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In psychotic disorders, motivation and pleasure (MAP) deficits are associated with decreased social affiliation and functional impairment. We leveraged a transdiagnostic sample enriched for psychosis and a multi-method approach to test the hypothesis that MAP deficits undermine the benefits of social affiliation. Participants completed the Social Affiliation Enhancement Task (SAET) to cultivate affiliation with an experimental partner. While the SAET increased affiliation and mood, individuals with greater MAP deficits derived smaller emotional benefits from the partners indexed by subjective report and objective facial behavior. Following the SAET, we used the Handholding fMRI paradigm—combining a threat-anticipation manipulation with varying degrees of affiliative contact—to determine whether MAP deficits undermine the social regulation of distress. Individuals with greater MAP deficits showed diminished neural ‘benefits’—reduced dampening of threat-elicited activation from affiliative contact in key frontoparietal nodes of the Dorsal Attention Network. In short, MAP symptoms disrupt the emotional and neuroregulatory benefits of social affiliation.

The Adaptive Calibration Model of Stress Responsivity (ACM) suggests that developmental experiences predictably tune biological systems to meet the demands of the environment. Particularly important is the calibration of reward systems. Using a longitudinal sample (N = 184) followed since adolescence, this study models the dimensions of early life stress and their effects on epigenetic modification of the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) and individual differences in neural response to reward anticipation. We first created a latent variable model of developmental context using measures collected when participants were 13 years old. As adults, two subsets of participants completed a reward anticipation fMRI paradigm (N = 82) and agreed to have their blood assayed for (OXTR) DNA methylation (N = 112) at two CpG sites. Three latent constructs of developmental context emerged: Neighborhood Harshness, Family Harshness, and Abuse and Disorder. Greater OXTR DNA methylation at CpG sites −924 and −934 blunted the association between greater Neighborhood Harshness and increased neural activation in caudate in anticipation of rewards. Interaction effects were also found outside of reward-related areas for all three latent constructs. Results indicate an epigenetically derived differential susceptibility model whereby high methylation coincides with decreased association between developmental environment and neural reward anticipation.

Physical touch in the form of holding a loved one’s hand attenuates the neural response to threat (Coan, Schaefer, & Davidson, 2006). Speculation regarding the neural mediation of this effect points to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), which is known to have inhibitory connections with threat responsive brain regions such as the amygdala. Despite the attractiveness of this hypothesis, a link between the vmPFC and diminished threat during handholding has been difficult to demonstrate empirically. Here we report that in a sample of 110 participants no evidence for vmPFC mediation of the handholding effect was obtained. Indeed, results indicated that connectivity patterns between threat responsive salience network structures and the vmPFC were in the opposite direction one would predict if the vmPFC mediated reductions in neural threat-responding caused by partner handholding. Our findings suggest that the vmPFC does not mediate the regulating effect of physical contact on neural threat responses.

Positive social contact predicts better health, but the mechanisms for this association remain debated. One way to explore this link is through the social regulation of emotion, particularly anticipatory anxiety. Previous research finds less neural threat response during partner handholding than when people are alone or stranger handholding. Various mechanistic accounts have been forwarded, including the hypothesis that this effect is mediated by endogenous opioid activity. This experiment critically tested the opioid hypothesis in 60 married participants and their partners. The study used a naltrexone opioid blockade in a double-blind placebo control with functional magnetic resonance imaging to determine whether endogenous opioids were necessary for handholding effects. Regulatory effects of supportive handholding manifested in threat network regions during opioid blockade, but not with placebo. Despite a surprising lack of effect in the placebo group, the overall study findings provide initial evidence that endogenous opioids may not be necessary for the social regulation of neural threat responding.