Hippocampus links perceived social support with self-esteem.
Huanhua Lu, Xueting Li, Yinan Wang, Yiying Song, Jia Liu
Author Information
Huanhua Lu: School of Marxism, China University of Geosciences (Beijing), Beijing, China.
Xueting Li: Department of Psychology, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China.
Yinan Wang: Beijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, National Demonstration Center for Experimental Psychology Education (Beijing Normal University), Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
Yiying Song: Beijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, National Demonstration Center for Experimental Psychology Education (Beijing Normal University), Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
Jia Liu: Department of Psychology & Tsinghua Laboratory of Brain and Intelligence, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
Self-esteem is an important psychological resource with adaptive values, and numerous investigations have revealed that self-esteem is influenced by perceived social support. However, the potential neural basis linking perceived social support with self-esteem remains unclear. Therefore, we used voxel-based morphometry to explore whether the hippocampus and amygdala function as the neuroanatomical basis linking perceived social support with self-esteem in a cohort of 243 young healthy adults (128 women; mean age 22.64 years, standard deviation 1.01 years). The Social Provisions Scale and Rosenberg Self Esteem Scale were used for the survey. Magnetic resonance imaging was used to measure the gray matter volume of the hippocampus and amygdala. Correlation analysis revealed that those who perceived more social support had higher self-esteem. Notably, mediation analysis showed that hippocampal gray matter volume linked perceived social support with self-esteem. Our study suggests that the hippocampus plays a primary, but not exclusive, role in linking perceived social support with self-esteem, which provides a novel explanation for how perceived social support affects self-esteem from the perspective of cognitive neuroscience.
