id_893. REWIRING ACTION AND REWARD CONNECTION: RESTING-STATE FMRI CORRELATES OF CBT-INDUCED IMPROVEMENT IN ACADEMIC PROCRASTINATION.
Anna Czartoszewska1, Magdalena Pietruch1, Weronika Maria Browarczyk2, Joachim Kowalski3, Jarosław Michałowski2, Marek Wypych1
1 Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology PAS, Laboratory of Brain Imaging, Pasteura 3, Warsaw, Poland
2 Institute of Psychology, SWPS University, Poznań Laboratory of Affective Neuroscience, Kutrzeby 10, Poznań, Poland
3 Institute of Psychology of Polish Academy of Sciences, Experimental Psychopathology Lab, Jaracza 1, Warsaw, Poland
INTRODUCTION: Procrastination is a problematic form of task delay associated with negative outcomes. Although cognitive‑behavioral therapy (CBT) is considered one of the most effective interventions, the underlying psychological and neural mechanisms remain unknown.
AIM(S): The present randomized controlled trial addressed this gap by investigating changes in resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) associated with CBT for procrastination.
METHOD(S): Highly procrastinating university students were randomized into a five-week online group CBT or a waiting-list control group. Participants (CBT = 78, WL = 35) completed 7-minute resting-state fMRI scans and questionnaire assessments before and after the intervention period. Behavioral change was measured with the Aitken Procrastination Inventory-Revised (API-R). Fourteen regions of interest implicated in emotion regulation, self-control, and episodic prospection were selected for seed-to-voxel analyses. Within the CBT group, regression models were applied to examine RSFC changes correlating with changes in API-R scores.
RESULTS: Behavioral improvement was significantly greater in the CBT group compared to controls (d = -0.68). Within the CBT group, seed-to-voxel analyses identified two patterns that significantly correlated with changes in API-R scores. The score improvement was associated with decreased negative connectivity (p-FDR = .006, β = -.015) between the medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC) and right precentral gyrus (PCG), and with decreased positive connectivity (p-FDR = .046, β = .017) within the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC).
CONCLUSIONS: The shift of mOFC-PCG RSFC towards less negative values may reflect altered coactivation of action- and reward-related regions. Decreased local dlPFC connectivity could indicate greater functional flexibility of this key self-control region. Overall, the findings provide initial evidence for neural mechanisms underlying CBT for procrastination, highlighting the roles of reward processing and self-control.
FINANCIAL SUPPORT: This research was conducted by the GRAPPA consortium (General Research Assessing Psychotherapy for Procrastination Applications) and funded by the Polish National Science Centre grant 2021/43/B/HS6/02024 awarded to MW, JMM, and JK.