Why do people get stage fright? Brain functional and morphological study of interpersonal cognitive processing in social anxiety disorder.

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25461749
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Psychiatric science
• Research Institution: Chiba University
• Principal Investigator: Hirano Yoshiyuki 千葉大学, 子どものこころの発達教育研究センター, 特任准教授 (50386843)
• Co-Investigator(Renkei-kenkyūsha): SUTOH Chihiro 千葉大学, 大学院医学研究院, 助教 (30612650) ; MATSUZAWA Daisuke 千葉大学, 大学院医学研究院, 講師 (10447302)
• Research Collaborator: SHIMIZU Eiji 千葉大学, 大学院医学研究院, 教授 (00292699) ; NAKAZATO Michiko 千葉大学, 大学院医学研究院, 特任教授 (10334195) ; YOSHINAGA Naoki 宮崎大学, テニュアトラック推進機構, 講師 (80633635) ; OBATA Takayuki 国立研究開発法人量子科学技術研究開発機構, 放射線医学総合研究所 分子イメージング診断治療研究部, 次長 (00285107) ; NAKAGAWA Akiko 千葉大学, 子どものこころの発達教育研究センター, 特任教授 (70253424)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 社交不安症 / 対人不安 / 対人恐怖 / fMRI / 拡散テンソル画像 / MRI

Outline of Final Research Achievements

We aimed to clarify the neuronal substrates in patients with social anxiety disorder whose main symptoms are strong anxiety and tension in interpersonal relationships and social situations by identifying abnormalities in interpersonal cognitive circuits corresponding to social threats for helping to design a treatment plan of cognitive behavioral therapy. Amygdaloid activities were evaluated by functional MRI (fMRI) when our types of facial expression images (neutral, angry, fear, and smile) were presented. As a result, robust activities were observed only for “anger” facial expression in healthy controls, whereas they were found for all facial expressions, even “smile,” in social anxiety disorder. It is suggested that the interpretation is biased against ambiguous facial expressions such as “neutral.”

Free Research Field

精神神経科学