Age-related reduction in trait anxiety: Behavioral and neural evidence of automaticity in negative facial emotion processing.

ABSTRACT: Trait anxiety diminishes with age, which may result from age-related decline in registering salient emotional stimuli and/or enhancement in emotion regulation. We tested the hypotheses in 88 adults 21 to 85 years of age and studied with fMRI of the Hariri task. Age-related decline in stimulus registration would manifest in delayed reaction time (RT) and diminished saliency circuit activity in response to emotional vs. neutral stimuli. Enhanced control of negative emotions would manifest in diminished limbic/emotional circuit and higher prefrontal cortical (PFC) responses to negative emotion. The results showed that anxiety was negatively correlated with age. Age was associated with faster RT and diminished activation of the medial PFC, in the area of the dorsal and rostral anterior cingula

SUBMITTER: Chaudhary S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10330646 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature