Whole-brain gray matter volume mediates the relationship between psychological distress and job satisfaction

Abstract

Individual differences in brain structure are not only seen between healthy and diseased individuals, or between young and elderly people, but also in middle-aged men and women. Previous studies have shown that the cause is related to psychological distress and stress, and that it is accompanied by a decline in performance. This suggests that among middle-aged male and female workers who consider themselves healthy, the brain may atrophy depending on the level of psychological distress, which may reduce job satisfaction. Therefore, in this study, we analyzed the relationship between brain structure and psychological variables from the analysis of brain images obtained by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and the results of a questionnaire survey of 80 middle-aged male and female workers who consider themselves healthy. The results showed that the gray matter of the whole brain, frontal lobe, temporal lobe, and parietal lobe mediated the relationship between psychological distress and job satisfaction. This suggests that more workers than previously believed may have symptoms like frontotemporal dementia (FTD) due to psychological distress, reducing their job performance and job satisfaction.