reappraisal uniquely activated left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, working memory practice uniquely activated left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and Tetris uniquely activated bilateral occipitoparietal cortex, activations that were largely robust at the single-subject level. All tasks inhibited amygdala activity relative to fixation. Data support examining whether repeated exposure to these tasks in psychiatric patients affects neural abnormalities implicated in emotional disorders. Ideally, psychiatric treatment will be accelerated by matching specific treatments to patients with specific neural profiles.

Lateralization for speech predicts therapeutic response to cognitive behavioral therapy for depression

“…A study measuring fMRI in healthy adults during different emotional regulation tasks found that reappraisal activated left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (Price et al, 2013), which is consistent with evidence of left prefrontal and temporal activation during reappraisal of negative emotions (Ochsner et al, 2004; Silvers et al, 2014). The extent to which individual differences in cortical activation during reappraisal are related to clinical response to CBT for depression has, however, received little attention.…”

Feasibility of a pocket-PC based cognitive control intervention in dementia spousal caregivers

“…Following this paradigm is supported by several studies. For example, cognitive training tasks geared towards increasing executive control have been shown to recruit the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (Price, Paul, Schneider, & Siegle, 2013), decrease rumination (Siegle, Ghinassi, & Thase, 2007), and decrease depressive symptomatology above and beyond active placebo interventions (Calkins, McMorran, Siegle, & Otto, 2014). Moreover, cognitive training tasks geared towards executive control also appear to have sustained impact on health care service use (Siegle, Price, Jones, Ghinassi, & Thase, in press).…”

Selective Association Between Tetris Game Play and Visuospatial Working Memory: A Preliminary Investigation

“…Evidence suggests that it activates regions of the brain associated with visuomotor processes, including sensory‐motor cortical dynamics (Rietschel et al, 2012) and occipitoparietal brain regions (Price, Paul, Schneider, & Siegle, 2013). Cognitive training studies have also shown benefits on visuospatial tasks following repeated practice on Tetris, with improvements observed in spatial ability (Okagaki & Frensch, 1994; Terlecki, Newcombe, & Little, 2008), mental rotation (De Lisi & Wolford, 2002; Moreau, 2013) and selective visual attention (Belchior et al, 2013; Green & Bavelier, 2003).…”