Sex differences in emotion-related cognitive processes in irritable bowel syndrome and healthy control subjects

Abstract

Background/Aims Greater responsiveness of emotional arousal circuits in relation to delivered visceral pain has been implicated as underlying central pain amplification in Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), with females showing greater responses than males. Methods Functional MRI was used to measure neural responses to an emotion recognition paradigm, using faces expressing negative emotions (fear and anger). Sex and disease differences in the connectivity of affective and modulatory cortical circuits were studied in 47 IBS (27 premenopausal females) and 67 healthy controls (HCs; 38 premenopausal females). Results Male subjects (IBS+HCs) showed greater overall brain responses to stimuli than female subjects in prefrontal cortex, insula, and amygdala. Effective connectivity analyses identified major sex and disease related differences in the functioning of brain networks related to prefrontal regions, cingulate, insula, and amygdala. Males had stronger connectivity between anterior cingulate subregions, amygdala, and insula, whereas females had stronger connectivity to and from the prefrontal modulatory regions (medial/dorsolateral cortex). Conclusions Male IBS demonstrate greater engagement of cortical and affect related brain circuitry compared to male controls and females, when viewing faces depicting emotions previously shown to elicit greater behavioral and brain responses in male subjects.

Gutsy Moves: The Amygdala as a Critical Node in Microbiota to Brain Signaling

“…[52] IBS patients exhibit hyperactivity in the amygdala and connected brain regions both at baseline and in response to visceral stimulation. [53,54] In some studies at least, sex and genetic differences have been identified in IBS-induced amygdala hyperactivity, and stronger effects are observed in males [55] and those with a particular polymorphism of the serotonin receptor gene, HTR3A. [56] Overall, amygdala hyperactivity seems to be related to chronic visceral hypersensitivity, pointing to another important link between the gut and the amygdala.…”

Sex differences in effective fronto-limbic connectivity during negative emotion processing

“…Comparatively, only a few functional connectivity studies have examined the neural bases of sex-differences in emotion processing. Although the specific pathways differentiating women and men are yet to be identified, sex-differences have been observed in various fronto-limbic pathways (Labus et al, 2013;Moriguchi et al, 2014).These neurofunctional differences may reflect differences in emotion regulation or action preparation.Indeed, a recent neuroanatomical study found a positive correlation between emotion regulation and gray matter volume in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in men,whereas in women there was a stronger positive relationship between emotion regulation and a gray matter volumein a clusterincluding the left hippocampus, the amygdala and the insula (Kong et al, 2014).…”

Reduced Functional Connectivity Between the Hypothalamus and High‐order Cortical Regions in Adolescent Patients With Irritable Bowel Syndrome

“…Moreover, the emotional response or valence can never be separated from the CNS processing of pain and visceral sensation. With respect to the affective-motivational component, the amygdala and hippocampus constitute the major network nodes in the emotional arousal network [14, 15], together with the involvement of the hypothalamus [16]. The MCC with its reciprocal connections with the lateral and medial DPFC and SMA mediates the motivational aspect of visceral sensation and response selection [17].…”