Amygdala connectivity related to subsequent stress responses during the COVID-19 outbreak

Yuan Zhou; Yuwen He; Yuening Jin; Peter Zeidman; Lianlu Gao; Bei Rong; Huan Huang; Yuan Feng; Jian Cui; Shudong Zhang; Yun Wang; Gang Wang; Yu-Tao Xiang; Huiling Wang

doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2023.999934

Amygdala connectivity related to subsequent stress responses during the COVID-19 outbreak

Front Psychiatry. 2023 Feb 23:14:999934. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2023.999934. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Yuan Zhou^{1

2

3}, Yuwen He^{1

4}, Yuening Jin^{1

2}, Peter Zeidman⁵, Lianlu Gao^{1

2}, Bei Rong⁶, Huan Huang⁶, Yuan Feng³, Jian Cui³, Shudong Zhang³, Yun Wang³, Gang Wang³, Yu-Tao Xiang^{4

7}, Huiling Wang^{6

8}

Affiliations

¹ CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Beijing, China.
² Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
³ The National Clinical Research Center for Mental Disorders and Beijing Key Laboratory of Mental Disorders, Beijing Anding Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China.
⁴ Centre for Cognitive and Brain Sciences, University of Macau, Macau, Macao SAR, China.
⁵ The Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, University College London, London, United Kingdom.
⁶ Department of Psychiatry, Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan, China.
⁷ Unit of Psychiatry, Faculty of Health Sciences, Department of Public Health and Medicinal Administration, Institute of Translational Medicine, University of Macau, Macao, Macao SAR, China.
⁸ Hubei Provincial Key Laboratory of Developmentally Originated Disease, Wuhan, China.

Abstract

Introduction: The amygdala plays an important role in stress responses and stress-related psychiatric disorders. It is possible that amygdala connectivity may be a neurobiological vulnerability marker for stress responses or stress-related psychiatric disorders and will be useful to precisely identify the vulnerable individuals before stress happens. However, little is known about the relationship between amygdala connectivity and subsequent stress responses. The current study investigated whether amygdala connectivity measured before experiencing stress is a predisposing neural feature of subsequent stress responses while individuals face an emergent and unexpected event like the COVID-19 outbreak.

Methods: Data collected before the COVID-19 pandemic from an established fMRI cohort who lived in the pandemic center in China (Hubei) during the COVID-19 outbreak were used to investigate the relationship between amygdala connectivity and stress responses during and after the pandemic in 2020. The amygdala connectivity was measured with resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) and effective connectivity.

Results: We found the rsFC of the right amygdala with the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) was negatively correlated with the stress responses at the first survey during the COVID-19 outbreak, and the rsFC between the right amygdala and bilateral superior frontal gyri (partially overlapped with the dmPFC) was correlated with SBSC at the second survey. Dynamic causal modeling suggested that the self-connection of the right amygdala was negatively correlated with stress responses during the pandemic.

Discussion: Our findings expand our understanding about the role of amygdala in stress responses and stress-related psychiatric disorders and suggest that amygdala connectivity is a predisposing neural feature of subsequent stress responses.

Keywords: COVID-19; amygdala; dorsomedial prefrontal cortex; effective connectivity; resting-state functional connectivity; stress.

Grants and funding

WT_/Wellcome Trust/United Kingdom