BACKGROUND Previous research has distinguished the activations of the amygdala and bed nucleus of stria terminalis (BNST) during threat-related contingencies. However, how intrinsic connectivities of the amygdala and BNST relate to threat bias remains unclear. Here, we investigated how resting state functional connectivity (rsFC) of the amygdala and BNST in healthy controls (HC) and patients with anxiety-related disorders (PAD) associate with threat bias in a dot-probe task. METHODS Imaging and behavioral data of 30 PAD and 83 HC were obtained from the Nathan Kline Institute - Rockland sample and processed according to published routines. All imaging results were evaluated at voxel p < 0.001 and cluster p < 0.05, FWE corrected in SPM. RESULTS PAD and HC did not show differences in whole brain rsFC with either the amygdala or BNST. In linear regressions threat bias was positively correlated with amygdala-thalamus/anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) rsFC in HC but not PAD, and with BNST-caudate rsFC in PAD but not HC. Slope tests confirmed group differences in the correlations between threat bias and amygdala-thalamus/ACC as well as BNST-caudate rsFC. LIMITATIONS As only half of the patients included were diagnosed with comorbid anxiety, the current findings need to be considered with the clinical heterogeneity and require replication in populations specifically with anxiety disorders. CONCLUSIONS Together, these results suggest amygdala and BNST connectivities as new neural markers of anxiety disorders. Whereas amygdala-thalamus/ACC rsFC support adaptive regulation of threat response in the HC, BNST-caudate rsFC may reflect maladaptive neural processes that are dominated by anticipatory anxiety.

中文翻译：

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杏仁核和床核纹状体的威胁偏倚和静止状态功能连接。

背景技术先前的研究已经区分了在与威胁有关的突发事件期间杏仁核和纹状体终末床核（BNST）的激活。然而，杏仁核和BNST的内在连通性与威胁偏向之间的关系仍不清楚。在这里，我们调查了健康对照（HC）和焦虑相关疾病（PAD）患者中杏仁核和BNST的静息状态功能连接性（rsFC）与点探针任务中的偏见之间的关系。方法从Nathan Kline Institute-Rockland样本获得30 PAD和83 HC的影像学和行为数据，并根据公开的程序进行处理。所有成像结果均在体素p <0.001和簇p <0.05时进行评估，FWE在SPM中进行了校正。结果PAD和HC在杏仁核或BNST的全脑rsFC中均未显示差异。在线性回归中，在HC而非PAD中，威胁偏倚与杏仁核-丘脑/前扣带回皮质（ACC）rsFC正相关，在PAD中与BNST-尾状rsFC正相关，但与HC无正相关。斜率测试证实了威胁偏倚与杏仁核-丘脑/ ACC以及BNST尾状rsFC之间的相关性存在群体差异。局限性由于纳入的患者中只有一半被诊断出患有合并症焦虑症，因此目前的发现需要考虑临床异质性，并且需要在患有焦虑症的人群中进行复制。结论在一起，这些结果表明杏仁核和BNST的连接性是焦虑症的新神经标记。杏仁核/丘脑/ ACC rsFC支持对HC中威胁响应的自适应调节，