Systemic inflammation is increasingly appreciated as a predictor of health and well-being. Further, inflammation has been shown to influence and be influenced by affective experiences. Although prior work has substantiated associations between inflammatory and affective processes, fewer studies have investigated the neurobiological correlates that underlie links between systemic, low-grade inflammation and affective reactivity. Thus, the current study examined whether markers of systemic inflammation (i.e. interleukin-6, C-reactive protein) are associated with differential patterns of neural activation and connectivity in corticolimbic regions in response to affective images. We investigated this question in a sample of 66 adults (44 women, M age = 54.98 years, range = 35–76) from the Midlife in the United States study. Higher levels of inflammation were associated with lower activity in limbic regions (i.e. amygdala, hippocampus, anterior insula, temporal pole) when viewing positive (vs neutral) images. Higher levels of inflammation were also associated with greater connectivity between the hippocampus and the medial prefrontal cortex in response to positive images. Inflammatory markers were not associated with significant differences in activation or connectivity to negative images. These findings highlight the utility of health neuroscience approaches in demonstrating that physiological processes such as inflammation are related to how our brains respond to affective information.

中文翻译：

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全身性炎症与神经反应性不同以及与情感图像的连通性有关。

全身性炎症日益被视为健康和福祉的预测指标。此外，已经表明炎症会影响情感体验并受到情感体验的影响。尽管先前的工作证实了炎症和情感过程之间的关联，但很少有研究调查全身性，低度炎症和情感反应之间联系的神经生物学相关性。因此，本研究检查了系统性炎症的标志物（即白细胞介素6，C反应蛋白）是否与皮质壁区域响应情感图像的神经活化和连接性的差异模式有关。我们从美国中年研究的66位成年人（44位女性，M年龄= 54.98岁，范围= 35-76）中调查了这个问题。对比中性）图片。响应于阳性图像，较高水平的炎症也与海马体和前额内侧皮层之间的更大连通性有关。炎症标记与激活或与阴性图像的连通性无显着差异。这些发现凸显了健康神经科学方法在证明诸如炎症等生理过程与我们的大脑对情感信息的反应方式有关方面的实用性。