| |
Abstract:
Our goal was to examine the neural substrates of face emotion
processing and to compare the covariance of anatomically distinct
but functionally interconnected clusters of fMRI BOLD response in
socially phobic (SP) patients and healthy control (HC) subjects.
Using a Siemens 1.5 T magnet, 15 SP and 15 age, sex, handedness,
and education-matched HC viewed and identified gender for 60 face
stimuli in randomised 12-s blocks consisting of 4 trials of one
emotion type (i.e. anger, fear, contempt, happy or neutral), for a
total of 360 trials across three echo-planar functional runs.
Compared to HC, SP produced differential BOLD response for
perception of Negative versus Positive face emotions in the medial
prefrontal gyrus, left inferior frontal gyrus, right superior
frontal gyrus, left amygdala, left parahippocampal gyrus, and
bilateral uncus, and the anterior cingulate cortex for the contrast
of Emotion versus Neutral faces. Regression analyses showed that
social phobic symptom severity accounted for 53-64% of the variance
in BOLD response in several areas of interest in SP. An analysis of
functional connectivity within each group was conducted. In
summary, perception of face emotions involves a set of frontal
cortical and limbic neuronal regions that demonstrate differential
functional connectivity in anxious and non-anxious adults.
|
