Structural And Functional Changes In The Brain Associated With Jealousy And Aggression Traits

Jealousy is a basic emotion of human being acompanying with our lives from childhood to agedness, which may influence self-esteem and self-identification, even induces aggression like domestic violence, self-mutilation and murder, bringing disastrous effects to individual’s life and society. With the rapid development of brain imaging techniques, scientists began to concentrate on the brain mechanisms of jealousy trait and aggression trait. However, most of these researches were based on sample of mental disorders(Othello Syndrome Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder) and studies based on healthy subjects are sorely missing. The current study investigated the structural and functional changes in the brain associated with jealousy and aggression traits in healthy sample for the first time by using functional magnetic resonance imaging. The main contents are:1、Using a voxel-based morphometry method to investigate the relationship between jealousy and aggression traits and gray matter volume in healthy young adults. Our results of aggression part showed that the total score of aggression scale was positively correlated with the ratio of average gray matter volume of amygdala and regions of frontal cotex, indicating that relatively larger amygdala volume(or relatively smaller regions of frontal cortex) might result in more aggressive tendency. The results of jealousy part showed that the score of lack of self confidence subscale was positively correlated with the ratio of right amygdala and orbital part of inferior frontal gyrus. Based on these findings, we concluded that brain regions involved in social cognition, social affective process and emotional regulation account for modulation and shaping of jealousy and aggression traits.2、Using functional connectivity analysis to investigate the relationship between jealousy and aggression traits and functional coneectivity among different brain subregions. Our results of aggression part showed that the score of verbal attacks and self attacks were both rominently positive-correlated with functional connectivity of ACC network and mPFC network. The results of jealousy part showed that score of scenario subscale was positivily correlated with the functional connectivity between amygdala and IFG, indicating that scenario jealousy was correlated with barin regions implicated with mentalizing, basic emotion and body. In addition, our findings also showed that the score of self feeling subscale was negative-correlated with functional connectivity between m PFC and amygdala, m PFC and ACC, mPFC and IFG. In addiction, the score of lack of self confidence subscale was negativily correlated with the functional connectivity between IFG and amygdala, IFG and mPFC, and connectivity among subregions of IFG.Based the results of the current study, we deduced that jealousy trait was more reflected on the functional connectivity of different subregions in the brain while aggression trait was more reflected on the morphological structure of the brain.