Increased amygdalar and hippocampal volumes in young adults with social anxiety.

Background: Functional neuroimaging studies have consistently shown abnormal limbic activation patterns in socially anxious individuals, but structural data on the amygdala and hippocampus of these patients are scarce. This study explored the existence of structural differences in the whole brain, amygdala, and hippocampus of subjects with clinical and subthreshold social anxiety compared to healthy controls. We hypothesized that there would be volumetric differences across groups, without predicting their direction (i.