Have we met before? Neural correlates of emotional learning in women with social phobia.
BACKGROUND
Altered memory processes are thought to be a key mechanism in the etiology of anxiety disorders, but little is known about the neural correlates of fear learning and memory biases in patients with social phobia. The present study therefore examined whether patients with social phobia exhibit different patterns of neural activation when confronted with recently acquired emotional stimuli.


METHODS
Patients with social phobia and a group of healthy controls learned to associate pseudonames with pictures of persons displaying either a fearful or a neutral expression. The next day, participants read the pseudonames in the magnetic resonance imaging scanner. Afterwards, 2 memory tests were carried out.


RESULTS
We enrolled 21 patients and 21 controls in our study. There were no group differences for learning performance, and results of the memory tests were mixed. On a neural level, patients showed weaker amygdala activation than controls for the contrast of names previously associated with fearful versus neutral faces. Social phobia severity was negatively related to amygdala activation. Moreover, a detailed psychophysiological interaction analysis revealed an inverse correlation between disorder severity and frontolimbic connectivity for the emotional > neutral pseudonames contrast.


CONCLUSIONS
Our sample included only women.


CONCLUSIONS
Our results support the theory of a disturbed cortico limbic interplay, even for recently learned emotional stimuli. We discuss the findings with regard to the vigilance-avoidance theory and contrast them to results indicating an oversensitive limbic system in patients with social phobia.
The Department of Psychiatry, University of Muenster, Germany.
Inga
I
Laeger
The Institute for Biomagnetism and Biosignalanalysis, University of Muenster, Germany.
Kati
K
Keuper
The Department of Psychiatry, University of Muenster, Germany.
Carina
C
Heitmann
The Department of Clinical Radiology, University of Muenster, Germany.
Harald
H
Kugel
The Institute for Biomagnetism and Biosignalanalysis, University of Muenster, Germany.
Christian
C
Dobel
The Institute for Biomagnetism and Biosignalanalysis, University of Muenster, Germany.
Annuschka
A
Eden
The Department of Psychiatry, University of Muenster, Germany.
Volker
V
Arolt
The Institute for Psychology, University of Muenster, Germany.
Pienie
P
Zwitserlood
The Department of Psychiatry, University of Muenster, Germany & The Department of Psychiatry, University of Marburg, Germany.
Udo
U
Dannlowski
The Department of Psychiatry, University of Muenster, Germany.
Peter
P
Zwanzger
D000328:Adult; D000679:Amygdala / Q000503:physiopathology; D001245:Association Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D001921:Brain / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005145:Face; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D010698:Phobic Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D011932:Reading; D012919:Social Behavior