TY  - JOUR
A1  - Buff, Christine
A1  - Brinkmann, Leonie
A1  - Bruchmann, Maximilian
A1  - Becker, Michael P.I.
A1  - Tupak, Sara
A1  - Herrmann, Martin J.
A1  - Straube, Thomas
T1  - Activity alterations in the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis and amygdala during threat anticipation in generalized anxiety disorder
JF  - Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
N2  - Sustained anticipatory anxiety is central to Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD). During anticipatory anxiety, phasic threat responding appears to be mediated by the amygdala, while sustained threat responding seems related to the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST). Although sustained anticipatory anxiety in GAD patients was proposed to be associated with BNST activity alterations, firm evidence is lacking. We aimed to explore temporal characteristics of BNST and amygdala activity during threat anticipation in GAD patients. Nineteen GAD patients and nineteen healthy controls (HC) underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during a temporally unpredictable threat anticipation paradigm. We defined phasic and a systematic variation of sustained response models for blood oxygen level-dependent responses during threat anticipation, to disentangle temporally dissociable involvement of the BNST and the amygdala. GAD patients relative to HC responded with increased phasic amygdala activity to onset of threat anticipation and with elevated sustained BNST activity that was delayed relative to the onset of threat anticipation. Both the amygdala and the BNST displayed altered responses during threat anticipation in GAD patients, albeit with different time courses. The results for the BNST activation hint towards its role in sustained threat responding, and contribute to a deeper understanding of pathological sustained anticipatory anxiety in GAD.
KW  - medicine
KW  - anticipatory anxiety
KW  - anxiety
KW  - fMRI
KW  - sustained threat responding
KW  - phasic threat responding
Y1  - 2017
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-173298
VL  - 12
IS  - 11
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Katzorke, Andrea
A1  - Zeller, Julia B. M.
A1  - Müller, Laura D.
A1  - Lauer, Martin
A1  - Polak, Thomas
A1  - Reif, Andreas
A1  - Deckert, Jürgen
A1  - Herrmann, Martin J.
T1  - Reduced activity in the right inferior frontal gyrus in elderly APOE-E4 carriers during a verbal fluency task
JF  - Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
N2  - Apolipoprotein-E4 (APOE-E4) is a major genetic risk factor for developing Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The verbal fluency task (VFT), especially the subtask category fluency, has shown to provide a good discrimination between cognitively normal controls and subjects with AD. Interestingly, APOE-E4 seems to have no effect on the behavioral performance during a VFT in healthy elderly. Thus, the purpose of the present study was to reveal possible compensation mechanisms by investigating the effect of APOE-E4 on the hemodynamic response in non-demented elderly during a VFT by using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). We compared performance and hemodynamic response of high risk APOE-E4/E4, -E3/E4 carriers with neutral APOE-E3/E3 non-demented subjects (N = 288; 70–77 years). No difference in performance was found. APOE-E4/E4, -E3/E4 carriers had a decreased hemodynamic response in the right inferior frontal junction (IFJ) with a corresponding higher response in the left middle frontal gyrus (MFG) during category fluency. Performance was correlated with the hemodynamic response in the MFG. We assume a compensation of decreased IFJ brain activation by utilizing the MFG during category fluency and thus resulting in no behavioral differences between APOE-groups during the performance of a VFT.
KW  - psychiatry
KW  - near-infrared spectroscopy
KW  - verbal fluency task
KW  - apolipoprotein-E4
KW  - Alzheimer's disease
KW  - elderly
Y1  - 2017
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-171892
VL  - 11
ER  -