Uced increases in inflammation. Why might DMPFC activation in PG-1016548 supplier response to negative social feedback mediate the relation between social RG7800 chemical information status and inflammation? On a psychological level, it is possible that heightened DMPFC activation reflects increased `mentalizing’ on the part ofBecause activity in the amygdala was not related to social status in this sample, we did not explore amygdala activity as a potential mediator of the relation between status and inflammatory responses. For the sake of completeness, however, we did examine if activity in the amygdala ROIs (for the contrast negative > neutral feedback) was related to changes in IL-6 from pre- to post-stress; these correlations were not significant (r for left amygdala ?0.09, r for right amygdala ?0.14, both P > 0.05).|Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 2016, Vol. 11, No.lower subjective status individuals (given that the DMPFC is a key node of the `mentalizing network’ that is often engaged during tasks that involve thinking about the minds of others; Lieberman, 2007). In other words, those who perceive they have low social status may be more focused on trying to understand what an evaluator is thinking about or why an evaluator is giving them negative feedback, compared to those with higher subjective status, which would be reflected in greater DMPFC activation (see also Muscatell et al., 2012). This type of heightened attention to others has been linked with greater inflammatory responses to stress in a prior study (Dickerson et al., 2009), thus suggesting the possibility that DMPFC-supported mentalizing under social evaluation may contribute to lower status individuals’ increases in inflammation. While we did not find a relationship between social status and self-reports of feeling socially evaluated, it is possible that demand characteristics or post-task recall biases may have influenced participants’ reports of how evaluated they felt. To deal with these discrepancies between the self-report and neural data, future research should experimentally manipulate mentalizing processes by asking individuals (particularly those reporting low status) to direct their attention toward or away from the evaluator and examining how this affects DMPFC activity and inflammatory responses. At an anatomical level, the DMPFC has strong anatomical connections to other neural regions that play a role in physiological stress responding, including the amygdala, hypothalamus and periaqueductal gray (Ongur and Price, 2000) , making it ideally situated to link social status and inflammatory responses. Indeed, recent research has suggested that the DMPFC may be part of an `aversive amplification’ circuit, in which DMPFC activity may sustain and amplify activation in limbic regions during threatening, stressful experiences (Muscatell et al., 2015; Robinson et al., 2012) . It will be interesting for future research using Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) and other techniques to examine if there is greater white-matter connectivity between DMPFC and limbic regions among individuals lower in subjective social status. Somewhat surprisingly, there was no relationship between social status and neural activity in the amygdala, a key threatrelated neural region that has been associated with social status in prior studies (Gianaros et al., 2008; Muscatell et al., 2012). It is possible that differences in the stimuli used in this study compared with prior investigations may explain these divergent finding.Uced increases in inflammation. Why might DMPFC activation in response to negative social feedback mediate the relation between social status and inflammation? On a psychological level, it is possible that heightened DMPFC activation reflects increased `mentalizing’ on the part ofBecause activity in the amygdala was not related to social status in this sample, we did not explore amygdala activity as a potential mediator of the relation between status and inflammatory responses. For the sake of completeness, however, we did examine if activity in the amygdala ROIs (for the contrast negative > neutral feedback) was related to changes in IL-6 from pre- to post-stress; these correlations were not significant (r for left amygdala ?0.09, r for right amygdala ?0.14, both P > 0.05).|Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 2016, Vol. 11, No.lower subjective status individuals (given that the DMPFC is a key node of the `mentalizing network’ that is often engaged during tasks that involve thinking about the minds of others; Lieberman, 2007). In other words, those who perceive they have low social status may be more focused on trying to understand what an evaluator is thinking about or why an evaluator is giving them negative feedback, compared to those with higher subjective status, which would be reflected in greater DMPFC activation (see also Muscatell et al., 2012). This type of heightened attention to others has been linked with greater inflammatory responses to stress in a prior study (Dickerson et al., 2009), thus suggesting the possibility that DMPFC-supported mentalizing under social evaluation may contribute to lower status individuals’ increases in inflammation. While we did not find a relationship between social status and self-reports of feeling socially evaluated, it is possible that demand characteristics or post-task recall biases may have influenced participants’ reports of how evaluated they felt. To deal with these discrepancies between the self-report and neural data, future research should experimentally manipulate mentalizing processes by asking individuals (particularly those reporting low status) to direct their attention toward or away from the evaluator and examining how this affects DMPFC activity and inflammatory responses. At an anatomical level, the DMPFC has strong anatomical connections to other neural regions that play a role in physiological stress responding, including the amygdala, hypothalamus and periaqueductal gray (Ongur and Price, 2000) , making it ideally situated to link social status and inflammatory responses. Indeed, recent research has suggested that the DMPFC may be part of an `aversive amplification’ circuit, in which DMPFC activity may sustain and amplify activation in limbic regions during threatening, stressful experiences (Muscatell et al., 2015; Robinson et al., 2012) . It will be interesting for future research using Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) and other techniques to examine if there is greater white-matter connectivity between DMPFC and limbic regions among individuals lower in subjective social status. Somewhat surprisingly, there was no relationship between social status and neural activity in the amygdala, a key threatrelated neural region that has been associated with social status in prior studies (Gianaros et al., 2008; Muscatell et al., 2012). It is possible that differences in the stimuli used in this study compared with prior investigations may explain these divergent finding.
