Department of Psychology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.
Neurosci Lett. 2013 Mar 1;536:52-5. doi: 10.1016/j.neulet.2012.12.060. Epub 2013 Jan 14.
Social anxiety disorder (SAD) has been associated with aberrant processing of socio-emotional stimuli and failure to adaptively regulate emotion, corroborated by functional neuroimaging studies. However, only a few studies of structural brain abnormalities in SAD have been reported, and among these only one investigated cortical thickness. In the present study we used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in conjunction with an automated method to measure cortical thickness in patients with SAD (n=14) and healthy controls (n=12). Results showed significantly increased thickness of the left inferior temporal cortex in SAD patients relative to controls. Within the patient group, a negative association was found between social anxiety symptom severity and thickness of the right rostral anterior cingulate cortex. The observed alterations in brain structure may help explain previous findings of dysfunctional regulation and processing of emotion in SAD.
社交焦虑障碍（SAD）与社会情感刺激的异常处理以及情绪适应调节失败有关，这一观点得到了功能神经影像学研究的支持。然而，仅有少数 SAD 患者的结构脑异常研究被报道，其中只有一项研究调查了皮质厚度。在本研究中，我们使用磁共振成像（MRI）结合自动方法测量 SAD 患者（n=14）和健康对照组（n=12）的皮质厚度。结果显示，SAD 患者左侧颞下回皮质厚度明显增加。在患者组中，发现社交焦虑症状严重程度与右侧额前扣带皮质的厚度呈负相关。观察到的大脑结构改变可能有助于解释 SAD 中情绪调节和处理功能失调的先前发现。
