Department of Psychology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA.
Laboratory of Behavioral Neuroscience, Intramural Research Program, National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health, Baltimore, MD, USA.
Neuropsychopharmacology. 2022 Dec;47(13):2221-2229. doi: 10.1038/s41386-022-01430-1. Epub 2022 Aug 27.
The prefrontal cortex (PFC), hippocampus, and amygdala play an important role in emotional health. However, adverse life events (e.g., violence exposure) affect the function of these brain regions, which may lead to disorders such as depression and anxiety. Depression and anxiety disproportionately affect women compared to men, and this disparity may reflect sex differences in the neural processes that underlie emotion expression and regulation. The present study investigated sex differences in the relationship between violence exposure and the neural processes that underlie emotion regulation. In the present study, 200 participants completed a Pavlovian fear conditioning procedure in which cued and non-cued threats (i.e., unconditioned stimuli) were presented during functional magnetic resonance imaging. Violence exposure was previously assessed at four separate time points when participants were 11-19 years of age. Significant threat type (cued versus non-cued) × sex and sex × violence exposure interactions were observed. Specifically, women and men differed in amygdala and parahippocampal gyrus reactivity to cued versus non-cued threat. Further, dorsolateral PFC (dlPFC) and inferior parietal lobule (IPL) reactivity to threat varied positively with violence exposure among women, but not men. Similarly, threat-elicited skin conductance responses varied positively with violence exposure among women. Finally, women reported greater depression and anxiety symptoms than men. These findings suggest that sex differences in threat-related brain and psychophysiological activity may have implications for mental health.
前额叶皮层（PFC）、海马体和杏仁核在情绪健康中起着重要作用。然而，不良的生活事件（例如，暴力暴露）会影响这些大脑区域的功能，从而导致抑郁和焦虑等疾病。与男性相比，抑郁和焦虑在女性中更为普遍，这种差异可能反映了情绪表达和调节的神经过程中的性别差异。本研究调查了暴力暴露与情绪调节的神经过程之间的关系中的性别差异。在本研究中，200 名参与者完成了一个条件性恐惧形成程序，在该程序中，在功能磁共振成像期间呈现提示和非提示威胁（即非条件刺激）。在参与者 11-19 岁时，曾在四个不同时间点对暴力暴露进行了评估。观察到威胁类型（提示与非提示）×性别和性别×暴力暴露的显著交互作用。具体而言，女性和男性在杏仁核和旁海马回对提示与非提示威胁的反应存在差异。此外，在女性中，背外侧前额叶皮层（dlPFC）和下顶叶回（IPL）对威胁的反应与暴力暴露呈正相关，但在男性中则不然。同样，威胁引起的皮肤电反应与女性的暴力暴露呈正相关。最后，女性报告的抑郁和焦虑症状比男性更严重。这些发现表明，与威胁相关的大脑和心理生理活动中的性别差异可能对心理健康有影响。
