@article{bed9da2ae0a6449380d57e6235cf67f9,
title = "Effective Connectivity Between Broca{\textquoteright}s Area and Amygdala as a Mechanism of Top-Down Control in Worry",
abstract = "Individuals higher in trait worry exhibit increased activation in Broca{\textquoteright}s area during inhibitory processing tasks. To identify whether such activity represents an adaptive mechanism supporting top-down control, we investigated functional and effective connectivity of Broca{\textquoteright}s area during a task of inhibitory control. Functional MRI data obtained from 106 participants performing an emotion-word Stroop task were examined using psychophysiological interaction and Granger causality (GC) analyses. Findings revealed greater directed connectivity from Broca{\textquoteright}s area to amygdala in the presence of emotional distraction. Furthermore, a predictive relationship was observed between worry and the asymmetry in effective connectivity; worriers exhibited greater directed connectivity from Broca{\textquoteright}s area to amygdala. When performing the task, worriers with greater GC directional asymmetry were more accurate than worriers with less asymmetry. Present findings indicate that individuals with elevated trait worry use a mechanism of top-down control in which communication from Broca{\textquoteright}s area to amygdala fosters successful compensation for interference effects.",
keywords = "Granger causality, fMRI, inhibition, top-down control, worry",
author = "Anika Guha and Spielberg, {Jeffrey M.} and Jessica Lake and Tzvetan Popov and Wendy Heller and Yee, {Cindy M.} and Miller, {Gregory A.}",
note = "Funding Information: We thank Qiang Luo and Baobao Pan for use of their repeated measures Granger causality estimation processing package (https://github.com/qluo2018/GCSDN) and for providing guidance in its implementation for the present project. We also thank colleagues at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for contributions to data collection for this project and Marie T. Banich, Bradley P. Sutton, and Andrew G. Webb for experimental design and data acquisition advice. This research was supported by National Institute of Mental Health Grants P50-MH079485, R01-MH61358, R01-MH110544S1, and R21-DA14111 as well as Graduate Research Summer Mentorship Awards from the University of California Graduate Division. Funding Information: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4576-5037 Guha Anika 1 Spielberg Jeffrey M. 2 Lake Jessica 1 Popov Tzvetan 3 Heller Wendy 4 Yee Cindy M. 1 5 Miller Gregory A. 1 4 5 1 Department of Psychology, University of California Los Angeles 2 Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Delaware 3 Central Institute of Mental Health, Faculty of Medicine Mannheim, University of Heidelberg 4 Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 5 Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, University of California Los Angeles Anika Guha, Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, 502 Portola Plz., Los Angeles, CA 90095 E-mail: anikaguha@ucla.edu 10 2019 2167702619867098 12 12 2018 27 6 2019 {\textcopyright} The Author(s) 2019 2019 Association for Psychological Science Individuals higher in trait worry exhibit increased activation in Broca{\textquoteright}s area during inhibitory processing tasks. To identify whether such activity represents an adaptive mechanism supporting top-down control, we investigated functional and effective connectivity of Broca{\textquoteright}s area during a task of inhibitory control. Functional MRI data obtained from 106 participants performing an emotion-word Stroop task were examined using psychophysiological interaction and Granger causality (GC) analyses. Findings revealed greater directed connectivity from Broca{\textquoteright}s area to amygdala in the presence of emotional distraction. Furthermore, a predictive relationship was observed between worry and the asymmetry in effective connectivity; worriers exhibited greater directed connectivity from Broca{\textquoteright}s area to amygdala. When performing the task, worriers with greater GC directional asymmetry were more accurate than worriers with less asymmetry. Present findings indicate that individuals with elevated trait worry use a mechanism of top-down control in which communication from Broca{\textquoteright}s area to amygdala fosters successful compensation for interference effects. fMRI Granger causality inhibition top-down control worry National Institute of Mental Health https://doi.org/10.13039/100000025 P50 MH079485 National Institute of Mental Health https://doi.org/10.13039/100000025 R01 MH110544S1 National Institute of Mental Health https://doi.org/10.13039/100000025 R01 MH61358 National Institute of Mental Health https://doi.org/10.13039/100000025 R21 DA1 university of california https://doi.org/10.13039/100005595 Graduate Research Summer Mentorship Awards from the University of California Graduate Division edited-state corrected-proof We thank Qiang Luo and Baobao Pan for use of their repeated measures Granger causality estimation processing package ( https://github.com/qluo2018/GCSDN ) and for providing guidance in its implementation for the present project. We also thank colleagues at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for contributions to data collection for this project and Marie T. Banich, Bradley P. Sutton, and Andrew G. Webb for experimental design and data acquisition advice. Action Editor Erin B. Tone served as action editor for this article. Author Contributions A. Guha developed the study concept, performed the analyses, and wrote the manuscript. J. M. Spielberg contributed to the preprocessing of neuroimaging data. J. M. Spielberg and J. Lake contributed to generalized form of context-dependent psychophysiological interactions analytic techniques. T. Popov contributed to the Granger causality analytic methods. G. A. Miller and W. Heller conceived and designed the study for which these data were originally collected. G. A. Miller and C. M. Yee provided oversight and helped shape the analysis and the manuscript. All of the authors discussed the results, contributed to the writing of the final manuscript, and approved the final manuscript for submission. ORCID iD Anika Guha https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4576-5037 Declaration of Conflicting Interests The author(s) declared that there were no conflicts of interest with respect to the authorship or the publication of this article. Funding This research was supported by National Institute of Mental Health Grants P50-MH079485, R01-MH61358, R01-MH110544S1, and R21-DA14111 as well as Graduate Research Summer Mentorship Awards from the University of California Graduate Division. Supplemental Material Additional supporting information can be found at http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/suppl/10.1177/2167702619867098 Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} The Author(s) 2019.",
year = "2020",
month = jan,
day = "1",
doi = "10.1177/2167702619867098",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "8",
pages = "84--98",
journal = "Clinical Psychological Science",
issn = "2167-7026",
publisher = "SAGE Publishing",
number = "1",
}