South Korean neuroscientists from Seoul National University found characteristic changes in the brains of people with social anxiety disorder. With this diagnosis, it was revealed that the thickness of the cerebral cortex increased in several regions of the brain and decreased in other regions. The study was published in the scientific journal magazine Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging (PRN).
Social anxiety disorder is a chronic mental illness characterized by intense fear of social situations in which a person may be judged, embarrassed, or rejected. People with this disorder often experience extreme shyness, anxiety, and awkwardness in social interactions.
36 patients with social anxiety disorder and 42 healthy controls recruited from the psychiatry outpatient clinic of Seoul National University Hospital were included in the study.
Imaging results showed that people with anxiety disorders had significantly increased thickness of the insular cortex, superior parietal lobe, frontopolar cortex and superior temporal gyrus regions of the brain compared to healthy participants.
The insula is involved in the processing of emotions, bodily sensations, and autonomic functions, while the superior parietal lobe plays a role in spatial orientation, attention, and integration of sensory information. The frontopolar cortex is involved in complex cognitive functions such as decision making, problem solving, and integrating information from different areas of the brain. Meanwhile, the superior temporal gyrus is involved in auditory processing, speech understanding, and social cognition.
On the other hand, participants with social anxiety disorder showed a trend towards decreased thickness in the left superior/middle frontal gyrus and left fusiform gyrus regions. The left superior/middle frontal gyrus is involved in higher cognitive functions such as decision making, attention, and working memory, while the left fusiform gyrus plays a critical role in visual recognition, especially face and text processing.
According to the authors of the study, this discovery allows us to better understand the connection between brain structure and mental illnesses.
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Source: Gazeta

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