Neuroticism modulates neural activities of posterior cingulate cortex and thalamus during psychosocial stress...

Individuals with higher neuroticism are vulnerable to stress and are prone to develop depression, however, the neural mechanisms underlying it have not been clarified clearly.

The Montreal Imaging Stress Task (MIST) was administered to 148 healthy adults during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Whole-brain voxel-wise regression analyses were used to detect associations of neuroticism with neural activity involved in perceiving and processing psychosocial stress. In addition, two-sample t-tests were conducted between the high-neurotic and low-neurotic group in order to supplement the results found in regression analyses.

Higher neuroticism scores were associated with higher activities in the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC)/precuneus and thalamus (p < 0.05, false discovery rate correction). Moreover, two sample t-tests also revealed that the high-neurotic group had higher neural stress responses in precuneus and bilateral thalamus in comparison to the low-neurotic group (p < 0.05, false discovery rate correction).

Our study mainly recruited young adults, which may limit the generalizability of our findings.

Our findings highlight the crucial role of PCC/precuneus and thalamus in the association between neuroticism and stress and may provide insight into the cognitive model of depression.