TY - JOUR
T1 - Brain mediators of cardiovascular responses to social threat, Part II
T2 - Prefrontal-subcortical pathways and relationship with anxiety
AU - Wager, Tor D.
AU - van Ast, Vanessa A.
AU - Hughes, Brent L.
AU - Davidson, Matthew L.
AU - Lindquist, Martin A.
AU - Ochsner, Kevin N.
N1 - Funding Information:
We would like to thank Niall Bolger for helpful discussion on path analysis, and the authors of SPM software for making it freely available. This paper was made possible with the support of grant funding from NSF 0631637 (T.W.), NIH Grant MH076136 (T.W.), NIH Grant MH082308 (T.W.), and NIH Grant MH076137 (K.O.).
PY - 2009/9
Y1 - 2009/9
N2 - Social evaluative threat (SET) is a potent stressor in humans that causes autonomic changes, endocrine responses, and multiple health problems. Neuroimaging has recently begun to elucidate the brain correlates of SET, but as yet little is known about the mediating cortical-brainstem pathways in humans. This paper replicates and extends findings in a companion paper (Wager et al., 2009) using an independent cohort of participants and different image acquisition parameters. Here, we focused specifically on relationships between the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), midbrain periaqueductal gray (PAG), and heart rate (HR). We applied multi-level path analysis to localize brain mediators of SET effects on HR and self-reported anxiety. HR responses were mediated by opposing signals in two distinct sub-regions of the MPFC-increases in rostral dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (rdACC) and de-activation in ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). In addition, HR responses were mediated by PAG. Additional path analyses provided support for two cortical-subcortical pathways: one linking vmPFC, PAG, and HR, and another linking rdACC, thalamus, and HR. PAG responses were linked with HR changes both before and during SET, whereas cortical regions showed stronger connectivity with HR during threat. Self-reported anxiety showed a partially overlapping, but weaker, pattern of mediators, including the vmPFC, dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, and lateral frontal cortex, as well as substantial individual differences that were largely unexplained. Taken together, these data suggest pathways for the translation of social threats into both physiological and experiential responses, and provide targets for future research on the generation and regulation of emotion.
AB - Social evaluative threat (SET) is a potent stressor in humans that causes autonomic changes, endocrine responses, and multiple health problems. Neuroimaging has recently begun to elucidate the brain correlates of SET, but as yet little is known about the mediating cortical-brainstem pathways in humans. This paper replicates and extends findings in a companion paper (Wager et al., 2009) using an independent cohort of participants and different image acquisition parameters. Here, we focused specifically on relationships between the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), midbrain periaqueductal gray (PAG), and heart rate (HR). We applied multi-level path analysis to localize brain mediators of SET effects on HR and self-reported anxiety. HR responses were mediated by opposing signals in two distinct sub-regions of the MPFC-increases in rostral dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (rdACC) and de-activation in ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). In addition, HR responses were mediated by PAG. Additional path analyses provided support for two cortical-subcortical pathways: one linking vmPFC, PAG, and HR, and another linking rdACC, thalamus, and HR. PAG responses were linked with HR changes both before and during SET, whereas cortical regions showed stronger connectivity with HR during threat. Self-reported anxiety showed a partially overlapping, but weaker, pattern of mediators, including the vmPFC, dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, and lateral frontal cortex, as well as substantial individual differences that were largely unexplained. Taken together, these data suggest pathways for the translation of social threats into both physiological and experiential responses, and provide targets for future research on the generation and regulation of emotion.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2009.05.044
DO - 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2009.05.044
M3 - Article
C2 - 19465135
AN - SCOPUS:67651048557
SN - 1053-8119
VL - 47
SP - 836
EP - 851
JO - NeuroImage
JF - NeuroImage
IS - 3
ER -