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Trait anxiety predicts amygdalar responses during direct processing of threat-related pictures.

ABSTRACT: Previous studies on the associations between trait anxiety and amygdalar responses to threat stimuli have resulted in mixed findings, possibly due to sample characteristics, specific tasks, and analytical methods. The present functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study aimed to investigate linear or non-linear associations between trait anxiety and amygdalar responses in a sample of participants with low, medium, and high trait anxiety scores. During scanning, participants were presented with threat-related or neutral pictures and had either to solve an emotional task or an emotional-unrelated distraction task. Results showed that only during the explicit task trait anxiety was associated with right amygdalar responses to threat-related pictures as compared to neutral pictures. The best model was a cubic model with increased amygdala responses for very low and medium trait anxiety values but decreased amygdala activation for very high trait anxiety values. The findings imply a non-linear relation between trait anxiety and amygdala activation depending on task conditions.

SUBMITTER: Lin H

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8446049 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Trait anxiety predicts amygdalar responses during direct processing of threat-related pictures.

Lin Huiyan H Miltner Wolfgang H R WHR Straube Thomas T

Scientific reports 20210916 1

Previous studies on the associations between trait anxiety and amygdalar responses to threat stimuli have resulted in mixed findings, possibly due to sample characteristics, specific tasks, and analytical methods. The present functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study aimed to investigate linear or non-linear associations between trait anxiety and amygdalar responses in a sample of participants with low, medium, and high trait anxiety scores. During scanning, participants were presented ...[more]

PMID: 34531518

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Project description: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 cingulate cortex (dACC/rACC) - a hub of the saliency circuit - during matching of negative but not positive vs. neutral emotional faces. A slope test confirmed the differences in the regressions. Further, age was not associated with activation of the PFC in whole-brain regression or in region-of-interest analysis of the dorsolateral PFC, an area identified from meta-analyses of the emotion regulation literature. Together, the findings fail to support either hypothesis; rather, the findings suggest age-related automaticity in processing negative emotions as a potential mechanism of diminished anxiety. Automaticity results in faster RT and diminished anterior cingulate activity in response to negative but not positive emotional stimuli. In support, analyses of psychophysiological interaction demonstrated higher dACC/rACC connectivity with the default mode network, which has been implicated in automaticity in information processing. As age increased, individuals demonstrated faster RT with higher connectivity during matching of negative vs. neutral images. Automaticity in negative emotion processing needs to be investigated as a mechanism of age-related reduction in anxiety.

Dataset Information

Trait anxiety predicts amygdalar responses during direct processing of threat-related pictures.

Publications

Trait anxiety predicts amygdalar responses during direct processing of threat-related pictures.

Similar Datasets

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