Study identifies a link between specific brain circuits and anxiety in adolescents

Adolescence is a sensitive period for brain development and mental health, though the connection between the two is not fully understood. New research published in Imaging Neuroscience identifies a link between specific brain circuits and anxiety, which could become the targets of precision interventions to improve mental health outcomes in youth.

Many mental health disorders often emerge in adolescence, emphasizing the importance of understanding associations between abnormal brain development and mental health problems. Researchers at Boston Children's Hospital chose to study anxiety (including generalized and social anxiety disorders), which affects over 30% of teens in the US. They examined associations between the characteristics of brain structures and circuit organization and anxiety among a large sample of nearly 3,500 youth from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study, the largest long-term study of brain development and child health in the United States.

The team, led by Caterina Stamoulis, PhD, Principal Investigator in the Computational Neuroscience Laboratory at Boston Children's, identified a brain circuit consisting of the cerebellum, amygdala, and thalamus - three structures that play key roles in a wide range of cognitive processes as well as regulatory roles in brain function - that was altered in youth with anxiety. Altered organization and lower strength of its connections was associated with higher anxiety and likelihood of related disorders. In contrast, the efficiency and resilience (robustness) of other brain networks were protective for social and/or generalized anxiety disorders. They also identified structural alterations in youth with anxiety and found associations between structural and circuit alterations and lower ability to perceive, process and integrate information related to spatial locations and relationships between objects and shapes. This ability is critical to everyday tasks, from navigating spaces and driving a car to assembling furniture and tying shoes. 

They found that anxiety-related brain alterations were already measurable at ages 11-12, highlighting the importance of early interventions in order to minimize long-term cognitive deficits and mental health issues. Stamoulis sees opportunity in using precision medicine to develop such interventions. 

"Precision psychiatry is likely to play an important role in future mental health care," said Stamoulis. "In this study, we have identified specific circuits that are implicated in anxiety, which could become the targets of precision interventions to improve short- and longer-term mental health outcomes in youth."