Heightened subcortical reactivity to uncertain-threat is associated with future internalizing symptoms, conditional on stress exposure.

BACKGROUND

Anxiety, depression, and related internalizing illnesses are a leading burden on global public health, and often emerge during times of stress. Yet the underlying neurobiology has remained enigmatic, hindering treatment development.

METHODS

Here we used a combination of tools-including a well-established threat-anticipation fMRI paradigm and longitudinal assessments of internalizing symptoms and negative life events (NLEs)-to identify the neural systems associated with future internalizing illness in a risk-enriched sample of 224 emerging adults followed for 2.5 years. We performed parallel analyses in an overlapping sample of 209 participants who completed a popular threat-related faces paradigm.

RESULTS

Here we show that heightened reactivity to uncertain-threat anticipation in the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis and the periaqueductal gray is associated with a worsening longitudinal course of broadband internalizing symptoms among individuals with low levels of NLE exposure. These associations were specific to uncertain threat and generally remained significant when controlling for concurrent measures of threat-elicited distress or psychophysiological arousal, highlighting the added value of the neuroimaging measures. Symptom trajectories were unrelated to amygdala and frontocortical reactivity to anticipated threat. Contrary to past research, amygdala reactivity to threat-related faces was unrelated to future symptoms.

CONCLUSIONS

These observations provide a novel neurobiological framework for conceptualizing transdiagnostic internalizing risk and lay the groundwork for mechanistic and therapeutics research. A racially diverse, risk-enriched sample and pre-registered, best-practices approach enhance confidence in the robustness and translational relevance of these results.