Resilience is key to coping with life’s stressors, but how it works in the brain is still being unraveled.
A new study provides evidence that resilience involves distinct brain processes depending on whether someone is depressed or not.
Key Facts:
- Resilience was linked to frontal lobe brain activity patterns that differed between depressed and non-depressed individuals.
- Different aspects of resilience correlated with activity in specific frontal brain areas.
- The findings support resilience being composed of multiple components reliant on distinct brain processes.
Source: Brain Sci. 2023
Psychological resilience refers to our capacity to cope with stressors and avoid negative mental health effects from adversity.
While recognized as an important protective factor, exactly how resilience works in the brain remains unclear.
A new study led by researchers at the University of New England in Australia helps unravel resilience’s neural basis by linking different aspects of resilience to frontal lobe brain activity patterns.
Importantly, the relationships between resilience and frontal brain activity differed between individuals with and without significant depression symptoms.
The findings support resilience being underpinned by multiple components reliant on distinct brain processes.
Examining Resilience Components and Brain Activity
The researchers focused on frontal alpha asymmetry (FAA) as a marker of brain activity.
Alpha waves indicate wakeful relaxation, and FAA refers to differences in alpha wave production between the left and right frontal lobes.
FAA has been linked to depression, with relatively greater right frontal activity being associated with depression risk.
The researchers hypothesized FAA would also relate to resilience but wanted to dig deeper into the relationship.
They used the 25-item Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC) to assess resilience. The CD-RISC measures five components of resilience:
- Personal standards, competence and tenacity
- Trusting instincts, managing stress
- Accepting change, secure relationships
- Sense of control
- Spiritual influences
The researchers examined how FAA related to overall CD-RISC scores and each CD-RISC component.
They also looked at differences between individuals with and without significant depression symptoms.
Distinct Brain Patterns of Activity Emerge
Overall higher CD-RISC scores, indicating greater resilience, correlated with lower depression severity as expected.
However, examining the components highlighted differences.
Components 1-4 all inversely correlated with depression in both depressed and non-depressed groups.
But component 5 (spiritual influences) did not significantly correlate, suggesting it may not protect against depression.
There were also nuanced links between CD-RISC components and FAA:
- For non-depressed individuals, higher component scores correlated with greater left frontal activity.
- For depressed individuals, higher component scores correlated with greater right frontal activity.
- Different component scores also related to asymmetry in distinct frontal areas.
This pattern suggests distinct brain processes underlie resilience components, with fundamentally different relationships to brain activity in depressed versus non-depressed states.
Pinpointing the Brain Regions Involved
To hone in on the specific brain regions linked to resilience components, the researchers used electrical source localization imaging.
Key areas that emerged included:
- Left medial frontal regions for competence/tenacity and managing stress. Reduced left medial activity occurred with depression.
- Left middle frontal regions for sense of control. Lateralization matched depression associations.
- Widespread activity but with unique spiritual influences activity in the left anterior cingulate.
These results align with previous volume and activity differences documented in frontal areas in depression.
They further strengthen the case for compartmentalized neural processes supporting distinct resilience facets.
Implications for Understanding and Fostering Resilience
This study demonstrates resilience should not be viewed as a single unitary concept in the brain.
Different aspects rely on distinct neurocognitive processes that moreover function differently in depressed and non-depressed states.
The findings argue against assuming all resilience-promoting strategies have equivalent effects on brain activity and depression vulnerability.
Therapies and trainings likely need to be tailored to target the neural correlates of specific resilience facets.
For instance, boosting left medial frontal activity could improve competence and stress management but may not impact sense of control or tapping spiritual influences.
Alternate approaches would likely be needed to also enhance those resilience aspects.
With further research, matching interventions to the neurocognitive roots of particular resilience components could optimize resilience building and translate to better mental health outcomes.
These new insights advance our understanding of how resilience works in the brain and pave the way for more targeted, neurally-informed applications.
References
- Study: Frontal alpha asymmetry argues for the heterogeneity of psychological resilience
- Authors: Christopher F. Sharpley et al. (2023)
