Association between Amygdala Hyperactivity to Harsh Faces and Severity of Social Anxiety in Generalized Social Phobia

Emotion Regulation of Neuroticism: Emotional Information Processing Related to Psychosomatic State Evaluated by Electroencephalography and Exact Low-Resolution Brain Electromagnetic Tomography

“…The left amygdala has been linked to social anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder and posttraumatic stress [41]. Other studies have reported that hyperactivity in the amygdala was observed when patients saw unpleasant stimuli such as threatening faces [42]. They noted that the more severe the general anxiety disorder the greater the response in the amygdala observed in the patients.…”

Different amygdala subregions mediate valence-related and attentional effects of oxytocin in humans

“…Patients with this disorder show enhanced amygdala reactivity to faces depicting negative emotions (44) and a lower number of fixations on the eye region (45). However, in contrast to autism spectrum disorders, patients with social anxiety disorder typically have a preserved ability to identify facial expressions (46).…”

Amygdala volume and social anxiety symptom severity: Does segmentation technique matter?

“…A similar picture has emerged within the large functional imaging literature, where the associations between atypical amygdala activation and SAD in casecontrol studies are robust (Brühl et al, 2014;Etkin and Wager, 2007;Freitas-Ferrari et al, 2010;Whalen and Phelps, 2009), but the associations between amygdala activation and severity of social anxiety symptoms are unclear. Whereas some studies show a positive correlation (Ball et al, 2012;Phan et al, 2006;Shah et al, 2009), others show no correlation (Klumpp et al, 2010;Ziv et al, 2013), and yet others do not report on links between amygdala response and social anxiety symptom severity (e.g., Stein et al, 2002;Yoon et al, 2007).…”

Individual differences in resting-state connectivity and giving social support: implications for health

“…In animals, lesions to the amygdala, one of the neural regions examined in the present study, result in greater approach toward and parenting of offspring in otherwise naïve, virgin animals that do not normally display such forms of supportive behavior ( Fleming et al, 1980 ; Sheehan et al, 2000 ). Furthermore, in humans, heightened DACC and AI to emotional stimuli has been shown in those struggling with social anxiety ( Amir et al, 2005 ; Phan et al, 2006 ; Stein et al, 2007 ), suggesting that heightened activity in these regions may be a barrier to social approach. However, directional interpretations are made with caution due to the correlational nature of the present results.…”

“…In support of this hypothesis, greater self-reports of giving support to others in need are associated with less activity in the DACC, AI and amygdala to negative emotional social cues, including negative facial expressions ( Inagaki et al, 2016 ; Inagaki & Ross, 2018 ). Relatedly, those suffering from social anxiety, a disorder characterized by reduced social approach, show greater activity in the DACC, AI and amygdala to negative emotional social cues (relative to non-anxious or less anxious groups; Amir et al, 2005 ; Phan et al, 2006 ; Stein et al, 2007 ). Less AI and amygdala activity to the same stimuli are also associated with less anxiety about interacting with others.…”

An Exploratory Study on Resting-State Functional Connectivity in Individuals with Disorganized Attachment: Evidence for Key Regions in Amygdala and Hippocampus

“…The rostral part of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is involved in conflict and error monitoring, decision uncertainty and in monitoring for unfavorable outcomes [ 74 , 75 , 76 , 77 , 78 , 79 , 80 ], and it appears to be connected with the amygdala [ 81 , 82 ] in a circuitry devoted to emotion regulation and appraisal [ 83 ], with the cingulate cortex exerting an inhibitory influence on the amygdala. Higher functional connectivity between the right amygdala and the rostral part of the ACC may be interpreted as a difficulty in automatic emotion regulation or a lack of cognitive control over emotions [ 84 , 85 ], reflecting the inability of UD individuals in integrating traumatic attachment memories in a coherent and organized representation and their emotional dyscontrol. Consistently, higher activity of the ACC has been previously found in patients who had experienced physical and sexual abuse and developed a post-traumatic stress disorder [ 86 ].…”

Classification of Social Anxiety Disorder With Support Vector Machine Analysis Using Neural Correlates of Social Signals of Threat

“…links between illness severity and neurofunctional activity in SAD may be tenuous. For example, associations between amygdala activity, a region implicated in the neurobiology of SAD (11,12), and social anxiety severity have been inconsistent (49)(50)(51). It is possible that variance in neurofunctional activity may not be strongly tied to psychological measures, which are relatively distal measures of biology and subject to inaccuracy (e.g., negative bias) (52).…”

Research Review: Neural response to threat in children, adolescents, and adults after child maltreatment – a quantitative meta‐analysis

“…As this region is highly involved in emotional processes, including emotion regulation (Phelps & LeDoux, ), altered amygdala activation may underlie the socioemotional difficulties associated with child maltreatment. Increased amygdala activation is linked to several forms of psychopathology, including depression (Siegle, Thompson, Carter, Steinhauer, & Thase, ), anxiety (Phan, Fitzgerald, Nathan, & Tancer, ), and PSTD (Shin, Rauch, & Pitman, ). Increased amygdala activation may be adaptive during the experience of maltreatment, but increase risk of later psychopathology.…”

Effects of MDMA on sociability and neural response to social threat and social reward

“…Two other drugs that purportedly decrease social anxiety, THC (Phan et al 2008) and alcohol (Gilman et al 2008), also attenuate limbic responses to social threat (Gilman et al 2008; Phan et al 2008). Individuals with social anxiety, who typically avoid social interactions, have heightened amygdala response to threat signals (Phan et al 2006); whereas those genetically predisposed towards exaggerated sociability have dampened amygdala reactivity to social threat (Meyer-Lindenberg et al 2005). OT administration attenuates limbic threat response (Kirsch et al 2005) and increases behavioral indicators of trust (Kosfeld et al 2005).…”

“…Studies using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to measure blood oxygenated level dependent (BOLD) signal, an indirect indicator of neural activation, show the amygdala to be particularly important in socioemotional processing, especially processing of threat-related social information (Whalen et al 1998; Zald 2003). In normal individuals, exposure to threat-related social signals such as fearful and angry facial expressions increases amygdala activity (Whalen et al 1998; Zald, 2003); this effect is heightened in individuals with social anxiety (Phan et al 2006). Administration of Δ 9 -tetrahydrocannabinoid (THC), the main psychoactive constituent of cannabis, reduces amygdala response to social signals of threat, an action that may underlie anxiolytic effects of THC (Phan et al 2008).…”

Effects of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) on emotion regulation in social anxiety disorder.

“…Numerous studies have shown exaggerated amygdala response in adults with SAD in response to social anxiety-related stimuli, including harsh faces (Phan, Fitzgerald, Nathan, & Tancer, 2006; Stein, Goldin, Sareen, Zorrilla, & Brown, 2002) and critical comments (Blair et al, 2008). Furthermore, one study has demonstrated that adults with SAD who were classified as responders to either citalopram medication or CGBT had a reduced amygdala activity from baseline to posttreatment (Furmark et al, 2002).…”

Heart rate after trauma and the specificity of fear circuitry disorders

“…The amygdala is centrally involved in the acquisition of fear conditioning in humans (Milad et al 2007; Alvarez et al 2008), an inference supported by converging evidence from several sources. For example, neuroimaging studies indicate increased amygdala response in reaction to fear stimuli in individuals with PTSD (Shin et al 1997; Rauch et al 2000; Bryant et al 2008), panic disorder (van den Heuvel et al 2005; Domschke et al 2008) and social phobia (Tillfors et al 2001, 2002; Phan et al 2006). Although there is some evidence for increased amygdala reactivity in GAD (McClure et al 2007; Monk et al 2008) and OCD (van den Heuvel et al 2004; Van Laere et al 2006), that pattern has been shown in only a minority of studies (Shin & Liberzon, 2010).…”