Threat-anticipatory psychophysiological response is enhanced in youth with anxiety disorders and correlates with prefrontal cortex neuroanatomy
Open Access
- 11 March 2021
- journal article
- research article
- Published by CMA Impact Inc. in Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience
- Vol. 46 (2), E212-E221
- https://doi.org/10.1503/jpn.200110
Abstract
Background Threat anticipation engages neural circuitry that has evolved to promote defensive behaviours; perturbations in this circuitry could generate excessive threat-anticipation response, a key characteristic of pathological anxiety. Research into such mechanisms in youth faces ethical and practical limitations. Here, we use thermal stimulation to elicit pain-anticipatory psychophysiological response and map its correlates to brain structure among youth with anxiety and healthy youth. Methods Youth with anxiety (n = 25) and healthy youth (n = 25) completed an instructed threat-anticipation task in which cues predicted nonpainful or painful thermal stimulation; we indexed psychophysiological response during the anticipation and experience of pain using skin conductance response. High-resolution brain-structure imaging data collected in another visit were available for 41 participants. Analyses tested whether the 2 groups differed in their psychophysiological cue-based pain-anticipatory and pain-experience responses. Analyses then mapped psychophysiological response magnitude to brain structure. Results Youth with anxiety showed enhanced psychophysiological response specifically during anticipation of painful stimulation (b = 0.52, p = 0.003). Across the sample, the magnitude of psychophysiological anticipatory response correlated negatively with the thickness of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (p(FWE) < 0.05); psychophysiological response to the thermal stimulation correlated positively with the thickness of the posterior insula (p(FWE) < 0.05). Limitations Limitations included the modest sample size and the cross-sectional design. Conclusion These findings show that threat-anticipatory psychophysiological response differentiates youth with anxiety from healthy youth, and they link brain structure to psychophysiological response during pain anticipation and experience. A focus on threat anticipation in research on anxiety could delineate relevant neural circuitry.Keywords
This publication has 61 references indexed in Scilit:
- Rethinking the Emotional BrainNeuron, 2012
- Experiential, autonomic, and neural responses during threat anticipation vary as a function of threat intensity and neuroticismNeuroImage, 2011
- Brain Structure Correlates of Individual Differences in the Acquisition and Inhibition of Conditioned FearCerebral Cortex, 2011
- Lifetime Prevalence of Mental Disorders in U.S. Adolescents: Results from the National Comorbidity Survey Replication–Adolescent Supplement (NCS-A)Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 2010
- Brain Mediators of Predictive Cue Effects on Perceived PainJournal of Neuroscience, 2010
- A continuous measure of phasic electrodermal activityJournal of Neuroscience Methods, 2010
- Feeling anxious: anticipatory amygdalo-insular response predicts the feeling of anxious anticipationSocial Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 2010
- Decomposition of skin conductance data by means of nonnegative deconvolutionPsychophysiology, 2010
- Anxiety and Anxiety Disorders in Children and Adolescents: Developmental Issues and Implications for DSM-VPsychiatric Clinics of North America, 2009
- Prevalence, Severity, and Comorbidity of 12-Month DSM-IV Disorders in the National Comorbidity Survey ReplicationArchives of General Psychiatry, 2005