title: Anxiety and performance: the disparate roles of prefrontal subregions under maintained psychological stress.
abstract: Despite increasing interest in anxiety and psychological stress in daily life, little is known about neural correlates that underlie maintained psychological stress and their relationship with anxiety. In particular, the activation characteristics of lateral prefrontal subregions and their relationship with anxiety and cognitive performance under maintained psychological stress remain unknown. This study used near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), a noninvasive and "real-world" functional neuroimaging method, to investigate the hemodynamic responses in wide areas of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and the influence of anxiety under conditions of maintained stress induced by a continuous arithmetic task (2 sets, 15 min each) performed in a natural sitting posture. Although anxiety and performance are not directly correlated, the hemodynamic response in the medial portion of the lateral PFC (dorsolateral and frontopolar PFC) was significantly associated with anxiety, while hemodynamic responses in the ventrolateral PFC were associated with performance. Additionally, in the same medial region of the lateral PFC, trait and state anxieties were related to changes in deoxy- and oxy-hemoglobin concentrations, respectively. This NIRS finding suggests disparate roles for prefrontal subregions in anxiety and performance under psychological stress and may lead to a better understanding of neural correlates for anxiety in everyday life.
authors: Department of Neuropsychiatry, MRC Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, London, UK.
authors: Ryu
authors: R
authors: Takizawa
authors: Department of Neuropsychiatry, Department of Youth Mental Health, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan and.
authors: Yukika
authors: Y
authors: Nishimura
authors: Department of Neuropsychiatry.
authors: Hidenori
authors: H
authors: Yamasue
authors: Department of Neuropsychiatry.
authors: Kiyoto
authors: K
authors: Kasai
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001007:Anxiety / Q000473:pathology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D005260:Female; D006439:Hemodynamics / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010108:Oxyhemoglobins / Q000378:metabolism; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000378:metabolism / Q000503:physiopathology*; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D019265:Spectroscopy, Near-Infrared; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000473:pathology*; D013997:Time Factors; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D010108:Oxyhemoglobins
keywords: anxiety; near-infrared spectroscopy; noninvasive monitoring; prefrontal subregions; psychological stress