The relationship between fearfulness, GABA+, and fear-related BOLD responses in the insula

The inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA plays a crucial role in anxiety and fear, but its relationship to brain activation during fear reactions is not clear. Previous studies suggest that GABA agonists lead to an attenuation of emotion-processing related BOLD signals in the insula. The aim of this stu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2015-03, Vol.10 (3), p.e0120101-e0120101
Main Authors: Lipp, Ilona, Evans, C John, Lewis, Caroline, Murphy, Kevin, Wise, Richard G, Caseras, Xavier
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Amygdala
Anxieties
Anxiety
Attenuation
Brain
Brain Mapping
Brain research
Cerebral Cortex - physiology
Clusters
Correlation
Emotions
Fear
Fear & phobias
Fear - physiology
Female
GABA
gamma-Aminobutyric Acid - metabolism
Genomics
Humans
Hypotheses
Information processing
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Neurosciences
NMR
Nuclear magnetic resonance
Psychiatry
Psychology
Putamen
Questionnaires
Signal processing
Spectrum analysis
Spiders
γ-Aminobutyric acid
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Summary:The inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA plays a crucial role in anxiety and fear, but its relationship to brain activation during fear reactions is not clear. Previous studies suggest that GABA agonists lead to an attenuation of emotion-processing related BOLD signals in the insula. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between GABA concentration and fear-related BOLD responses in this region. In 44 female participants with different levels of fearfulness, GABA concentration in the left insula was measured using a GABA+ MRS acquisition during rest; additionally, BOLD signals were obtained during performance of a fear provocation paradigm. Fearfulness was not associated with GABA+ in the left insula, but could predict fear-related BOLD responses in a cluster in the left anterior insula. The BOLD signal change in this cluster did not correlate with GABA+ concentration. However, we found a significant positive correlation between GABA+ concentration and fear-related BOLD responses in a different cluster that included parts of the left insula, amygdala and putamen. Our findings indicate that low insular GABA concentration is not a predisposition for fearfulness, and that several factors influence whether a correlation between GABA and BOLD can be found.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0120101