Change in emotional self-concept following socio-cognitive training relates to structural plasticity of the prefrontal cortex.

Training that improves perspective-taking can change how people describe themselves emotionally, and those changes are linked to structural brain changes. In a large longitudinal study, participants who increased their use of emotional words in self-descriptions after socio-cognitive training showed thickening in the right medial prefrontal cortex and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, regions involved in self-referential thinking and cognitive control. Increased use of negative emotional words was associated with thickening in the left pars orbitalis and bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. These results suggest that restructuring the emotional self-concept, including reappraisal of negative aspects, relates to cortical plasticity, which could inform psychological interventions targeting the self-concept.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Self-referential processing is a key component of the emotional self-concept. Previous studies have shown that emotional self-referential processing is related to structure and function of cortical midline areas such as medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), and that it can be altered on a behavioral level by specific mental training practices. However, it remains unknown how behavioral training-related change in emotional self-concept content relates to structural plasticity. To address this issue, we examined the relationship between training-induced change in participant's emotional self-concept measured through emotional word use in the Twenty Statement Test and change in cortical thickness in the context of a large-scale longitudinal mental training study called the ReSource Project. Based on prior behavioral findings showing increased emotional word use particularly after socio-cognitive training targeting perspective-taking capacities, this study extended these results by revealing that individual differences in the degree to which participants changed their emotional self-concept after training was positively related to cortical thickness change in right mPFC extending to dorsolateral PFC (dlPFC). Furthermore, increased self-related negative emotional word use after training was positively associated with cortical thickness change in left pars orbitalis and bilateral dlPFC. Our findings reveal training-related structural brain change in regions known to be involved in self-referential processing and cognitive control, and could indicate a relationship between restructuring of the emotional self-concept content as well as reappraisal of negative aspects and cortical thickness change. As such, our findings can guide the development of psychological interventions targeted to alter specific facets of the self-concept.