Age Differences in the Neural Correlates of Anxiety Disorders: An fMRI Study of Response to Learned Threat

Andrea L Gold; Rany Abend; Jennifer C Britton; Brigid Behrens; Madeline Farber; Emily Ronkin; Gang Chen; Ellen Leibenluft; Daniel S Pine

doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.2019.19060650

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Age Differences in the Neural Correlates of Anxiety Disorders: An fMRI Study of Response to Learned Threat

Journal article

Peer reviewed

Age Differences in the Neural Correlates of Anxiety Disorders: An fMRI Study of Response to Learned Threat

Andrea L Gold, Rany Abend, Jennifer C Britton, Brigid Behrens, Madeline Farber, Emily Ronkin, Gang Chen, Ellen Leibenluft and Daniel S Pine

The American journal of psychiatry, Vol.177(5), pp.454-463

2020-05-01

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.2019.19060650

PMID: 32252541

Abstract

fMRI

Anxiety Disorders

Neural Correlates

Age

Although both pediatric and adult patients with anxiety disorders exhibit similar neural responding to threats, age-related differences have been found in some functional MRI (fMRI) studies. To reconcile disparate findings, the authors compared brain function in youths and adults with and without anxiety disorders while rating fear and memory of ambiguous threats. Two hundred medication-free individuals ages 8-50 were assessed, including 93 participants with an anxiety disorder. Participants underwent discriminative threat conditioning and extinction in the clinic. Approximately 3 weeks later, they completed an fMRI paradigm involving extinction recall, in which they rated their levels of fear evoked by, and their explicit memory for, morph stimuli with varying degrees of similarity to the extinguished threat cues. Age moderated two sets of anxiety disorder findings. First, as age increased, healthy subjects compared with participants with anxiety disorders exhibited greater amygdala-ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) connectivity when processing threat-related cues. Second, age moderated diagnostic differences in activation in ways that varied with attention and brain regions. When rating fear, activation in the vmPFC differed between the anxiety and healthy groups at relatively older ages. In contrast, when rating memory for task stimuli, activation in the inferior temporal cortex differed between the anxiety and healthy groups at relatively younger ages. In contrast to previous studies that demonstrated age-related similarities in the biological correlates of anxiety disorders, this study identified age differences. These findings may reflect this study's focus on relatively late-maturing psychological processes, particularly the appraisal and explicit memory of ambiguous threat, and inform neurodevelopmental perspectives on anxiety.

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Collaboration types: Domestic collaboration
Citation topics: 1 Clinical & Life Sciences; 1.5 Neuroscience; 1.5.1090 Fear Conditioning
Web Of Science research areas: Psychiatry
ESI research areas: Psychiatry/Psychology

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Title: Age Differences in the Neural Correlates of Anxiety Disorders: An fMRI Study of Response to Learned Threat
Creators: Andrea L Gold - Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, and Pediatric Anxiety Research Center, Bradley Hospital, Riverside, R.I. (Gold); Emotion and Development Branch, NIMH, Bethesda, Md. (Abend, Behrens, Farber, Ronkin, Leibenluft, Pine); Department of Psychology, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Fla. (Britton); Scientific and Statistical Computing Core, NIMH, Bethesda, Md. (Chen)
Rany Abend - Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, and Pediatric Anxiety Research Center, Bradley Hospital, Riverside, R.I. (Gold); Emotion and Development Branch, NIMH, Bethesda, Md. (Abend, Behrens, Farber, Ronkin, Leibenluft, Pine); Department of Psychology, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Fla. (Britton); Scientific and Statistical Computing Core, NIMH, Bethesda, Md. (Chen)
Jennifer C Britton - Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, and Pediatric Anxiety Research Center, Bradley Hospital, Riverside, R.I. (Gold); Emotion and Development Branch, NIMH, Bethesda, Md. (Abend, Behrens, Farber, Ronkin, Leibenluft, Pine); Department of Psychology, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Fla. (Britton); Scientific and Statistical Computing Core, NIMH, Bethesda, Md. (Chen)
Brigid Behrens - Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, and Pediatric Anxiety Research Center, Bradley Hospital, Riverside, R.I. (Gold); Emotion and Development Branch, NIMH, Bethesda, Md. (Abend, Behrens, Farber, Ronkin, Leibenluft, Pine); Department of Psychology, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Fla. (Britton); Scientific and Statistical Computing Core, NIMH, Bethesda, Md. (Chen)
Madeline Farber - Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, and Pediatric Anxiety Research Center, Bradley Hospital, Riverside, R.I. (Gold); Emotion and Development Branch, NIMH, Bethesda, Md. (Abend, Behrens, Farber, Ronkin, Leibenluft, Pine); Department of Psychology, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Fla. (Britton); Scientific and Statistical Computing Core, NIMH, Bethesda, Md. (Chen)
Emily Ronkin - Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, and Pediatric Anxiety Research Center, Bradley Hospital, Riverside, R.I. (Gold); Emotion and Development Branch, NIMH, Bethesda, Md. (Abend, Behrens, Farber, Ronkin, Leibenluft, Pine); Department of Psychology, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Fla. (Britton); Scientific and Statistical Computing Core, NIMH, Bethesda, Md. (Chen)
Gang Chen - Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, and Pediatric Anxiety Research Center, Bradley Hospital, Riverside, R.I. (Gold); Emotion and Development Branch, NIMH, Bethesda, Md. (Abend, Behrens, Farber, Ronkin, Leibenluft, Pine); Department of Psychology, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Fla. (Britton); Scientific and Statistical Computing Core, NIMH, Bethesda, Md. (Chen)
Ellen Leibenluft - Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, and Pediatric Anxiety Research Center, Bradley Hospital, Riverside, R.I. (Gold); Emotion and Development Branch, NIMH, Bethesda, Md. (Abend, Behrens, Farber, Ronkin, Leibenluft, Pine); Department of Psychology, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Fla. (Britton); Scientific and Statistical Computing Core, NIMH, Bethesda, Md. (Chen)
Daniel S Pine - Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, and Pediatric Anxiety Research Center, Bradley Hospital, Riverside, R.I. (Gold); Emotion and Development Branch, NIMH, Bethesda, Md. (Abend, Behrens, Farber, Ronkin, Leibenluft, Pine); Department of Psychology, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Fla. (Britton); Scientific and Statistical Computing Core, NIMH, Bethesda, Md. (Chen)
Publication Details: The American journal of psychiatry, Vol.177(5), pp.454-463
Publisher: United States
Academic Unit: College of A&S; A&S - Psychology
Language: English
Resource Type: Journal article
PMID: 32252541
Record Identifier: 991031576567302976