Common and distinct functional alterations across anxiety disorders: An ALE meta-analysis
Introduction
Functional neuroimaging has contributed important insights into the neurobiological bases of complex neuropsychiatric conditions such as anxiety disorders [1, 2]. While multiple anxiety disorders have been consistently linked with hyperactivity in the amygdala and insula (“emotion generation” regions), less clear is a link with hypoactivity in medial and lateral prefrontal cortices (“emotion regulation” regions). For example, a previous meta-analysis observed that whereas post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and social anxiety disorder (SAD) were both associated with amygdalar and insular hyperactivity, only PTSD was linked with hypoactivity in the medial prefrontal, but not lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) [1]. As such, we meta-analyzed fMRI studies to more fully characterize common and distinct hyper- and hypoactivation patterns across anxiety disorders.