Dysfunction of ventrolateral prefrontal cortex underlying social anxiety disorder: A multi-channel NIRS study

NeuroImage: Clinical

Tadashi Umekage¹  Masami Nishikawa¹  Hiroaki Kumano¹  Shin Yasuda¹  Shin-ichi Suzuki¹  Yui Kaneko¹  Chika Yokoyama¹  Hisanobu Kaiya¹  Kunio Takei¹  Tsukasa Sasaki¹  Naomi Hara²  Yukika Nishimura³  Motohiro Okada⁴  Hisashi Tanii⁴  Ken Inoue⁵  Masaru Kinou⁶  Yuji Okazaki⁷ 

[1] Akasaka Clinic for Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychiatry, Medical Corporation Warakukai, Tokyo, Japan;Department of Child Neuropsychiatry, Graduate School of Medicine, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan;Department of Neuropsychiatry, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan;Department of Psychiatry, Division of Neuroscience, Graduate School of Medicine, Mie University, Mie, Japan;Department of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, Shimane University, Japan;Ohara Clinic for Psychosomatic Medicine, Saitama, Japan;Tokyo Metropolitan Matsuzawa Hospital, Tokyo, Japan;

关键词: Social anxiety disorder;    Ventrolateral prefrontal cortex;    Emotion;    Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS);   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.nicl.2015.05.011

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is characterized by strong fear and anxiety during social interactions. Although ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) activity in response to emotional stimuli is related to pathological anxiety, little is known about the relationship between VLPFC activity and social anxiety. This study aimed to investigate whether VLPFC activity was involved in SAD and whether VLPFC activity was related to the level of social anxiety. Twenty-four drug-naïve patients with SAD and 35 healthy controls underwent near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) scanning while performing a verbal fluency task (VFT). Results indicated that, compared to the healthy controls, the SAD patients exhibited smaller changes of oxygenated hemoglobin (oxy-Hb) concentrations in the VLPFC during the VFT. Furthermore, the right VLPFC activation was negatively correlated with social avoidance. In contrast to the latter, the healthy controls exhibited a positive correlation between changes of oxy-Hb concentrations in the bilateral VLPFC and social fear. Our findings provide evidence for VLPFC dysfunction in SAD, and indicate that the VLPFC dysfunction may contribute to the difference between normal and abnormal social anxiety.

【 授权许可】

Unknown