Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, University Hospital Aachen, RWTH Aachen University, Germany.
J Psychiatr Res. 2013 Aug;47(8):1024-31. doi: 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2013.03.020. Epub 2013 Apr 30.
Social phobia (SP) and panic disorder (PD) have been associated with aberrant amygdala responses to threat-related stimuli. The aim of the present study was to examine amygdala function and its connectivity with medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) during emotional face perception in PD and SP, and the role of illness severity. Blood oxygen level dependent responses while perceiving emotional facial expressions were compared in 14 patients with PD, 17 patients with SP, 8 patients with comorbid PD and SP, and 16 healthy controls. We found that PD, but not SP, was associated with amygdala and lingual gyrus hypoactivation during perception of angry, fearful, happy and neutral faces, compared to healthy participants. No significant effect of PD and SP diagnoses was found on amygdala-mPFC connectivity. A positive correlation of anxiety symptom severity was found on amygdala-dorsal anterior cingulate and dorsal mPFC connectivity during perception of fearful faces. Amygdala hypoactivation suggests reduced responsiveness to positive and negative emotional faces in PD. Symptom severity, but not the presence of PD and SP diagnosis per se, explains most of the abnormalities in amygdala-mPFC connectivity during perception of fearful faces.
社交恐惧症（SP）和恐慌症（PD）与杏仁核对威胁相关刺激的反应异常有关。本研究旨在探讨 PD 和 SP 患者在情绪面孔感知过程中杏仁核功能及其与内侧前额叶皮层（mPFC）的连接，以及疾病严重程度的作用。比较了 14 名 PD 患者、17 名 SP 患者、8 名同时患有 PD 和 SP 的患者和 16 名健康对照组在感知情绪面部表情时的血氧水平依赖反应。与健康参与者相比，我们发现 PD 而不是 SP 在感知愤怒、恐惧、快乐和中性面孔时与杏仁核和舌回的激活减少有关。PD 和 SP 诊断对杏仁核-前额叶皮层连接没有显著影响。在感知恐惧面孔时，焦虑症状严重程度与杏仁核-背侧前扣带回和背侧前额叶皮层的连接呈正相关。PD 患者的杏仁核激活减少表明对正性和负性情绪面孔的反应性降低。在感知恐惧面孔时，杏仁核-前额叶皮层连接的异常主要由症状严重程度决定，而不是 PD 和 SP 诊断的存在本身。
