Amir Nader, Klumpp Heide, Elias Jason, Bedwell Jeffrey S, Yanasak Nathan, Miller L Stephen
Department of Psychology, University of Georgia, Athens 30602-3013, USA.
Biol Psychiatry. 2005 May 1;57(9):975-81. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2005.01.044.
Researchers have examined the role of differential activation of various brain regions involved in processing emotional information in subjects with social phobia. These studies have focused mostly on the activation of the amygdala. The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) also has been implicated in processing emotional information, but its role in social phobia has not been examined.
We recruited subjects with social phobia and matched them with non-anxious control subjects. Participants viewed facial expressions of disgust ("disgust faces") and neutral facial expressions ("neutral faces"). We measured brain activation, focusing on the ACC, using functional magnetic resonance imaging. We also recorded participants' ratings of emotional valence of faces, as well as response latencies to make these valence judgments. We repeated this procedure using three different sets of facial expressions.
Individuals with social phobia exhibited a significant increase in ACC activity compared with non-anxious control subjects when processing disgust versus neutral faces. Additionally, compared with control subjects, subjects with social phobia were faster in their ratings of disgust faces and rated the neutral faces more negatively.
Our findings demonstrate that the ACC might be involved in affective processing of negative information in socially phobic subjects.
研究人员已探究了参与处理社交恐惧症患者情绪信息的各个脑区的差异激活作用。这些研究大多聚焦于杏仁核的激活。前扣带回皮质（ACC）也与情绪信息处理有关，但其在社交恐惧症中的作用尚未得到研究。
我们招募了社交恐惧症患者，并将他们与非焦虑对照受试者进行匹配。参与者观看厌恶面部表情（“厌恶面孔”）和中性面部表情（“中性面孔”）。我们使用功能磁共振成像测量脑激活情况，重点关注ACC。我们还记录了参与者对面孔情绪效价的评分，以及做出这些效价判断的反应潜伏期。我们使用三组不同的面部表情重复了这一过程。
与非焦虑对照受试者相比，社交恐惧症患者在处理厌恶面孔与中性面孔时，ACC活动显著增加。此外，与对照受试者相比，社交恐惧症患者对厌恶面孔的评分更快，且对中性面孔的评分更负面。
我们的研究结果表明，ACC可能参与社交恐惧症患者对负面信息的情感处理。
