Direkt zum Inhalt

Giglberger, Marina ; Peter, Hannah L. ; Henze, Gina‐Isabelle ; Bärtl, Christoph ; Konzok, Julian ; Kirsch, Peter ; Kudielka, Brigitte M. ; Kreuzpointner, Ludwig ; Wüst, Stefan

Associations Between the Neural Stress Response and Symptoms of Anxiety and Depression

Giglberger, Marina, Peter, Hannah L., Henze, Gina‐Isabelle , Bärtl, Christoph , Konzok, Julian , Kirsch, Peter, Kudielka, Brigitte M. , Kreuzpointner, Ludwig and Wüst, Stefan (2025) Associations Between the Neural Stress Response and Symptoms of Anxiety and Depression. Journal of Neuroscience Research 103 (1), e70019.

Date of publication of this fulltext: 30 Jan 2025 07:10
Article
DOI to cite this document: 10.5283/epub.74765


Abstract

Anxiety and depression disorders show high prevalence rates, and stress is a significant risk factor for both. However, studies investigating the interplay between anxiety, depression, and stress regulation in the brain are scarce. The present manuscript included 124 law students from the LawSTRESS project. Anxiety and depression symptoms were assessed using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression ...

Anxiety and depression disorders show high prevalence rates, and stress is a significant risk factor for both. However, studies investigating the interplay between anxiety, depression, and stress regulation in the brain are scarce. The present manuscript included 124 law students from the LawSTRESS project. Anxiety and depression symptoms were assessed using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), and psychosocial stress was induced with the imaging stress paradigm ScanSTRESS. Anxiety, but not depression scores, were significantly related to neural stress responses in a striato-limbic cluster. Moreover, relative to women, men showed stronger associations between anxiety scores and activation in striatal and temporal clusters. A bifactor model of the HADS suggested a general factor characterized by tension, nervousness, and cheerlessness, which was associated with activation changes in a similar but more circumscribed cluster than anxiety. In the LawSTRESS project, the HADS was assessed at five sampling points (1 year, 3 months, 1 week prior exam, 1 week, and 1 month thereafter), and thus an exploratory trajectory analysis could be performed. It confirmed the relationship between anxiety scores and striatal stress responses at baseline but revealed no predictive value of the neural measure across the sampling points. Our results suggest that—in healthy young participants—neural acute psychosocial stress responses in striato-limbic structures are associated with anxiety, supporting the assumption that these regions are related to individual differences in vulnerability to stress-related disorders. A correlation with depression scores could not be found, and possible explanations are discussed.



Involved Institutions


Details

Item typeArticle
Journal or Publication TitleJournal of Neuroscience Research
Publisher:Wiley
Volume:103
Number of Issue or Book Chapter:1
Page Range:e70019
Date16 January 2025
InstitutionsHuman Sciences > Institut für Psychologie > Lehrstuhl für Psychologie VII (Medizinische Psychologie, Psychologische Diagnostik und Methodenlehre) - Prof. Dr. Brigitte Kudielka
Projects
Funded by: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) (366763080)
Identification Number
ValueType
10.1002/jnr.70019DOI
Keywordsacute stress | amygdala | fMRI | ScanSTRESS | striatum
Dewey Decimal Classification100 Philosophy & psychology > 150 Psychology
StatusPublished
RefereedYes, this version has been refereed
Created at the University of RegensburgPartially
URN of the UB Regensburgurn:nbn:de:bvb:355-epub-747655
Item ID74765

Export bibliographical data

Owner only: item control page

nach oben