Open AccessAbnormal brain activation and connectivity to standardized disorder‐related visual scenes in social anxiety disorder
Author(s) -
Heitmann Carina Yvonne,
Feldker Katharina,
Neumeister Paula,
Zepp Britta Maria,
Peterburs Jutta,
Zwitserlood Pienie,
Straube Thomas
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
human brain mapping
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.005
H-Index - 191
eISSN - 1097-0193
pISSN - 1065-9471
DOI - 10.1002/hbm.23120
Subject(s) - precuneus , psychology , neuroscience , insula , amygdala , anterior cingulate cortex , prefrontal cortex , functional magnetic resonance imaging , posterior cingulate , social anxiety , cingulate cortex , anxiety , cognition , psychiatry , central nervous system
Our understanding of altered emotional processing in social anxiety disorder (SAD) is hampered by a heterogeneity of findings, which is probably due to the vastly different methods and materials used so far. This is why the present functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study investigated immediate disorder‐related threat processing in 30 SAD patients and 30 healthy controls (HC) with a novel, standardized set of highly ecologically valid, disorder‐related complex visual scenes. SAD patients rated disorder‐related as compared with neutral scenes as more unpleasant, arousing and anxiety‐inducing than HC. On the neural level, disorder‐related as compared with neutral scenes evoked differential responses in SAD patients in a widespread emotion processing network including (para‐)limbic structures (e.g. amygdala, insula, thalamus, globus pallidus) and cortical regions (e.g. dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC), posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), and precuneus). Functional connectivity analysis yielded an altered interplay between PCC/precuneus and paralimbic (insula) as well as cortical regions (dmPFC, precuneus) in SAD patients, which emphasizes a central role for PCC/precuneus in disorder‐related scene processing. Hyperconnectivity of globus pallidus with amygdala, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) additionally underlines the relevance of this region in socially anxious threat processing. Our findings stress the importance of specific disorder‐related stimuli for the investigation of altered emotion processing in SAD. Disorder‐related threat processing in SAD reveals anomalies at multiple stages of emotion processing which may be linked to increased anxiety and to dysfunctionally elevated levels of self‐referential processing reported in previous studies. Hum Brain Mapp 37:1559‐1572, 2016 . © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.