Neuroimaging correlates of psychological resilience: an Open Science systematic review and meta-analysis

IntroductionWhile risk factors have been identified for numerous psychiatric disorders, many individuals exposed to these risk factors do not develop psychopathology. A growing neuroimaging literature has sought to find structural and functional brain features that confer psychological resilience ag...

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Main Authors: Allison Kuehn, Maegan L. Calvert, G. Andrew James
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2025-05-01
Series:Frontiers in Neuroimaging
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Online Access:https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnimg.2025.1487888/full
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author Allison Kuehn
Maegan L. Calvert
G. Andrew James
author_facet Allison Kuehn
Maegan L. Calvert
G. Andrew James
author_sort Allison Kuehn
collection DOAJ
description IntroductionWhile risk factors have been identified for numerous psychiatric disorders, many individuals exposed to these risk factors do not develop psychopathology. A growing neuroimaging literature has sought to find structural and functional brain features that confer psychological resilience against developing psychiatric disorders.MethodsWe conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies associated with psychological resilience. Searches of Pubmed, Embase, Web of Science and PsychInfo yielded 2,658 potentially relevant articles published 2000–2021. Of these, we identified 154 human neuroimaging articles which provided anatomical coordinates of regions promoting resilience against psychiatric disorders including PTSD (44% of articles), schizophrenia (18%), major depressive disorder (14%) and bipolar disorder (12%).ResultsMeta-analysis conducted in GingerALE identified three regions as promoting psychological resilience across disorders (cluster-level FWE p < 0.05): left amygdala, right amygdala, and anterior cingulate.DiscussionWe additionally introduce a novel framework for conducting systematic reviews and meta-analyses that is compliant with best practices of Open Science: our publicly viewable systematic review was curated and annotated using the open-source reference manager Zotero, with customizable Python scripts for extracting curated data for meta-analyses. Our methodological pipeline not only permits independent replication of our findings but also supports customization for future neuroimaging meta-analyses.
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spelling doaj-art-b8a70df8a5034bb9a484069d26bf2cbd2025-08-20T03:52:47ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Neuroimaging2813-11932025-05-01410.3389/fnimg.2025.14878881487888Neuroimaging correlates of psychological resilience: an Open Science systematic review and meta-analysisAllison KuehnMaegan L. CalvertG. Andrew JamesIntroductionWhile risk factors have been identified for numerous psychiatric disorders, many individuals exposed to these risk factors do not develop psychopathology. A growing neuroimaging literature has sought to find structural and functional brain features that confer psychological resilience against developing psychiatric disorders.MethodsWe conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies associated with psychological resilience. Searches of Pubmed, Embase, Web of Science and PsychInfo yielded 2,658 potentially relevant articles published 2000–2021. Of these, we identified 154 human neuroimaging articles which provided anatomical coordinates of regions promoting resilience against psychiatric disorders including PTSD (44% of articles), schizophrenia (18%), major depressive disorder (14%) and bipolar disorder (12%).ResultsMeta-analysis conducted in GingerALE identified three regions as promoting psychological resilience across disorders (cluster-level FWE p < 0.05): left amygdala, right amygdala, and anterior cingulate.DiscussionWe additionally introduce a novel framework for conducting systematic reviews and meta-analyses that is compliant with best practices of Open Science: our publicly viewable systematic review was curated and annotated using the open-source reference manager Zotero, with customizable Python scripts for extracting curated data for meta-analyses. Our methodological pipeline not only permits independent replication of our findings but also supports customization for future neuroimaging meta-analyses.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnimg.2025.1487888/fullpsychological resiliencepsychiatric disordersmeta-analysisneuroimagingamygdalaanterior cingulate
spellingShingle Allison Kuehn
Maegan L. Calvert
G. Andrew James
Neuroimaging correlates of psychological resilience: an Open Science systematic review and meta-analysis
Frontiers in Neuroimaging
psychological resilience
psychiatric disorders
meta-analysis
neuroimaging
amygdala
anterior cingulate
title Neuroimaging correlates of psychological resilience: an Open Science systematic review and meta-analysis
title_full Neuroimaging correlates of psychological resilience: an Open Science systematic review and meta-analysis
title_fullStr Neuroimaging correlates of psychological resilience: an Open Science systematic review and meta-analysis
title_full_unstemmed Neuroimaging correlates of psychological resilience: an Open Science systematic review and meta-analysis
title_short Neuroimaging correlates of psychological resilience: an Open Science systematic review and meta-analysis
title_sort neuroimaging correlates of psychological resilience an open science systematic review and meta analysis
topic psychological resilience
psychiatric disorders
meta-analysis
neuroimaging
amygdala
anterior cingulate
url https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnimg.2025.1487888/full
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AT maeganlcalvert neuroimagingcorrelatesofpsychologicalresilienceanopensciencesystematicreviewandmetaanalysis
AT gandrewjames neuroimagingcorrelatesofpsychologicalresilienceanopensciencesystematicreviewandmetaanalysis