title: Altered activity and functional connectivity of superior temporal gyri in anxiety disorders: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The prior functional MRI studies have demonstrated significantly abnormal activity in the bilateral superior temporal gyrus (STG) of anxiety patients. The purpose of the current investigation was to determine whether the abnormal activity in these regions was related to a loss of functional connectivity between these regions.
  
  
  METHODS
  Ten healthy controls and 10 anxiety patients underwent noninvasive fMRI while actively listening to emotionally neutral words alternated by silence (Task 1) or threat-related words (Task 2). The participants were instructed to silently make a judgment of each word's valence (i.e., unpleasant, pleasant, or neutral). A coherence analysis was applied to the functional MRI data to examine the functional connectivity between the left and the right STG, which was selected as the primary region of interest on the basis of our prior results.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The data demonstrated that the anxiety patients exhibited significantly increased activation in the bilateral STG than the normal controls. The functional connectivity analysis indicated that the patient group showed significantly decreased degree of connectivity between the bilateral STG during processing Task 2 compared to Task 1 (t = 2.588, p = 0.029). In addition, a significantly decreased connectivity was also observed in the patient group compared to the control group during processing Task 2 (t = 2.810, p = 0.012).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Anxiety patients may exhibit increased activity of the STG but decreased functional connectivity between the left and right STG, which may reflect the underlying neural abnormality of anxiety disorder, and this will provide new insights into this disease.
authors: Department of Radiology, Tong Ji Hospital of Tong Ji University, Shanghai 200065, China.
authors: Xiaohu
authors: X
authors: Zhao
authors: Department of Radiology, Tong Ji Hospital of Tong Ji University, Shanghai 200065, China.
authors: Qian
authors: Q
authors: Xi
authors: Department of Radiology, Tong Ji Hospital of Tong Ji University, Shanghai 200065, China.
authors: Peijun
authors: P
authors: Wang
authors: Department of Psychiatry, Tong Ji Hospital of Tong Ji University, Shanghai 200065, China.
authors: Chunbo
authors: C
authors: Li
authors: Bio-X lab, Department of Physics, Zhe Jiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China.
authors: Hongjian
authors: H
authors: He
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D013702:Temporal Lobe / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology*
keywords: Anxiety disorders; Functional connectivity; fMRI