Phasic amygdala and BNST activation during the anticipation of temporally unpredictable social observation in social anxiety disorder patients
Open accessAbstract
Anticipation of potentially threatening social situations is a key process in social anxiety disorder (SAD). In other anxiety disorders, recent research of neural correlates of anticipation of temporally unpredictable threat suggests a temporally dissociable involvement of amygdala and bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) with phasic amygdala responses and sustained BNST activation. However, the temporal profile of amygdala and BNST responses during temporal unpredictability of threat has not been investigated in patients suffering from SAD. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate neural activation in the central nucleus of the amygdala (CeA) and the BNST during anticipation of temporally unpredictable aversive (video camera observation) relative to neutral (no camera observation) events in SAD patients compared to healthy controls (HC). For the analysis of fMRI data, we applied two regressors (phasic/sustained) within the same model to detect temporally dissociable brain responses. The aversive condition induced increased anxiety in patients compared to HC. SAD patients compared to HC showed increased phasic activation in the CeA and the BNST for anticipation of aversive relative to neutral events. SAD patients as well as HC showed sustained activity alterations in the BNST for aversive relative to neutral anticipation. No differential activity during sustained threat anticipation in SAD patients compared to HC was found. Taken together, our study reveals both CeA and BNST involvement during threat anticipation in SAD patients. The present results point towards potentially SAD-specific threat processing marked by elevated phasic but not sustained CeA and BNST responses when compared to HC.
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Functional MRI studies in humans show BNST activity is increased in response to unpredictable threats.
“Functional MRI studies in humans show that activity within the BNST is correlated with trait anxiety (32) and is increased in response to unpredictable threats (33).”
From Sexual differentiation of neural mechanisms of stress sensitivity during puberty (2023) · cites this paper as [33]
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- Authors
- Figel, B., Brinkmann, L., Buff, C., Heitmann, C. Y., Hofmann, D., Bruchmann, M., Becker, M. P. I., Herrmann, M. J., & Straube, T.
- Affiliations
- University of Münster (DE)
- University of Würzburg (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Figel, Benedikt
- ORCID
- Venue
- NeuroImage: Clinical
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2019
- Volume
- 22
- Pages
- 101735
- ISSN
- 2213-1582 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC6423472
- OpenAlex
- W2917602435
- Cited by
- 38
- References
- 17
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 9 · 2019: 3
- FWCI
- 7.08
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- NeuroImage Clinical (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Online Publication Service of Würzburg University (Würzburg University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (C07)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory and Neural Mechanisms
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Keywords
- social anxiety disorder, threat anticipation, central amygdala, bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, social observation, aversive stimuli, threat processing
- MeSH terms
- Phobia, Social, Adult, Amygdala, Female, Humans, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Photic Stimulation, Septal Nuclei, Social Behavior, Time Factors, Young Adult, Anticipation, Psychological
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