Background: Although the amygdala is thought to be a crucial brain region for negative affect, neuroimaging studies do not always show enhanced amygdala response to aversive stimuli in patients with anxiety disorders. Serotonin (5-HT)-related genotypes may contribute to interindividual variability in amygdala responsiveness. The short (s) allele of the 5-HT transporter linked polymorphic region (5-HTTLPR) and the T variant of the G-703T polymorphism in the tryptophan hydroxylase-2 (TPH2) gene have previously been associated with amygdala hyperresponsivity to negative faces in healthy controls. We investigated the influence of these polymorphisms on amygdala responsiveness to angry faces in patients with social anxiety disorder (SAD) compared with healthy controls.
Methods: We used positron emission tomography with oxygen 15-labelled water to assess regional cerebral blood flow in 34 patients with SAD and 18 controls who viewed photographs of angry and neutral faces presented in counterbalanced order. We genotyped all participants with respect to the 5-HTTLPR and TPH2 polymorphisms.
Results: Patients with SAD and controls had increased left amygdala activation in response to angry compared with neutral faces. Genotype but not diagnosis explained a significant portion of the variance in amygdala responsiveness, the response being more pronounced in carriers of s and/or T alleles.
Limitations: Our analyses were limited owing to the small sample and the fact that we were unable to match participants on genotype before enrollment. In addition, other imaging techniques not used in our study may have revealed additional effects of emotional stimuli.
Conclusion: Amygdala responsiveness to angry faces was more strongly related to serotonergic polymorphisms than to diagnosis of SAD. Emotion activation studies comparing amygdala excitability in patient and control groups could benefit from taking variation in 5-HT-related genes into account.
Download full-text PDF |
Source |
---|---|
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2612081 | PMC |
Cell Rep
January 2025
Centre for Systems Neuroscience, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK; Hospital Del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM), Barcelona, Spain; Institució Catalana de Recerca I Estudis Avançats (ICREA), Barcelona, Spain; Ruijin Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China. Electronic address:
In subjects implanted with intracranial electrodes, we use two different stories involving the same person (or place) to evaluate whether and to what extent context modulates human single-neuron responses. Nearly all neurons (97% during encoding and 100% during recall) initially responding to a person/place do not modulate their response with context. Likewise, nearly none (<1%) of the initially non-responsive neurons show conjunctive coding, responding to particular persons/places in a particular context during the tasks.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Neurosci Res
January 2025
Department of Psychology, University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany.
Anxiety and depression disorders show high prevalence rates, and stress is a significant risk factor for both. However, studies investigating the interplay between anxiety, depression, and stress regulation in the brain are scarce. The present manuscript included 124 law students from the LawSTRESS project.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDrug Des Devel Ther
January 2025
Department of Pharmacology, West China School of Basic Medical Sciences & Forensic Medicine, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan, 610041, People's Republic of China.
Objective: Neuronal damage is criminal to cognitive dysfunction, closely related to endoplasmic reticulum stress (ERS). However, due to the pathogenesis of endotoxin-induced long-term cognitive dysfunction is not fully clarified, there is still a lack of effective treatment. This study was conducted to explore the protective effects and mechanism of rosmarinic acid (RA) against ERS in endotoxin-induced cognitive dysfunction in mice and neuronal injury in cells.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNature
January 2025
Department of Neuroscience, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA.
The ventrolateral pallial (VLp) excitatory neurons in the claustro-amygdalar complex and piriform cortex (PIR; which forms part of the palaeocortex) form reciprocal connections with the prefrontal cortex (PFC), integrating cognitive and sensory information that results in adaptive behaviours. Early-life disruptions in these circuits are linked to neuropsychiatric disorders, highlighting the importance of understanding their development. Here we reveal that the transcription factors SOX4, SOX11 and TFAP2D have a pivotal role in the development, identity and PFC connectivity of these excitatory neurons.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBiol Psychiatry Cogn Neurosci Neuroimaging
January 2025
Department of Psychiatry, University of Illinois at Chicago.
Background: Self-regulation often is disrupted in depression and is characterized by negative affect and inflexible parasympathetic responses. Yet, our understanding of brain mechanisms of self-regulatory processes largely has been limited to laboratory contexts. Measuring individual differences in self-regulatory processes in everyday life - and their neural correlates - could inform our understanding of depression phenotypes and reveal novel intervention targets that impact everyday functioning.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEnter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!