Burnout is a condition that results from chronic work-related stress, and it is associated with impairments in cognitive and emotion-related functions, such as impaired executive functions and emotion regulation. This thesis aimed to conduct a systematic review of the neural correlates of burnout. The thesis investigates the following research question: do the neural correlates of burnout involve the same brain regions and/or functions as those implicated in the cognitive functions affected by burnout? The systematic literature search resulted in seven studies which studied either the functional, structural, or electrophysiological correlates of burnout. The results showed that burnout involves functional and structural alterations in regions involved in various higher-order cognitive functions. Structural findings indicate alterations in brain regions involved with emotion processing, memory and attention (i.e., medial prefrontal cortex, caudate, amygdala). Electrophysiological findings indicate differences in alpha power in burnout individuals compared to controls, suggesting that alpha power is reduced when burnout's specific symptoms (i.e., exhaustion) increase. Evident are also findings on functional differences in working memory (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex) and reduced functional connectivity between emotion processing areas (the amygdala and anterior cingulate cortex) and areas such as the motor cortex. The presented findings answer the research question. It can be concluded that the brain regions implicated in the cognitive functions affected by burnout resemble many of the regions affected in the neural correlates of burnout. Future studies should take into account the methodological issues of the existing studies.

Time perception is a universal experience that can be studied from a philosophical, physical, and neuroscientific point of view. Many models and theories of timing, such as the pacemaker-switch-accumulator model and striatal beat frequency model are used to understand such an abstract, yet ubiquitous concept. This paper will discuss brain regions that are crucial to time perception, notably the cerebellum, basal ganglia, prefrontal cortex, supplementary motor cortex, and hippocampus. In addition, this paper investigates several research studies involving distortions in time perception. In these instances of substance use, aging, and cognitive disorders, the neural correlates of time perception are elucidated. In providing a better understanding of these cognitive states and disorders, we can utilize altered time perception as a potential clinical marker or diagnostic tool.

Deception has long been of interest to humans, but only recently has the neuroscience of deception started. Similarly, lie-detection, as an applied aspect of the study of deception, has long been studied but only with the advent of imaging techniques and the development of the neuroscience of deception has it become possible to develop techniques based on scanningour brains. Currently, both areas suffer from methodological and philosophical problems. As an applied science fMRI lie-detection has greater issues to deal with, specifically legal and ethical issues. Despite interesting results, implicating frontal regions as the neural correlates of deception, the neuroscience of deception need better designs and more study to be able to draw any general inferences. By its nature fMRI lie-detection suffers greatly from this, and additional problems concerning privacy and legality make it seem too early to implement it incourt or anywhere, as stated by many scientists. On the other hand the technology already exists and is likely to be used.

This thesis reviews both psychological and neural research in the fields of self-evaluation, self-views and self-enhancement bias. The research has made associations to grandiosity and need for admiration, which are two of the defining characteristics of narcissistic personality disorder. Neural correlates associated with this research are the medial prefrontal cortex, orbitofrontal cortex, posteromedial cortex and anterior insula. Narcissists have been seen to have a decreased form of emotional empathy even though they rate themselves to have higher emotional empathy than they actually have, which is linked to self-enhancement bias and grandiosity. Alexithymia has not gained much attention in relation to narcissism, but research presented suggests that this might need to change. Neural correlates that are associated with lack of emotional empathy and alexithymia are the anterior insula, frontoparalimbic areas and the medial prefrontal cortex. Narcissistic personality disorder is in the DSM-5 specified to be defined by a grandiose sense of self, a need for admiration, and a lack of empathy in either fantasy or behavior. However according to researchers in the field this only covers a part of the spectrum of narcissism. Deficits in the DSM-5 will he highlighted, as well as suggestions on what to do in order to help clarify the definition in DSM-5 and the concept in general.

Studies exploring the neural correlates of the emotion regulation strategy called cognitive change (reappraisal) have been thoroughly discussed and synthesized. This is not the case for another emotion regulation strategy called response modulation. The aim of this thesis was to conduct a systematic review on the neural correlates of one specific emotion regulation technique in response modulation, called expressive suppression. Expressive suppression is the inhibition of emotion expressive behavior. Using a systematic search, screening, and selection process, out of the initial 557 articles eight studies were included for data extraction and discussion. The studies exposed participants to negative emotion-inducing stimuli and instructed participants to either suppress their emotional behavior or to watch the stimuli without regulating the emotion. All studies used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Expressive suppression yielded increased activation in frontal and parietal regions, especially in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and bilateral inferior parietal cortex, compared to a non-regulation condition. Results of amygdala activation were inconsistent with different studies showing an increase, decrease, or no difference in activation during expressive suppression versus the non-regulation contrast condition. The thesis ends with a discussion of methodological issues and future directions.

Optimism refers to peoples’ general tendency to anticipate good outcomes in areas that are important to them. Numerous studies have shown that optimism is significantly correlated with improved physical and mental health. Optimism can come to an overly optimistic degree, called optimism bias. People generally expect better outcomes and fewer negative events to happen for themselves in the future compared to the average person. There are two sides to this: being optimistically biased might lead to risky behavior, but it might also ease people's worries about the future. To have a consistently negative view is suggested to correlate with depressive symptoms and worsened health. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the neural correlates and functional markers of optimism and optimism bias. Optimism is suggested to correlate with gray-matter volume in the thalamus, orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), and bilateral putamen. The inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and the rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC) have a crucial role in dismissing undesirable information and self referential processing. Research regarding this issue might be beneficial for further understanding of the connection between optimism and well-being.

The essay aims to provide an overview of existing research on moral cognition and its neural correlates, as well as to highlight aspects in which the findings from the field of cognitive neuroscience can add to the understanding of the challenges that arise from having artificial systems as moral decision-makers. Morality is an important characteristic of the human way of life and a central mechanism in the modern society. Research suggests that morality has evolved as a function to promote cooperation and prosocial behaviour. Morality has been a topic of investigation in several interdisciplinary fields and often includes the exploration of reason and emotion and their respective roles. Contemporary technological advances include the increased presence of artificial intelligence (AI) that aims to simulate the human mind. Empirical evidence suggests that deontological responses are more closely related to emotional components of moral cognition and linked to increased activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. In contrast, utilitarian responses appear to be more reliant on reason and a more complex neural network that is linked to increased activity in primarily dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. AI has successfully accomplished certain elements of simulating human cognition. However, key findings suggest that the integration of reason and emotion is essential which is possibly challenging for AI to fully replicate.

Traditional ways to examine and investigate the neural correlates of consciousness usually require the participants to actively report their perceptions and conscious contents. Having the participants actively report can confound the neural correlates with co-occurring processes. Instead, no-report paradigms try to remove the active process of reporting by either objectively trying to measure conscious content by tracking eye movements and pupil dilation, or retroactively inquire about the conscious states. The results of an fMRI experiment utilising tracking of optokinetic nystagmus and pupil dilation as an objective measure of conscious content highlight a difference in frontal areas while activation in posterior areas are similar to active report experiments. EEG experiments utilising the sustained inattentional blindness paradigm did not see the late positivity commonly seen when the participants were aware of the stimuli but it was not task relevant. Utilising no-report paradigms can provide unique insights into the discussion of theories of consciousness and further develop our understanding of consciousness.

Mindfulness meditation is known to improve attention, and neuroscience appears to be a field that can elucidate how mindfulness meditation achieves such an outcome. However, studies on mindfulness meditation have been criticized for a low methodological quality. Thus the current paper aimed to provide a literature review on the neural basis of the effects of mindfulness meditation on attention. Additionally, there was a critical examination of this research to evaluate factors that might compromise the validity of the research. The scope of the thesis was limited to studies on healthy adults using fMRI and on studies that incorporate the generally accepted elements of mindfulness meditation. A total of 17 cross-sectional and two longitudinal studies were reviewed with 510 participants in all. The main result of this literature review were that changes were observed in the mPFC. Furthermore, activation was seen in the insula, prefrontal areas and the ACC. Some of the interpretations of the selected studies were in conflict with each other. This can perhaps be explained by differences in neural activation depending on how experienced the subjects are in mindfulness meditation practices. Some prevalent methodological issues with the studies were small sample sizes, cross-sectional design, and poor or unclear instructions (e.g., not describing the instructions or the mantra employed). There were also more general problems regarding functional neuroimaging. These included movement artefacts and cardiovascular effects. However, based on the 19 studies reviewed in this paper there is tentative evidence for the beneficial effects of mindfulness meditation on attention.

Gambling disorder is today a common disorder causing lives to shatter. As this disorder activates the reward system and increases the need of dopamine, recovering from gamling disorder can be hard. Research has shown that gambling addiction appears to have similarities to substance abuse, but no substance has been named. Therefore, this systematic review discusses similarities and differences between gambling and opioid addiction. The aim is to compare behavior and neurological correlates of gambling and opioid addiction tocreate a better understanding of the relationship between these addictions and hopefully help improve treatments. My expectation was that I would find behavioral and neurological similarities between opioid and gambling addicts. To investigate this, I conducted a systematic search across databases. I compared six studies which all used a task to investigate decision-making ability and brain-scanning to investigate neural correlates. Both gambling and opioid addicts show decreased activation in the orbitofrontal cortex, which plays a central role in decision-making. Regarding task performance, some studies showed addicts to perform worse than controls, suggesting that addicts show an impaired decision-making ability compared to controls. This systematic review contributes to the literature within addiction, but to draw a conclusion that gambling and opioid addicts suffer from similar decision-making impairment further research is needed.