Mood and Anxiety Disorders Research Program, Department of Psychiatry, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, United States; Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, United States.
Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, United States.
J Psychiatr Res. 2018 Jul;102:87-95. doi: 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2018.03.011. Epub 2018 Mar 27.
Accumulating data suggest attentional control capability varies across psychiatric diagnostic boundaries. The Attentional Control Scale (ACS) assesses self-reported trait attentional control (TAC) and tracks the anterior attention system. Greater TAC is associated with less negative affect, however, its mechanisms in anxiety and depression are poorly understood. Therefore, we examined whether individual differences in TAC modulated top-down mechanisms in a clinical sample. During fMRI, 104 patients with social anxiety, generalized anxiety, and/or major depression and 34 healthy participants completed a validated attentional control paradigm comprising strings of letters superimposed on threatening and neutral face distractors. In the low perceptual load condition, a target letter was in a string of identical letters. In the high load condition, a target letter was in a mixed letter string. Whole-brain regression results for low load revealed more activation to threat (vs. neutral) distractors in the pregenual anterior cingulate cortex was predicted by better TAC (i.e., higher ACS scores). For high load, regression results showed less activation to threat (vs. neutral) distractors in the inferior frontal gyrus was predicted by better TAC. An exploratory whole-brain ANOVA revealed a main effect of group in the superior temporal gyrus and a main effect of perceptual load in parietal, frontal, and limbic regions. No other effects were detected and activation derived from significant ANOVA results did not correlate with ACS scores. In conclusion, regression findings suggest individual differences in brain-behavioral ACS-related activity in frontal structures may be useful in identifying phenotypes in internalizing conditions.
越来越多的数据表明，注意力控制能力在精神科诊断边界内存在差异。注意力控制量表 (ACS) 评估自我报告的特质注意力控制 (TAC) 并跟踪前注意系统。更高的 TAC 与更少的负面情绪相关，然而，其在焦虑和抑郁中的机制仍不清楚。因此，我们研究了 TAC 的个体差异是否调节了临床样本中的自上而下的机制。在 fMRI 期间，104 名患有社交焦虑症、广泛性焦虑症和/或重度抑郁症的患者和 34 名健康参与者完成了一个经过验证的注意力控制范式，该范式包括叠加在威胁性和中性面孔分心物上的字母串。在低知觉负载条件下，目标字母在一串相同的字母中。在高负载条件下，目标字母在混合字母串中。低负载的全脑回归结果显示，前扣带皮层的前扣带皮层对威胁（与中性相比）分心物的激活更多，这是由更好的 TAC（即 ACS 得分更高）预测的。对于高负载，回归结果显示，下额回对威胁（与中性相比）分心物的激活减少，这是由更好的 TAC 预测的。探索性的全脑 ANOVA 显示，在颞上回有一个组的主效应，在顶叶、额叶和边缘区域有一个知觉负载的主效应。没有检测到其他影响，并且来自显著 ANOVA 结果的激活与 ACS 得分没有相关性。总之，回归结果表明，前额结构中与 ACS 相关的大脑行为个体差异可能有助于识别内化症候群中的表型。
