title: Neuronal and behavioral correlates of health anxiety: results of an illness-related emotional Stroop task.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Health anxiety (HA) is defined as the objectively unfounded fear or conviction of suffering from a severe illness. Predominant attention allocation to illness-related information is regarded as a central process in the development and maintenance of HA, yet little is known about the neuronal correlates of this attentional bias.
  
  
  METHODS
  An emotional Stroop task with body symptom, illness, and neutral words was employed to elicit emotional interference in healthy participants with high (HA+, n = 12) and low (HA-, n = 12) HA during functional magnetic resonance imaging.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Prolonged reaction times for indicating the color of symptom words and a decrease in rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC) activation were seen in HA+ participants. Emotional interference effects on the behavioral level were negatively related to rACC activity over the whole group. Groups did not differ during the processing of threatening illness words.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The results indicate stronger attention allocation toward body symptom words already in subclinical HA. This attentional bias appears to be linked to hypoactivity of the rACC which impedes effective emotional interference reduction, leading instead to a ruminative processing of the stimulus content.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany. witthoef@uni-mainz.de
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Witthöft
authors.forename: Daniela
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Mier
authors.forename: Julia
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ofer
authors.forename: Tobias
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Müller
authors.forename: Fred
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Rist
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Kirsch
authors.forename: Josef
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bailer
authors.forename: Carsten
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Diener
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001007:Anxiety / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology; D001921:Brain / Q000098:blood supply / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010100:Oxygen / Q000097:blood; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology*; D057566:Self Report; D012660:Semantics; D014825:Vocabulary; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D010100:Oxygen