Schedule of Events | Symposia

Characteristics of the hemodynamic response during social exclusion in the Cyberball task.

Poster Session D - Monday, March 31, 2025, 8:00 – 10:00 am EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

John Foley¹ (john.foley@louisville.edu), Brendan Depue¹; ¹University of Louisville

Social exclusion is an innate and powerful elicitor of negative affect and can be debilitating for those being excluded. Previous research has found that the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and insular cortex (IC) are reliably activated during social exclusion, as is evidenced by research using the cyberball task. However, the temporal order of these regions and the characteristics of the hemodynamic response function (HRF) during social exclusion are unknown. In this study we used finite impulse response (FIR) modelling to freely model the HRF in the ACC and IC during social exclusion using open source cyberball task data. We analyzed fMRI data using FSL with FIR basis sets to model the HRF in ten 1.5sec bins (t=15secs). HRF modeling comparing the time to peak (TtP) in the inclusion and exclusion conditions differed, such that TtP occurred earlier during the exclusion condition (t=4.5secs), compared to the inclusion condition (t=10.5secs). Paired samples T-tests conducted on the beta estimates of the HRF at 4.5 seconds were significantly different in the IC during exclusion compared to inclusion: right IC T(35) = 3.17, p < 0.01, left IC T(35) = 3.33, p < 0.01. Our results probing the temporal dynamics of the neural substrates of social exclusion indicate, that the IC may be activated earlier and thus, may be responsible for contributing to the internal representation of being excluded.

Topic Area: EMOTION & SOCIAL: Emotion-cognition interactions