Habenula neural circuitry drives negative self-cognitions

Self-related cognitions are integral to personal identity and psychological wellbeing. Persistent engagement with negative self-cognitions can precipitate mental ill health; whereas the ability to restructure them is protective. Here, we leverage ultra-high field 7T fMRI and dynamic causal modelling to characterise a negative self-cognition network centred on the habenula – a small midbrain region linked to the encoding of punishment and negative outcomes. We model habenula effective connectivity in a discovery sample of healthy young adults ( n  = 48) and in a replication cohort ( n  = 56) using a novel cognitive restructuring task during which participants repeated or restructured negative self-cognitions. The restructuring of negative self-cognitions elicits an excitatory effect from the habenula to the posterior orbitofrontal cortex that is reliably observed across both samples. Furthermore, we identify an excitatory effect of the habenula on the posterior cingulate cortex during both the repeating and restructuring of self-cognitions. Our study provides the first evidence in humans demonstrating the habenula’s contribution to processing self-cognitions. These findings yield novel insights into habenula’s function beyond processing external reward/punishment to include abstract internal experiences.