title: Lateralisation for processing facial emotion and anxiety: contrasting state, trait and social anxiety.
abstract: Recent neuropsychological studies have attempted to distinguish between different types of anxiety by contrasting patterns of brain organisation or activation; however, lateralisation for processing emotional stimuli has received relatively little attention. This study examines the relationship between strength of lateralisation for the processing of facial expressions of emotion and three measures of anxiety: state anxiety, trait anxiety and social anxiety. Across all six of the basic emotions (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise) the same patterns of association were found. Participants with high levels of trait anxiety were more strongly lateralised to the right hemisphere for processing facial emotion. In contrast, participants with high levels of self-reported physiological arousal in response to social anxiety were more weakly lateralised to the right hemisphere, or even lateralised to the left hemisphere, for the processing of facial emotion. There were also sex differences in these associations: the relationships were evident for males only. The finding of distinct patterns of lateralisation for trait anxiety and self-reported physiological arousal suggests different neural circuitry for trait and social anxiety.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX, UK. Electronic address: victoria.bourne@rhul.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Victoria J
authors.initials: VJ
authors.lastname: Bourne
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Brunel University, UK.
authors.forename: Matei
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Vladeanu
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001007:Anxiety / Q000503:physiopathology*; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012919:Social Behavior; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult