{Reference Type}: Journal Article
{Title}: Self-esteem modulates dorsal medial prefrontal cortical response to self-positivity bias in implicit self-relevant processing.
{Author}: Yang J;Dedovic K;Guan L;Chen Y;Qi M;
{Journal}: Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci
{Volume}: 9
{Issue}: 11
{Year}: Nov 2014
{Factor}: 4.235
{DOI}: 10.1093/scan/nst181
{Abstract}: Processing self-related material recruits similar neural networks regardless of whether the self-relevance is made explicit or not. However, when considering the neural mechanisms that distinctly underlie cognitive and affective components of self-reflection, it is still unclear whether the same mechanisms are involved when self-reflection is explicit or implicit, and how these mechanisms may be modulated by individual personality traits, such as self-esteem. In the present functional MRI study, 25 participants were exposed to positive and negative words that varied with respect to the degree of self-relevance for each participant; however, the participants were asked to make a judgment about the color of the words. Regions-of-interest analysis showed that medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and posterior cingulate cortex were associated with gauging the self-relevance of information. However, no main effect of valence or an interaction effect between self-relevance and valence was observed. Further, positive correlations were observed between levels of self-esteem and response within dorsal mPFC (dmPFC) both in the contrast positive-high in self-relevance trials vs positive-low in self-relevance trials and in the contrast negative-low in self-relevance trials vs positive-low in self-relevance trials. These results suggested that the activation of dmPFC may be particularly associated with the processes of self-positivity bias.