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 inves...

Descripción completa

Guardado en:
Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Huiyan Lin, Wolfgang H. R. Miltner, Thomas Straube
Formato: article
Lenguaje:EN
Publicado: Nature Portfolio 2021
Materias:
R
Q
Acceso en línea:https://doaj.org/article/baad3678b277492baa07430dc0569b44
Etiquetas: Agregar Etiqueta
Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!
Descripción
Sumario: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.