TY - JOUR
T1 - Sex-related differences in violence exposure, neural reactivity to threat, and mental health
AU - Dark, Heather E.
AU - Harnett, Nathaniel G.
AU - Hurst, Danielle R.
AU - Wheelock, Muriah D.
AU - Wood, Kimberly H.
AU - Goodman, Adam M.
AU - Mrug, Sylvie
AU - Elliott, Marc N.
AU - Emery, Susan Tortolero
AU - Schuster, Mark A.
AU - Knight, David C.
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health (Grant number: R01 MH098348). The original Healthy Passages study, from which the participants in the present study were recruited, was approved by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the institutional review boards of the study sites and supported by cooperative agreements (CCU409679, CCU609653, CCU915773, U48DP000046, U48DP000057, U48DP000056, U19DP002663, U19DP002664, and U19DP002665). The funding sources had no role in the analysis or interpretation of the data, writing of the manuscript, or the decision to submit the paper for publication.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to American College of Neuropsychopharmacology.
PY - 2022/12
Y1 - 2022/12
N2 - The prefrontal cortex (PFC), hippocampus, and amygdala play an important role in emotional health. However, adverse life events (e.g., violence exposure) affect the function of these brain regions, which may lead to disorders such as depression and anxiety. Depression and anxiety disproportionately affect women compared to men, and this disparity may reflect sex differences in the neural processes that underlie emotion expression and regulation. The present study investigated sex differences in the relationship between violence exposure and the neural processes that underlie emotion regulation. In the present study, 200 participants completed a Pavlovian fear conditioning procedure in which cued and non-cued threats (i.e., unconditioned stimuli) were presented during functional magnetic resonance imaging. Violence exposure was previously assessed at four separate time points when participants were 11–19 years of age. Significant threat type (cued versus non-cued) × sex and sex × violence exposure interactions were observed. Specifically, women and men differed in amygdala and parahippocampal gyrus reactivity to cued versus non-cued threat. Further, dorsolateral PFC (dlPFC) and inferior parietal lobule (IPL) reactivity to threat varied positively with violence exposure among women, but not men. Similarly, threat-elicited skin conductance responses varied positively with violence exposure among women. Finally, women reported greater depression and anxiety symptoms than men. These findings suggest that sex differences in threat-related brain and psychophysiological activity may have implications for mental health.
AB - The prefrontal cortex (PFC), hippocampus, and amygdala play an important role in emotional health. However, adverse life events (e.g., violence exposure) affect the function of these brain regions, which may lead to disorders such as depression and anxiety. Depression and anxiety disproportionately affect women compared to men, and this disparity may reflect sex differences in the neural processes that underlie emotion expression and regulation. The present study investigated sex differences in the relationship between violence exposure and the neural processes that underlie emotion regulation. In the present study, 200 participants completed a Pavlovian fear conditioning procedure in which cued and non-cued threats (i.e., unconditioned stimuli) were presented during functional magnetic resonance imaging. Violence exposure was previously assessed at four separate time points when participants were 11–19 years of age. Significant threat type (cued versus non-cued) × sex and sex × violence exposure interactions were observed. Specifically, women and men differed in amygdala and parahippocampal gyrus reactivity to cued versus non-cued threat. Further, dorsolateral PFC (dlPFC) and inferior parietal lobule (IPL) reactivity to threat varied positively with violence exposure among women, but not men. Similarly, threat-elicited skin conductance responses varied positively with violence exposure among women. Finally, women reported greater depression and anxiety symptoms than men. These findings suggest that sex differences in threat-related brain and psychophysiological activity may have implications for mental health.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85137048666&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/s41386-022-01430-1
DO - 10.1038/s41386-022-01430-1
M3 - Article
C2 - 36030316
AN - SCOPUS:85137048666
SN - 0893-133X
VL - 47
SP - 2221
EP - 2229
JO - Neuropsychopharmacology
JF - Neuropsychopharmacology
IS - 13
ER -