Neural circuitry governing anxious individuals' mis-allocation of working memory to threat.

ABSTRACT: Dispositional anxiety is a trait-like phenotype that confers increased risk for a range of debilitating neuropsychiatric disorders. Like many patients with anxiety disorders, individuals with elevated levels of dispositional anxiety are prone to intrusive and distressing thoughts in the absence of immediate threat. Recent electrophysiological research suggests that these symptoms are rooted in the mis-allocation of working memory (WM) resources to threat-related information. Here, functional MRI was used to identify the network of brain regions that support WM for faces and to quantify the allocation of neural resources to threat-related distracters in 81 young adults. Results revealed widespread evidence of mis-allocation. This was evident in both face-selective regions of the fusiform co

SUBMITTER: Stout DM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5562789 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature