Objective Depression and obesity frequently co-occur and are associated with greater functional impairment, yet food-reward processing in their co-occurrence remains poorly understood. This study examined behavioral and neural signatures of food-reward processing in adults classified by depressive symptoms and BFP-defined obesity. Methods One hundred and one adults completed the PHQ-9, BIA-based body-composition assessment, standardized food-image ratings, and an fMRI FID task separating reward anticipation from outcome feedback. Participants were categorized as HC, OW/OB, DS, or OW/OB-DS. The fMRI analyses included 91 participants after motion quality control. Results No significant between-group differences were observed in food-image rating indices or FID target-response RTs. Whole-brain analyses showed Group effects centered in bilateral fusiform regions, with additional involvement of rAIns and mCC across anticipation and feedback. DCM showed stronger lFusG-to-rAIns modulation in OW/OB than HC and in OW/OB-DS than OW/OB during food reward anticipation. During food reward feedback, OW/OB-DS showed more negative mCC-to-rdlPFC modulation than DS and OW/OB. Conclusions In this symptom-defined, nonclinical sample, the findings identify phase-specific group differences in visual-salience and cingulate-prefrontal effective connectivity during food-reward processing.
Human personality is highly structured, yet the mechanisms giving rise to this structure remain poorly understood. Although the Big Five framework provides a robust descriptive taxonomy, it offers limited insight into why personality traits cluster into higher-order dimensions or how these dimensions relate to adaptive behavior. Here we address this gap by linking personality meta-traits to neural dynamics governing the stability–flexibility trade-off in cognitive control. Using electrophysiological recordings and latent-variable modeling (N = 160), we show that individual differences in metacontrol adjustment—indexed by variability in the aperiodic component of EEG activity—predict the Big Five meta-traits of Stability (Persistence) and Plasticity (Flexibility). Critically, these associations emerge at the neural level but not at the behavioral level, indicating that domain-general control dynamics provide a more direct window into personality structure than task performance alone. These findings suggest that personality meta-traits reflect enduring biases in a neural control regime that regulates how humans balance persistence and adaptability across contexts. By linking personality structure to a mechanistic principle of neural control, our results move beyond descriptive trait models and offer a unified account of individual differences in human behavior.
Social motivations play a central role in driving individuals to engage continuously in online gaming. Prior research has documented separate associations of social motivations with Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD), but it remains unclear whether individuals exhibit distinct configurations of social motivations and whether these configurations are differentially associated with IGD. To address this gap, the present study employed an integrated variable-centered and person-centered approach to examine the joint associations of preference for online social interaction (POSI), social anxiety, and persistent gaming intention with IGD. Data from 1984 young adults were included in the analyses. Variable-centered analyses showed that both POSI and social anxiety were positively associated with IGD and had significant indirect associations with IGD through persistent gaming intention. Person-centered analyses identified latent social motivation profiles, with higher levels of persistent gaming intention and IGD observed among individuals with concurrently high POSI and high social anxiety. These findings are consistent with a more differentiated compensation account that considers both offline social difficulty and orientation toward online social interaction. More broadly, these findings suggest that the associations of social motivations with IGD vary across configurations of POSI and social anxiety.
Schizotypy describes personality traits and subclinical psychosis-related experiences that vary across the general population, yet their relationship with facial expression recognition across motion and intensity remains unclear. Examining these factors may reveal social-perceptual differences not evident with static or high-intensity expressions alone. We analysed data from 226 adults who identified six facial emotional expressions (anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, surprise) displayed by static and dynamic faces at low, moderate, and high intensity. Schizotypy was modelled dimensionally using total Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire scores. Higher schizotypy was associated with relatively better recognition of fear than of anger, disgust, sadness, and surprise overall. For dynamic expressions, higher schizotypy was also associated with fewer fear-to-surprise misclassifications, more surprise-to-fear misclassifications, and a more liberal threat-response criterion. Follow-up analyses indicated that the threat-bias effect was primarily driven by fear and reflected response bias rather than sensitivity. Subscale analyses were broadly consistent with the total-score findings but were less differentiated. These findings suggest that higher schizotypy is associated with a selective tendency to resolve ambiguous, dynamically unfolding expressions toward fear and threat. Understanding this tendency is important, because heightened sensitivity to subtle signs of threat may shape social interpretations, everyday interactions, and avoidance behaviours.
We analyzed the associations between dispositional mindfulness, the Big Five personality traits, and social media addiction, while investigating whether dispositional mindfulness acts as a moderator in these relationships. The research sample comprised 692 nonclinical French young adults (18–30 years old). The following measurement tools were used: the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire-Short Form, the Big Five Inventory-Fr, and the Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale. Results demonstrated that neuroticism and extraversion had a significant positive association on social media addiction, while conscientiousness had a significant negative association. Agreeableness and openness had no significant associations with social media addiction. Dispositional mindfulness moderated the relationship between neuroticism and social media addiction. It also moderated the relationship between conscientiousness and social media addiction. Specifically, higher levels of dispositional mindfulness buffered the positive association between neuroticism and social media addiction and strengthened the protective effect of conscientiousness. The authors discussed the protective potential of dispositional mindfulness as a self-regulatory mechanism that can mitigate personality-related factors. These findings suggest that dispositional mindfulness is a valuable target for both the prevention and treatment of social media addiction. Integrating mindfulness-based strategies could help young adults navigate social media more intentionally, thereby reducing addictive behaviors and associated psychological distress.
