Dynamic disconnection of the supplementary motor area after processing of dismissive biographic narratives

To understand the interplay between affective social information processing and its influence on mental states we investigated changes in functional connectivity (FC) patterns after audio exposure to emotional biographic narratives.

While lying in the 7T MR scanner, 23 male participants listened to narratives of early childhood experiences of three persons, each having either a secure, dismissing, or preoccupied attachment representation. Directly after having listened to each of the prototypical narratives, participants underwent a 10-minute resting-state fMRI scan. To study changes in FC patterns between experimental conditions, three post-task conditions were compared to a baseline condition. Specific local alterations, as well as differences in connectivity patterns between distributed brain regions, were quantified using Network-based statistics (NBS) and graph metrics.

Using NBS, a nine-region subnetwork showing reduced FC after having listened to the dismissing narrative was identified. Of this subnetwork, only the left Supplementary Motor Area (SMA) exhibited a decrease in the nodal graph metrics degree and strength exclusively after listening to the dismissing narrative. No other region showed post-task changes in nodal metrics. A post hoc analysis of dynamic characteristics of FC of the left SMA showed a significant decrease in the dismissing condition when compared with the other conditions in the first three minutes of the scan, but faded away in the two subsequent intervals the differences.

Nodal metrics and NBS converge on reduced connectivity measures exclusively in left SMA in the dismissing condition, which may specifically reflect ongoing network changes underlying prolonged emotional reactivity to attachment-related processing.