Anxiety is known to dysregulate the salience, default mode, and central executive networks of the human brain, yet this phenomenon has not been fully explored across the STEM learning experience, where anxiety can impact negatively academic performance. Here, we evaluated anxiety and large-scale brain connectivity in 101 undergraduate physics students. We found sex differences in STEM-related and clinical anxiety, with longitudinal increases in science anxiety observed for both female and male students. Sex-specific relationships between STEM anxiety and brain connectivity emerged, with male students exhibiting distinct inter-network connectivity for STEM and clinical anxiety, and female students demonstrating no significant within-sex correlations. Anxiety was negatively correlated with academic performance in sex-specific ways at both pre- and post-instruction. Moreover, math anxiety in male students mediated the relation between default mode-salience connectivity and course grade. Together, these results reveal complex sex differences in the neural mechanisms driving how anxiety is related to STEM learning.

众所周知，焦虑会使人脑的显着性，默认模式和中央执行网络失调，但这种现象在STEM学习经历中尚未得到充分探讨，在这种情况下，焦虑会对学习成绩产生负面影响。在这里，我们评估了101名物理专业本科学生的焦虑和大规模的大脑连通性。我们发现在STEM相关和临床焦虑中存在性别差异，男女学生的科学焦虑均呈纵向增加。出现了STEM焦虑与大脑连通性之间的性别特异性关系，男学生表现出针对STEM和临床焦虑的独特的网络间连通性，而女学生则表现出无显着的性别内相关性。在教学之前和之后，焦虑都与性别相关，与学业成绩呈负相关。此外，男生的数学焦虑介导了默认模式-显着性连接与课程成绩之间的关系。总之，这些结果揭示了驱动焦虑与STEM学习如何相关的神经机制中的复杂性别差异。