Xinqi Zhou

• PhD
• Associate researcher at Sichuan Normal University

Background: Animal models of addiction suggest that the transition from incentive-driven drug use to habitual and ultimately compulsive drug use is mediated by a shift from ventral to dorsal striatal cue control over drug seeking. Previous studies in human cannabis users reported elevated trait impulsivity and neural cue reactivity in striatal cir...

The ability to successfully regulate negative emotions such as fear and anxiety is vital for mental health. Intranasal administration of the neuropeptide oxytocin (OXT) has been shown to reduce amygdala activity but to increase amygdala–prefrontal cortex connectivity during exposure to threatening stimuli suggesting that it may act as an important...

Social deficits and dysregulations in dopaminergic midbrain-striato-frontal circuits represent transdiagnostic symptoms across psychiatric disorders. Animal models suggest that interactions between the dopamine (DA) and renin-angiotensin system (RAS) may modulate learning and reward-related processes. The present study therefore examined the behavi...

Adaptive human learning utilizes reward prediction errors (RPEs) that scale the differences between expected and actual outcomes to optimize future choices. Depression has been linked with biased RPE signaling and an exaggerated impact of negative outcomes on learning which may promote amotivation and anhedonia. The present proof-of-concept study c...

Empathy can be elicited by physiological pain, as well as in social contexts. Although physiological and different social contexts induce a strong subjective experience of empathy, the general and context‐specific neural representations remain elusive. Here, it is combined fMRI with multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) to establish neurofunctional...

While the hyper- and hypo- reward or punishment sensitivities (RS, PS) have received considerable attention as prominent transdiagnostic features of psychopathology, the lack of an overarching neurobiological characterization currently limits their early identifications and neuromodulations. Here we combined microarray data from the Allen Human Bra...

Emotion regulation flexibility (ERF) refers to one's ability to respond flexibly in complex environments. Adaptiveness of ERF has been associated with cognitive flexibility, which can be improved by task-switching training. However, the impact of task-switching training on ERF and its underlying neural mechanisms remains unclear. To address this is...

Emotion regulation flexibility (ERF) refers to one’s ability to respond flexibly in complex environments. Adaptiveness of ERF has been associated with cognitive flexibility, which can be improved by task-switching training. However, the impact of task-switching training on ERF and its underlying neural mechanisms remains unclear. To address this is...

Previous studies adopting variable-centered approaches have reported the relationship between mental health variables, motivations, and problematic smartphone use. However, little is known about the heterogeneity in problematic smartphone use and how different motivations contribute to such heterogeneity. Against this background, we employed person...

Exploratory behavior, as a crucial aspect of decision-making, plays an indispensable role in maximizing long-term benefits and is, therefore, essential in promoting adolescents’ psychological well-being and social adaptation. Recent studies have shown that this adaptive behavior is influenced by previous early experiences. However, little was known...

Empathy can be elicited by physiological pain, as well as in social contexts. Although physiological and different social contexts induce a strong subjective experience of empathy, the general and context-specific neural representations remain elusive. Here, we combine fMRI with multivariate pattern analysis to establish neurofunctional models for...

Background: Exploratory behavior, as an essential component of decision-making, is indispensable for maximizing long-term benefits, making it a crucial factor in adolescents' psychological well-being and social adaptation. Despite the established understanding that this adaptive behavior is shaped by early adverse experiences, limited knowledge exi...

The pervasive use of smartphones, while enhancing accessibility to information and communication, has raised concerns about its potential negative effects on physical and mental health, including the impairment of decision-making abilities. This study investigates the influence of smartphone addiction on decision-making in college students. A sampl...

While disgust originates in the hard-wired mammalian distaste response, the conscious experience of disgust in humans strongly depends on subjective appraisal and may even extend to socio-moral contexts. Here, in a series of studies, we combined functional magnetic resonance imaging with machine-learning-based predictive modelling to establish a co...

Background Inhibitory control represents a core executive function that critically facilitates adaptive behavior and survival in an ever-changing environment. Non-invasive transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) has been hypothesized to improve behavioral inhibition performance, however the neurocomputational mechanism of taVNS-ind...

Facing long-term separation from their parents, left-behind children are at risk of the co-occurrence of inter-nalizing and externalizing problems. Although previous research has gained substantial information examining the relationship between anxiety, depression, and internet addiction at the aggregate level of variables, little is known about th...

Imitating facial emotion expressions can facilitate social interactions, although the behavioral and neural spatiotemporal dynamics is unclear. Here participants (N=100) imitated facial emotions repeatedly over one month (16 times in total) with neural activity measured on three occasions using functional near-infrared spectroscopy. Additionally, t...

Accumulating evidence suggests that the brain renin angiotensin system (RAS) plays a pivotal role in the regulation of cognition and behavior as well as in the neuropathology of neurological and mental disorders. The angiotensin II type 1 receptor (AT1R) mediates most functional and neuropathology-relevant actions associated with the central RAS. H...

Emotions, bodily sensations and movement are integral parts of musical experiences. Yet, it remains unknown i) whether emotional connotations and structural features of music elicit discrete bodily sensations and ii) whether these sensations are culturally consistent. We addressed these questions in a cross-cultural study with Western (European and...

Background: Initial evidence proposes that exposure to childhood adversity may induce avoidance or withdrawal behaviour. However, it remains unclear whether childhood adversity results in avoidance from externally directed thinking to both deliberate and spontaneous mind wandering, i.e. intentionally or unintentionally diverting attention from ongo...

Inhibitory control represents a core executive function that critically facilitates adaptive behavior and survival in an ever-changing environment. Non-invasive transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) has been hypothesized to improve behavioral inhibition performance, however the neurocomputational mechanism of taVNS-induced neuroe...

While disgust originates in the hard-wired mammalian distaste response, the conscious experience of disgust in humans strongly depends on subjective appraisal and may even extend to sociomoral contexts. In a series of studies, we combined functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with machine-learning based predictive modeling to establish a com...

While disgust originates in the hard-wired mammalian distaste response, the conscious experience of disgust in humans strongly depends on subjective appraisal and may even extend to sociomoral contexts. In a series of studies, we combined functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with machine-learning based predictive modeling to establish a com...

With the development of mobile technology, mobile video games provide people with a more convenient way of entertainment, but problematic playing could also bring some negative consequences. Prior studies have indicated that Internet gaming addicts were accompanied by impaired inhibitory control. However, as a relatively new form of problematic gam...

Background Childhood maltreatment (CM) is a potential risk factor for some neuropsychiatric disorders in adulthood (e.g. depression and anxiety) and alters trajectories of brain development. Accumulating evidence suggests that functional connectivity of the limbic system, especially the amygdala, is highly associated with childhood maltreatment, al...

The present study examines whether self-reported trust in humans and self-reported trust in [(different) products with built-in] artificial intelligence (AI) are associated with one another and with brain structure. We sampled 90 healthy participants who provided self-reported trust in humans and AI and underwent brain structural magnetic resonance...

The brain renin angiotensin II system plays a pivotal role in cognition and neuropathology via the central angiotensin II type 1 receptor (AT1R), yet the lack of a biologically informed framework currently impedes translational and therapeutic progress. We combined imaging transcriptomic and meta-analyses with pharmaco-resting state fMRI employing...

Background and aims: Fear of missing out (FOMO) promotes the desire or urge to stay continuously connected with a social reference group and updated on their activities, which may result in escalating and potentially addictive smartphone and social media use. The present study aimed to determine whether the neurobiological basis of FOMO encompasse...

Age-associated changes in brain function play an important role in the development of neurodegenerative diseases. Although previous work has examined age-related changes in static functional connectivity, accumulating evidence suggests that advancing age is especially associated with alterations in the dynamic interactions and transitions between d...

Background Brain structural alterations of the striatum have been frequently observed in Internet gaming disorder (IGD); however, the replicability of the results and the associations with social-affective dysregulations such as social anxiety remain to be determined. Methods The present study combined a dimensional neuroimaging approach with both...

Some questionnaires and behavioral studies have examined the effect of humor on insight. However, the time course of the effects of humor on the stage of insight remains unclear. This study explored the effect of humor comprehension on insight with event-related potential (ERP) technology using verbal humorous jokes and two-part allegorical sayings...

Humor is a lubricant of interpersonal relationships and is regarded as an important quality of individual creativity. Previous studies have mainly focused on passive humor appreciation and comprehension but ignored active humor generation, especially the cognitive process of humor generation. Based on the hypothesis that humor generation is similar...

Fear of missing out (FOMO) promotes the desire or urge to stay continuously connected with a social reference group and updated on their activities, which may result in escalating and potentially addictive smartphone and social media use. The present study aimed to determine whether the neurobiological basis of FOMO encompasses core regions of the...

Wearing a face mask has become essential to contain the spread of COVID-19 and has become mandatory when collecting fMRI data at most research institutions. Here, we investigate the effects of wearing a surgical mask on fMRI data in n = 37 healthy participants. Activations during finger tapping, emotional face matching, working memory tasks, and re...

Fundamental and clinical neuroscience has benefited tremendously from the development of automated computational analyses. In excess of 600 human neuroimaging papers using Voxel-based Morphometry (VBM) are now published every year and a number of different automated processing pipelines are used, although it remains to be systematically assessed wh...

Age-associated changes in brain function play an important role in the development of neurodegenerative diseases. Although previous work has examined age-related changes in static functional connectivity (FC), accumulating evidence suggests that advancing age is especially associated with alterations in the dynamic interactions and transitions betw...

Adaptive human learning utilizes reward prediction errors (RPEs) that scale the differences between expected and actual outcomes to optimize future choices. Depression has been linked with biased RPE signaling and an exaggerated impact of negative outcomes on learning which may promote amotivation and anhedonia. The present proof-of-concept study c...

Studies demonstrated that faces with threatening emotional expressions are better remembered than non-threatening faces. However, whether this memory advantage persists over years and which neural systems underlie such an effect remains unknown. Here, we employed an individual difference approach to examine whether the neural activity during incide...

High rates of comorbidity between depression and anxiety are frequently observed. However, few studies have investigated the relationship between depression and social interaction anxiety using a dimensional approach. The current study aimed to explore the associations between depression and social interaction anxiety with a multivariate approach i...

BACKGROUND Exaggerated arousal and dysregulated emotion-memory interactions are key pathological dysregulations that accompany the development of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Current treatments for PTSD are of moderate efficacy and preventing the dysregulations already during exposure to threatening events may attenuate the development of...

In humans, the neuropeptide oxytocin promotes both attraction toward and bonds with romantic partners, although no studies have investigated whether this extends to the perceived attractiveness of flirtatious language. In a within-subject, randomized double-blind placebo-controlled behavior and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) paradigm...

Using a reading comprehension task, we explored whether body postures would influence mind wandering, a universal internally self-generated activity. Specifically, participants were instructed to perform a reading comprehension task under three postural conditions (lying supine, sitting, and standing upright). Probe-caught technique with prompts pr...

Background Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) and Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) are both characterized by cognitive and social impairments. Determining disorder-specific neurobiological alterations in GAD and MDD by means of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) may promote determination of precise diagnostic markers. Methods This study a...

Adaptive human learning utilizes reward prediction errors (RPEs) that scale the differences between expected and actual outcomes to optimize future choices. Depression has been linked with biased RPE signaling and an exaggerated impact of negative outcomes on learning which may promote amotivation and anhedonia. The present proof-of-concept study c...

Disgust represents a multifaceted defensive-avoidance response. On the behavioral level, the response includes withdrawal and a disgust-specific facial expression. While both serve the avoidance of pathogens, the latter additionally transmits social-communicative information. Given that common and distinct brain representation of the primary defens...

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) and Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) are both characterized by cognitive and social impairments. Determining disorder-specific neurobiological alterations in GAD and MDD by means of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) may promote determination of precise diagnostic markers. This study aimed to examine diso...

Mind-wandering (MW) is a common phenomenon, defined as task-unrelated thoughts. This study is based on event-related potentials (ERPs), using modified sustained attention to response task (modified SART, mSART) to discuss the neural patterns of different types of MW. In the current study, we defined the MW realized by participants as self-caught MW...

Background Social deficits and dysregulations in dopaminergic midbrain-striato-frontal circuits represent transdiagnostic symptoms across psychiatric disorders. Animal models suggest that modulating interactions between the dopamine and renin-angiotensin system with the angiotensin receptor antagonist Losartan (LT) can modulate learning and reward-...

Studies demonstrated that faces with threatening emotional expressions are better remembered than non-threatening faces. However, whether this memory advantage persists over years and which neural systems underlie such an effect remains unknown. Here, we employed an individual difference approach to examine whether the neural activity during incide...

Disgust represents a multifaceted defensive-avoidance response. On the behavioral level, the response includes withdrawal and a disgust-specific facial expression. While both serve the avoidance of pathogens the latter additionally transmits social-communicative information. Given that common and distinct brain representation of the primary defensi...

Exaggerated arousal and dysregulated emotion-memory interactions are key pathological dysregulations that accompany the development of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Current treatments for PTSD are of moderate efficacy and preventing the dysregulations already during exposure to threatening events may attenuate the development of PTSD-sympt...

Social deficits and dysregulations in dopaminergic midbrain-striato-frontal circuits represent transdiagnostic symptoms across psychiatric disorders. Animal models suggest that interactions between the dopamine and renin-angiotensin system may modulate learning and reward-related processes. The present study therefore examined the behavioral and ne...

Early career researchers (ECRs) are faced with a range of competing pressures in academia, making self-management key to building a successful career. The Organization for Human Brain Mapping undertook a group effort to gather helpful advice for ECRs in self-management. Bielczyk et al.

The objective of the current study is to determine robust transdiagnostic brain structural markers for compulsivity by capitalizing on the increasing number of case-control studies examining gray matter volume (GMV) alterations in substance use disorders (SUD) and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Voxel-based meta-analysis within the individual...

Inhibitory control hierarchically regulates cognitive and emotional systems in the service of adaptive goal-directed behavior across changing task demands and environments. While previous studies convergently determined the contribution of prefrontal-striatal systems to general inhibitory control, findings on the specific circuits that mediate the...

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) are highly debilitating and often co-morbid disorders. The disorders exhibit partly overlapping dysregulations on the behavioral and neurofunctional level. The determination of disorder-specific behavioral and neurofunctional dysregulations may therefore promote neuro-mechanisti...

Background Overarching conceptualizations propose that the complex social-emotional effects of oxytocin (OXT) in humans are partly mediated by interactions with other neurotransmitter systems. Recent animal models suggest that the anxiolytic effects of OXT are critically mediated by the serotonin (5-HT) system, yet direct evidence in humans is lack...

Fundamental and clinical neuroscience has benefited from the development of automated computational analyses of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) data, such as Voxel-based Morphometry (VBM). VBM determines regional gray matter variations with high spatial resolution and results are commonly interpreted in a regional-specific manner, for instance wit...

Compulsivity and loss of behavioral control represent core symptoms in obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD), substance use disorder (SUD), and internet gaming disorder (IGD). Despite elaborated animal models suggesting that compulsivity is mediated by cortico‐striatal circuits and a growing number of neuroimaging case–control studies, common neurofu...

Real‐time fMRI guided neurofeedback training has gained increasing interest as a noninvasive brain regulation technique with the potential to modulate functional brain alterations in therapeutic contexts. Individual variations in learning success and treatment response have been observed, yet the neural substrates underlying the learning of self‐re...

Inhibitory control hierarchically regulates cognitive and emotional systems in the service of adaptive goal-directed behavior across changing task demands and environments. While previous studies convergently determined the contribution of prefrontal-striatal systems to general inhibitory control, findings on the specific circuits that mediate the...

Background Feedback evaluation of actions and error response detection are critical for optimizing behavioral adaptation. Oxytocin can facilitate learning following social feedback but whether its effects vary as a function of feedback valence remains unclear. Aims The present study aimed to investigate whether oxytocin would influence responses t...

Accumulating evidence suggests that exposure to high levels of early life stress (ELS) may lead to a lasting shift between goal-directed and habitual behavioral tendencies. Cognitive flexibility has been shown to be impaired following early life stress and represents a protective factor for the formation of rigid maladaptive behavior, however, whet...

Background Major Depressive (MDD) and Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) are highly debilitating and often co-morbid disorders. The disorders exhibit partly overlapping dysregulations on the behavioral and neurofunctional level, and the determination of disorder-specific alterations may promote neuro-mechanistic and diagnostic specificity. Methods...

Real-time fMRI guided neurofeedback training has gained increasing interest as a non-invasive brain regulation technique with the potential to normalize functional brain alterations in therapeutic contexts. Individual variations in learning success and treatment response have been observed, yet the neural substrates underlying the learning of self-...

Background and aims Growing concerns about the addictive nature of Internet and computer games led to the preliminary recognition of Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) as an emerging disorder by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and the official recognition of Gaming Disorder (GD) as a new diagnosis by the World Health Organization (WHO). Whil...

Major depressive disorder (MDD) and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) are highly prevalent and debilitating disorders. The high overlap on the symptomatic and neurobiological level led to ongoing debates about their diagnostic and neurobiological uniqueness. The present study aims to identify common and disorder-specific neuropathological mechanis...

Studies demonstrated that faces with emotional expressions are better remembered than neutral faces. However, whether the memory advantage persists over years and which neural systems mediate such an effect remains unknown. We investigated recognition of incidentally encoded faces with angry, fearful, happy, sad and neutral expressions over >1.5 ye...

Objectives To investigate the prevalence and risk factors for poor mental health of Chinese university students during the Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Method Chinese nation-wide on-line cross-sectional survey on university students, collected between February 12th and 17th, 2020. Primary outcome was prevalence of clinically-rele...

Background Compulsivity and loss of behavioral control represent core symptoms in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), substance use disorder (SUD), and internet gaming disorder (IGD). Despite animal models suggesting compulsivity mediated by cortico-striatal circuits and several neuroimaging case-control studies positing common/distinct neurofunct...

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) are highly prevalent and debilitating disorders. The high overlap on the symptomatic and neurobiological level led to ongoing debates about their diagnostic and neurobiological uniqueness. The present study aims to identify common and disorder-specific neuropathological mechanis...

Early career researchers (ECRs) are faced with a range of competing pressures in academia, making self-management key to building a successful career. The Organization for Human Brain Mapping undertook a group effort to gather helpful advice for ECRs in self-management.

Accumulating evidence suggests that exposure to high levels of early life stress (ELS) may lead to a lasting shift between goal-directed and habitual behavioral tendencies. Cognitive flexibility has been shown to be impaired following early life stress and represents a protective factor for the formation of rigid maladaptive behavior, however, whet...

The ability to successfully regulate negative emotions such as fear and anxiety is vital for mental health. The neuropeptide oxytocin (OXT) acts as important modulator of emotion regulation, as reflected by reduced amygdala responses but increased amygdala prefrontal cortex (PFC) functional connectivity in response to threatening stimuli. The prese...

Growing concerns about the addictive nature of internet and computer games led to the endorsement of Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) as an emerging disorder by the American Psychological Association (APA) in 2013 and the recognition of Gaming Disorder (GD) as a new diagnosis by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2019. While the definition of cle...

Background: Deficient regulation of stress plays an important role in the escalation of substance use, addiction and relapse. Accumulating evidence suggests dysregulations in cognitive and reward-related processes and the underlying neural circuitry in cannabis dependence. However, despite the important regulatory role of the endocannabinoid syste...

Background: While the neuropeptide oxytocin can facilitate empathy and altruistic behavior it may also promote self-serving tendencies in some contexts, and it remains unclear if it would increase altruistic or self-interest behaviors when they compete within a social situation. Methods: The current between-subject, double-blind, placebo-control...

Background Animal models of addiction suggest that the transition from incentive-driven to habitual and ultimately compulsive drug use is mediated by a shift from ventral to dorsal striatal cue-control over drug seeking. Previous studies in human cannabis users reported elevated trait impulsivity and cue-reactivity in striatal circuits, however, th...