Ruparel, Kosha

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Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
  • Publication
    Divergent Relationship of Depression Severity to Social Reward Responses Among Patients With Bipolar Versus Unipolar Depression
    (2016-08-30) Sharma, Anup; Satterthwaite, Theodore D; Vandekar, Lillie; Katchmar, Natalie; Ruparel, Kosha; Daldal, Aylin; Elliott, Mark A; Bladassano, Claudia; Thase, Michael E; Kable, Joseph W; Gur, Raquel E; Wolf, Daniel H
    Neuroimaging studies of mood disorders demonstrate abnormalities in brain regions implicated in reward processing. However, there is a paucity of research investigating how social rewards affect reward circuit activity in these disorders. Here, we evaluated the relationship of both diagnostic category and dimensional depression severity to reward system function in bipolar and unipolar depression. In total, 86 adults were included, including 24 patients with bipolar depression, 24 patients with unipolar depression, and 38 healthy comparison subjects. Participants completed a social reward task during 3T BOLD fMRI. On average, diagnostic groups did not differ in activation to social reward. However, greater depression severity significantly correlated with reduced bilateral ventral striatum activation to social reward in the bipolar depressed group, but not the unipolar depressed group. In addition, decreased left orbitofrontal cortical activation correlated with more severe symptoms in bipolar depression, but not unipolar depression. These differential dimensional effects resulted in a significant voxelwise group by depression severity interaction. Taken together, these results provide initial evidence that deficits in social reward processing are differentially related to depression severity in the two disorders.
  • Publication
    Content Matters: Neuroimaging Investigation of Brain and Behavioral Impact of Televised Anti-Tobacco Public Service Announcements
    (2013-04-24) Wang, An-Li; Ruparel, Kosha; Loughead, James W; Strasser, Andrew A.; Blady, Shira J; Lynch, Kevin G; Romer, Daniel; Cappella, Joseph N; Lerman, Caryn; Langleben, Daniel D
    Televised public service announcements are video ads that are a key component of public health campaigns against smoking. Understanding the neurophysiological correlates of anti-tobacco ads is an important step toward novel objective methods of their evaluation and design. In the present study, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate the brain and behavioral effects of the interaction between content ("argument strength," AS) and format ("message sensation value," MSV) of anti-smoking ads in humans. Seventy-one nontreatment-seeking smokers viewed a sequence of 16 high or 16 low AS ads during an fMRI scan. Dependent variables were brain fMRI signal, the immediate recall of the ads, the immediate change in intentions to quit smoking, and the urine levels of a major nicotine metabolite cotinine at a 1 month follow-up. Whole-brain ANOVA revealed that AS and MSV interacted in the inferior frontal, inferior parietal, and fusiform gyri; the precuneus; and the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dMPFC). Regression analysis showed that the activation in the dMPFC predicted the urine cotinine levels 1 month later. These results characterize the key brain regions engaged in the processing of persuasive communications and suggest that brain fMRI response to anti-smoking ads could predict subsequent smoking severity in nontreatment-seeking smokers. Our findings demonstrate the importance of the quality of content for objective ad outcomes and suggest that fMRI investigation may aid the prerelease evaluation of televised public health ads.
  • Publication
    Associations Between Neighborhood SES and Functional Brain Network Development
    (2019-04-11) Mackey, Allyson P; Tooley, Ursula A.; Ruparel, Kosha; Ciric, Rastko; Moore, Tyler M; Gur, Ruben C; Gur, Raquel E; Satterthwaite, Theodore D; Bassett, Danielle S
    Higher socioeconomic status (SES) in childhood is associated with stronger cognitive abilities, higher academic achievement, and lower incidence of mental illness later in development. While prior work has mapped the associations between neighborhood SES and brain structure, little is known about the relationship between SES and intrinsic neural dynamics. Here, we capitalize upon a large cross-sectional community-based sample (Philadelphia Neurodevelopmental Cohort, ages 8–22 years, n = 1012) to examine associations between age, SES, and functional brain network topology. We characterize this topology using a local measure of network segregation known as the clustering coefficient and find that it accounts for a greater degree of SES-associated variance than mesoscale segregation captured by modularity. High-SES youth displayed stronger positive associations between age and clustering than low-SES youth, and this effect was most pronounced for regions in the limbic, somatomotor, and ventral attention systems. The moderating effect of SES on positive associations between age and clustering was strongest for connections of intermediate length and was consistent with a stronger negative relationship between age and local connectivity in these regions in low-SES youth. Our findings suggest that, in late childhood and adolescence, neighborhood SES is associated with variation in the development of functional network structure in the human brain.
  • Publication
    Baby Schema in Infant Faces Induces Cuteness Perception and Motivation for Caretaking in Adults
    (2009-03-01) Langleben, Daniel D; Ruparel, Kosha; Loughead, James W; Glocker, Melanie L; Gur, Ruben C; Sachser, Norbert
    Ethologist Konrad Lorenz proposed that baby schema (‘Kindchenschema’) is a set of infantile physical features such as the large head, round face and big eyes that is perceived as cute and motivates caretaking behavior in other individuals, with the evolutionary function of enhancing offspring survival. Previous work on this fundamental concept was restricted to schematic baby representations or correlative approaches. Here, we experimentally tested the effects of baby schema on the perception of cuteness and the motivation for caretaking using photographs of infant faces. Employing quantitative techniques, we parametrically manipulated the baby schema content to produce infant faces with high (e.g. round face and high forehead), and low (e. g. narrow face and low forehead) baby schema features that retained all the characteristics of a photographic portrait. Undergraduate students (n = 122) rated these infants’ cuteness and their motivation to take care of them. The high baby schema infants were rated as more cute and elicited stronger motivation for caretaking than the unmanipulated and the low baby schema infants. This is the first experimental proof of the baby schema effects in actual infant faces. Our findings indicate that the baby schema response is a critical function of human social cognition that may be the basis of caregiving and have implications for infant–caretaker interactions.
  • Publication
    Reduced prefrontal and temporal processing and recall of high "sensation value" ads
    (2009-05-01) Langleben, Daniel D; Loughead, James W.; Ruparel, Kosha; Strasser, Andrew A.; Cappella, Joseph N.; Lerman, Caryn; Hakun, Jonathan G.; Busch-Winokur, Samantha; Holloway, Matthew B.
    Public service announcements (PSAs) are non-commercial broadcast ads that are an important part of televised public health campaigns. “Message sensation value” (MSV), a measure of sensory intensity of audio, visual, and content features of an ad, is an important factor in PSA impact. Some communication theories propose that higher message sensation value brings increased attention and cognitive processing, leading to higher ad impact. Others argue that the attention-intensive format could compete with ad's message for cognitive resources and result in reduced processing of PSA content and reduced overall effectiveness. Brain imaging during PSA viewing provides a quantitative surrogate measure of PSA impact and addresses questions of PSA evaluation and design not accessible with traditional subjective and epidemiological methods. We used Blood Oxygenation Level Dependent (BOLD) functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and recognition memory measures to compare high and low MSV anti-tobacco PSAs and neutral videos. In a short-delay, forced-choice memory test, frames extracted from PSAs were recognized more accurately than frames extracted from the NV. Frames from the low MSV PSAs were better recognized than frames from the high MSV PSAs. The accuracy of recognition of PSA frames was positively correlated with the prefrontal and temporal, and negatively correlated with the occipital cortex activation. The low MSV PSAs were associated with greater prefrontal and temporal activation, than the high MSV PSAs. The high MSV PSAs produced greater activation primarily in the occipital cortex. These findings support the “dual processing” and “limited capacity” theories of communication that postulate a competition between ad's content and format for the viewers' cognitive resources and suggest that the “attention-grabbing” high MSV format could impede the learning and retention of an ad. These findings demonstrate the potential of using neuroimaging in the design and evaluation of mass media public health communications.