A-87 Regional Cerebral Blood Flow in Self-Reported Somatic Anxiety

Abstract

Objective To identify regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) differences between individuals who self-reported either low or high symptoms of somatic anxiety. Method Individuals who reported low levels of somatic anxiety (0-20th percentile;n = 8962,Mage = 39.2,39.2% female,62.6% Caucasian) and individuals who reported high levels of somatic anxiety (80-100th percentile;n = 6427,Mage = 40.9,39.0% female,69.5% Caucasian) were selected from a deidentified adult clinical outpatient database. Those with comorbid diagnoses were included. Significant differences (alpha = 0.001) were found for age [t(15387) = 6.3], and race [χ2(15) = 119.4] between groups and therefore were controlled. Results Significant rCBF differences were noted bilaterally in the frontal lobe [left: F(1,15,384) = 16.4; right: F(1,15,384) = 13.2] and motor-sensory strip [left: F(1,15,384) = 4.3; right: F(1,15,384) = 5.1]. Group means comparisons indicated higher perfusion in the frontal lobe of the high levels of somatic anxiety group. Lower perfusion was found in the motor sensory strip of the high levels of somatic anxiety group. No significant differences were found bilaterally in the cerebellum, limbic system, basal ganglia, vermis, or occipital, parietal, or temporal lobes. Conclusion Results indicated that individuals who report higher levels of somatic anxiety have higher perfusion in the frontal lobes and lower perfusion motor-sensory strip. Previous literature SPECT studies have found a link between individuals with panic disorder and increased activity in the right medial and superior frontal lobes. No research was found for anxiety in the motor-sensory strip. Limitations included the reliance on self-report measures of anxiety in place of clinical measures and the potential mediating effect of medication on somatic symptoms. Future research should examine perfusion in the motor-sensory strip, use clinical measures of anxiety, and control for mediation use.

Diversifying autism neuroimaging research: An arterial spin labeling review

“…However, sedation was used especially in the young groups, which is believed to influence CBF quantification (Ogawa et al, 2015). Nonetheless, equivalent trajectories were demonstrated in other ASL studies, where ASC children elicited hypoperfusion (Mori et al, 2020;Saitovitch et al, 2019;Yerys et al, 2018), whereas the only study involving autistic adults displayed hyperperfusion (Peterson et al, 2019), thereby adding to the scarce and discrepant literature involving CBF in autistic adults, which displays both hyperperfusion (Pagani et al, 2012) and hypoperfusion (Mcdonald et al, 2020) compared to NA. However, additional studies are needed to verify the results on regional specificity considering the discrepancies found in different studies.…”

“…However, compatible results are present among the highest-powered studies, pointing to hypoperfusion in temporal, prefrontal, occipital, thalami, and basal ganglia in autistic children (Ohnishi et al, 2000; Starkstein et al, 2000). SPECT studies exclusively including ASC adults are scarce; however, one highly powered study including more than 140 participants demonstrated hypoperfusion in the basal ganglia and hyperperfusion in the cerebellum (Mcdonald et al, 2020). In summary, the majority of molecular imaging studies performed in autistic children demonstrated significant hypoperfusion, displaying a compliance between ASL and molecular imaging results (Bjørklund et al, 2018).…”