Open AccessLonely in the Dark: Trauma Memory and Sex‐Specific Dysregulation of Amygdala Reactivity to Fear Signals
Author(s) -
Morr Mitjan,
Noell Jeanine,
Sassin Daphne,
Daniels Jule,
Philipsen Alexandra,
Becker Benjamin,
StoffelWagner Birgit,
Hurlemann René,
Scheele Dirk
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
advanced science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.388
H-Index - 100
ISSN - 2198-3844
DOI - 10.1002/advs.202105336
Subject(s) - loneliness , amygdala , habituation , psychology , fear conditioning , distress , fear potentiated startle , extinction (optical mineralogy) , psychopathology , neural correlates of consciousness , clinical psychology , functional magnetic resonance imaging , developmental psychology , audiology , neuroscience , medicine , psychiatry , cognition , paleontology , biology
Loneliness exacerbates psychological distress and increases the risk of psychopathology after trauma exposure. However, it is still unclear whether a lack of social connectedness affects trauma‐related intrusions and the neural processing of fear signals. Moreover, it is uncertain, whether loneliness plays a different role in women and men. A prestratification strategy is used and n = 47 ( n = 20 women) healthy lonely individuals and n = 35 controls ( n = 18 women) are recruited. Participants are exposed to an experimental trauma and evoked intrusive thoughts in daily life are monitored for three consecutive days. Functional magnetic resonance imaging is used to assess neural habituation to fearful faces and fear learning (conditioning and extinction) prior to trauma exposure. The results reveal a significant interaction between loneliness and sex such that loneliness is associated with more intrusions in men, but not in women. A similar pattern emerges at the neural level, with both reduced amygdala habituation to repeated fearful faces and amygdala hyperreactivity during the conditioning of fear signals in lonely men. The findings indicate that loneliness may confer vulnerability to intrusive memories after trauma exposure in healthy men and that this phenotype relates to altered limbic processing of fear signals.