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

Huiyan Lin,Wolfgang H R Miltner,Thomas Straube

doi:10.1038/s41598-021-98023-7

Huiyan Lin, Wolfgang H R Miltner + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-98023-7

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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.

Highlights

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 exclusion of high trait anxiety individuals might influence the associations between trait anxiety and amygdalar activations, since there might be non-linear associations between amygdala and trait anxiety
Since the present study focuses on response properties of the left and right amygdalae, data analyses were conducted as regions of interest (ROIs) analysis for these brain regions

Summary

Introduction

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. The exclusion of high trait anxiety individuals might influence the associations between trait anxiety and amygdalar activations, since there might be non-linear associations between amygdala and trait anxiety Such an association is only detectable when participants are investigated who span a brought range of trait anxiety from low to medium to high scores. A closer look into the groups revealed that the sample size of the high trait anxiety group was much smaller than that of the low and medium trait anxiety groups This dissimilar distribution of participants in the three groups might have affected the associations between trait anxiety and amygdalar activations. At present we found no study that investigated how task conditions

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