title: An earlier time of scan is associated with greater threat-related amygdala reactivity.
abstract: Time-dependent variability in mood and anxiety suggest that related neural phenotypes, such as threat-related amygdala reactivity, may also follow a diurnal pattern. Here, using data from 1,043 young adult volunteers, we found that threat-related amygdala reactivity was negatively coupled with time of day, an effect which was stronger in the left hemisphere (β = -0.1083, p-fdr = 0.0012). This effect was moderated by subjective sleep quality (β = -0.0715, p-fdr = 0.0387); participants who reported average and poor sleep quality had relatively increased left amygdala reactivity in the morning. Bootstrapped simulations suggest that similar cross-sectional samples with at least 300 participants would be able to detect associations between amygdala reactivity and time of scan. In control analyses, we found no associations between time and V1 activation. Our results provide initial evidence that threat-related amygdala reactivity may vary diurnally, and that this effect is potentiated among individuals with average to low sleep quality. More broadly, our results suggest that considering time of scan in study design or modeling time of scan in analyses, as well as collecting additional measures of circadian variation, may be useful for understanding threat-related neural phenotypes and their associations with behavior, such as fear conditioning, mood and anxiety symptoms, and related phenotypes.
authors.affiliation: BRAIN Laboratory, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA.|Division of Biology and Biomedical Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO 63110, USA.
authors.forename: David A A
authors.initials: DAA
authors.lastname: Baranger
authors.affiliation: BRAIN Laboratory, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA.
authors.forename: Seth
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Margolis
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of NeuroGenetics, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA.
authors.forename: Ahmad R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Hariri
authors.affiliation: BRAIN Laboratory, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA.|Division of Biology and Biomedical Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO 63110, USA.
authors.forename: Ryan
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Bogdan
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000679:Amygdala / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000502:physiology*; D001007:Anxiety / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001921:Brain / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000502:physiology*; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005239:Fear / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D059907:Functional Neuroimaging / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D012890:Sleep / Q000502:physiology*; D013997:Time Factors; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: amygdala; anxiety; diurnal; sleep; time