Gratitude is a positive emotional trait, and plays a pivotal role in achieving a satisfactory quality of life. However, the neural basis of the relationship between trait gratitude and life satisfaction remains unknown. Here we examined the relationship between regional gray and white matter volume (rGMV/rWMV) in the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and trait gratitude, and then explored how gratitude-related brain structures are related to life satisfaction in 136 young healthy adults. Voxel-based morphometry analyses found that trait gratitude was associated with smaller rGMV and rWMV in the MPFC implicated in social-cognitive processes, consistent with the behavioral findings reporting the social functions of gratitude. Importantly, structural variations in the MPFC related to trait gratitude also significantly predicted life satisfaction, and this association was fully mediated by trait gratitude. These results were still significant even after adjusting for the Big Five personality factors. To our knowledge, this is the first report of the common neuroanatomical substrates linking trait gratitude to life satisfaction and our results highlight that the MPFC is an important structure linking trait gratitude to life satisfaction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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感激与大脑：特质感激介导了额前内侧皮层结构变化与生活满意度之间的联系。

感恩是一种积极的情感特质，对实现令人满意的生活质量起着举足轻重的作用。然而，特质感激与生活满意度之间关系的神经基础仍然未知。在这里，我们研究了内侧前额叶皮层（MPFC）中区域灰质和白质体积（rGMV / rWMV）与特质感激之间的关系，然后探讨了与感激相关的大脑结构与136位年轻健康成年人的生活满意度之间的关系。基于体素的形态分析发现，特质感激与参与社会认知过程的MPFC中较小的rGMV和rWMV有关，这与报告感激的社会功能的行为发现一致。重要的是，MPFC与特质感激相关的结构性变化也可以显着预测生活满意度，这种联系完全由特质感激引起。即使在调整“五大”人格因素之后，这些结果仍然很显着。据我们所知，这是将特质感激与生活满意度联系起来的常见神经解剖学基质的首次报道，我们的结果表明，MPFC是将特质感激与生活满意度联系起来的重要结构。（PsycINFO数据库记录（c）2019 APA，保留所有权利）。