GABA Concentrations in the Anterior Cingulate Cortex Are Associated with Fear Network Function and Fear Recovery in Humans

Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
Nina LevarGuido A van Wingen

Abstract

Relapse of fear after successful treatment is a common phenomenon in patients with anxiety disorders. Animal research suggests that the inhibitory neurotransmitter γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) plays a key role in the maintenance of extinguished fear. Here, we combined magnetic resonance spectroscopy and functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the role of GABA in fear recovery in 70 healthy male participants. We associated baseline GABA levels in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) to indices of fear recovery as defined by changes in skin conductance responses (SCRs), blood oxygen level dependent responses, and functional connectivity from fear extinction to fear retrieval. The results showed that high GABA levels were associated with increased SCRs, enhanced activation of the right amygdala, and reduced amygdala-ventromedial prefrontal cortex connectivity during fear recovery. Follow-up analyses exclusively for the extinction phase showed that high GABA levels were associated with reduced amygdala activation and enhanced amygdala-ventromedial prefrontal cortex connectivity, despite the absence of correlations between GABA and physiological responses. Follow-up analyses for the retrieval phase did not show any...Continue Reading

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Citations

May 1, 2020·Trends in Neurosciences·Sabrina van HeukelumMartha N Havenith
May 31, 2021·Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences : Official Journal of the European Photochemistry Association and the European Society for Photobiology·Igor Rafael Correia Rocha, Marucia Chacur

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Software Mentioned

Statistical Parametric Mapping toolbox ( SPM8
NetStation
jMRUI
AMARES
Matlab
EEGLAB

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