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Superior frontal gyrus and middle temporal gyrus connectivity mediates the relationship between neuroticism and thought suppression

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Abstract

Thought suppression, which is defined as an effort “not to think about” a particular thought, is essential to maintain good mental health. Despite previous functional imaging studies on thought suppression and related functional activity, the neural basis of thought suppression in individual difference is still unclear. Many studies have focused on the relationship between neuroticism and thought suppression; however, the neural basis of this relationship is not well known. Thus, in the present study, we investigated the neural basis of thought suppression and further explored the neural mechanisms underlying the relationship between neuroticism and thought suppression. The first step was to use voxel-based morphometry (VBM) to investigate the neuroanatomical basis of thought suppression in healthy subjects. We found a significant positive correlation between thought suppression and the gray matter volume (GMV) of the right superior frontal gyrus (SFG). The second step was to use resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) to investigate the neural functional basis of thought suppression. The results showed that thought suppression was positively correlated with rsFC between the right SFG and the left middle temporal gyrus (MTG). Interestingly, the relationship between neuroticism and thought suppression was mediated by the strength of rsFC between the right SFG and the left MTG. The results suggest that better ability to suppress unwanted intrusive thoughts is supported by greater GMV of the right SFG and stronger functional connectivity between the SFG and MTG. They also indicate that weak rsFC between the SFG and MTG can partly explain the negative association between neuroticism and thought suppression.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31500885; 31600878; 31771231) and the Humanity and Social Science Youth Foundation of Ministry of Education(19YJC190014). We thank everybody who contributed to data collection and analysis. We would like to especially thank Michael C. Anderson for providing us with an effective measurement-Thought Control Ability Questionnaire (TCAQ), as well as valuable comments of data analyses.

Funding

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31500885; 31600878; 31771231). This work was also supported by the Humanity and Social Science Youth Foundation of Ministry of Education(19YJC190014).

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  1. FengYing Lu and WenJing Yang contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, 400715, China

    FengYing Lu, WenJing Yang, DongTao Wei, JiangZhou Sun, QingLin Zhang & Jiang Qiu

  2. School of Education Science, Nanning Normal University, No. 175, Mingxiu East Road, Nanning, 530001, China

    FengYing Lu

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Contributions

FengYing Lu: Statistical analysis, Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Visualization, Writing.

WenJing Yang: Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Writing.

DongTao Wei: Formal analysis, Data curation, Funding acquisition.

JiangZhou Sun: Data collection, Image data preprocessing.

QingLin Zhang: Supervision, Validation.

Jiang Qiu: Supervision, Funding acquisition, Validation.

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Correspondence to Jiang Qiu.

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Lu, F., Yang, W., Wei, D. et al. Superior frontal gyrus and middle temporal gyrus connectivity mediates the relationship between neuroticism and thought suppression. Brain Imaging and Behavior 16, 1400–1409 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11682-021-00599-1

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