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Exploring Amygdalar Activity in Response to Symptom-Relevant Memories in Social Anxiety: A Neuroimaging Study

Poster Session D - Monday, March 31, 2025, 8:00 – 10:00 am EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Sarab Anand¹ (sarab.anand@tufts.edu), Emma Laurent², Sophia Vranos², Abigail Beech¹, Jamie Greer², Emily Stekl², Abigail Sullivan¹, Megan Paterson¹, Nur Apkolat¹, Ramina Bebezova¹, Maria Perdomo¹, Connor Gibson², KemKem Ogbuefi², Gaston Aime², Jenn Segawa², Elizabeth Phelps², M. Alexandra Kredlow¹; ¹Tufts University, ²Harvard University

Research in social anxiety (SA) shows amygdala hyperactivity in response to emotional compared to neutral stimuli, with activation levels correlated with symptom severity (Bruehl et al., 2014). However, the stimuli used in these studies are not personally-relevant, thus lacking ecological validity. Studies in healthy controls have shown greater amygdala activation during recall of negative personally-relevant autobiographical memories relative to neutral memories (Sharot et al., 2007); however, it remains to be determined whether this pattern holds for individuals with SA. Participants with SA generate titles and narratives for two neutral and two SA-related memories. In the fMRI scanner, participants are shown their neutral titles followed by SA-related titles. After each title, participants vividly recall their memory for 30s and then rate memory-related feelings. We hypothesize that SA individuals will show greater amygdalar activation for SA memory recall relative to neutral, and that the degree of activation will correlate with memory-related feelings. Mass univariate analysis will be used to determine differences in neural activity between both task types focusing on the amygdala. At the individual level, statistical tests will be performed to identify voxels with significant differences in activation between task types. Second-level analysis will assess whether task-dependent brain activation is consistent and significant across participants. We will examine associations between amygdala activity, memory-related feelings, and SA severity. This project will examine whether neural patterns during symptom-relevant autobiographical memory retrieval in SA align with results from studies using non-personally relevant stimuli. These findings will provide insight into possible maintenance factors of SA.

Topic Area: METHODS: Neuroimaging