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Enhanced functional connectivity between sensorimotor and visual cortex predicts covariation bias in spider phobia
- Source :
- Biological Psychology. 121:128-137
- Publication Year :
- 2016
- Publisher :
- Elsevier BV, 2016.
-
Abstract
- The overestimation of the relationship between fear-relevant stimuli and aversive consequences, a so called covariation bias, might contribute to the maintenance of anxiety disorders. In a recent fMRI study, we confronted spider phobia and healthy participants with pictures of spiders, mushrooms and puppies, randomly followed by painful electric stimuli (US). Spider phobics overestimated the spider-US association and displayed enhanced activity in US-related sensorimotor cortex (paracentral lobule, PCL). Here, we report results from an additional functional connectivity analysis. Within spider phobics but not in healthy controls, USs after spiders led to enhanced connectivity between PCL and left prefrontal cortex (PFC). Most importantly, covariation bias in spider phobia was predicted by connectivity between PCL and visual cortex, insula, primary sensorimotor cortex and secondary somatosensory cortex. Reduced covariation bias was predicted by connectivity between PCL and PFC. In response to spider pictures, the amygdala was functionally connected to somatosensory and visual areas. These results suggest that synchronous activity of sensory cortices may promote fear-sustaining associative memory bias, while right PFC might help to reduce bias.
- Subjects :
- Adult
Male
Adolescent
genetic structures
Conditioning, Classical
Prefrontal Cortex
Sensory system
Somatosensory system
complex mixtures
Amygdala
050105 experimental psychology
Attentional Bias
Young Adult
03 medical and health sciences
0302 clinical medicine
medicine
Animals
Humans
0501 psychology and cognitive sciences
Dominance, Cerebral
Paracentral lobule
Visual Cortex
Cerebral Cortex
Brain Mapping
Spider
Secondary somatosensory cortex
General Neuroscience
05 social sciences
Association Learning
Spiders
Fear
Anxiety Disorders
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Frontal Lobe
Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology
medicine.anatomical_structure
Visual cortex
Phobic Disorders
nervous system
Female
Sensorimotor Cortex
Nerve Net
Arousal
Psychology
Neuroscience
Insula
Algorithms
030217 neurology & neurosurgery
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 03010511
- Volume :
- 121
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Biological Psychology
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....53505580589eefd0a1ec1da86c9e388f