Amygdala–prefrontal connectivity modulates loss aversion bias in anxious individuals
Pengfei Xu,
Nicholas T. Van Dam,
Marie-José van Tol,
Xueyi Shen,
Zaixu Cui,
Ruolei Gu,
Shaozheng Qin,
André Aleman,
Jin Fan,
Yue-jia Luo
Affiliations
Pengfei Xu
Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Affective and Social Neuroscience, Center for Brain Disorders and Cognitive Sciences, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, 518060, China; Center for Emotion and Brain, Shenzhen Institute of Neuroscience, Shenzhen, 518057, China; Cognitive Neuroscience Center, Department of Biomedical Sciences of Cells and Systems, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, 9713 AW, Groningen, the Netherlands; Great Bay Neuroscience and Technology Research Institute (Hong Kong), Kwun Tong, Hong Kong, China
Nicholas T. Van Dam
School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne, Victoria, 3010, Australia
Marie-José van Tol
Cognitive Neuroscience Center, Department of Biomedical Sciences of Cells and Systems, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, 9713 AW, Groningen, the Netherlands
Xueyi Shen
National Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning & IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China
Zaixu Cui
Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA
Ruolei Gu
Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China; Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China
Shaozheng Qin
National Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning & IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China
André Aleman
Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Affective and Social Neuroscience, Center for Brain Disorders and Cognitive Sciences, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, 518060, China; Cognitive Neuroscience Center, Department of Biomedical Sciences of Cells and Systems, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, 9713 AW, Groningen, the Netherlands; Department of Psychology, University of Groningen, the Netherlands
Jin Fan
Department of Psychology, Queens College, The City University of New York, Flushing, NY, 11367, USA; Corresponding author. Department of Psychology, Queens College, The City University of New York, 65-30 Kissena Blvd., Flushing, NY, 11367, USA.
Yue-jia Luo
Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Affective and Social Neuroscience, Center for Brain Disorders and Cognitive Sciences, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, 518060, China; Center for Emotion and Brain, Shenzhen Institute of Neuroscience, Shenzhen, 518057, China; Corresponding author. Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Affective and Social Neuroscience, Shenzhen University, 3688 Nanhai Ave., Nanshan District, Shenzhen, 518060, China.
Anxious individuals tend to make pessimistic judgments in decision making under uncertainty. While this phenomenon is commonly attributed to risk aversion, loss aversion is a critical but often overlooked factor. In this study, we simultaneously examined risk aversion and loss aversion during decision making in high and low trait anxious individuals in a variable gain/loss gambling task during functional magnetic resonance imaging. Although high relative to low anxious individuals showed significant increased risk aversive behavior reflected by decreased overall gamble decisions, there was no group difference in subjective aversion to risk. Instead, loss aversion rather than risk aversion dominantly contributed to predict behavioral decisions, which was associated with attenuated functional connectivity between the amygdala-based emotional system and the prefrontal control regions. Our findings suggest a dominant role of loss aversion in maladaptive risk assessment of anxious individuals, underpinned by disorganization of emotion-related and cognitive-control-related brain networks.
