Skip to main content

Abstract

Objective:

Disrupted emotional processing is a common feature of many psychiatric disorders. The authors investigated functional disruptions in neural circuitry underlying emotional processing across a range of tasks and across psychiatric disorders through a transdiagnostic quantitative meta-analysis of published neuroimaging data.

Methods:

A PubMed search was conducted for whole-brain functional neuroimaging findings published through May 2018 that compared activation during emotional processing tasks in patients with psychiatric disorders (including schizophrenia, bipolar or unipolar depression, anxiety, and substance use) to matched healthy control participants. Activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analyses were conducted on peak voxel coordinates to identify spatial convergence.

Results:

The 298 experiments submitted to meta-analysis included 5,427 patients and 5,491 control participants. ALE across diagnoses and patterns of patient hyper- and hyporeactivity demonstrated abnormal activation in the amygdala, the hippocampal/parahippocampal gyri, the dorsomedial/pulvinar nuclei of the thalamus, and the fusiform gyri, as well as the medial and lateral dorsal and ventral prefrontal regions. ALE across disorders but considering directionality demonstrated patient hyperactivation in the amygdala and the hippocampal/parahippocampal gyri. Hypoactivation was found in the medial and lateral prefrontal regions, most pronounced during processing of unpleasant stimuli. More refined disorder-specific analyses suggested that these overall patterns were shared to varying degrees, with notable differences in patterns of hyper- and hypoactivation.

Conclusions:

These findings demonstrate a pattern of neurocircuit disruption across major psychiatric disorders in regions and networks key to adaptive emotional reactivity and regulation. More specifically, disruption corresponded prominently to the “salience” network, the ventral striatal/ventromedial prefrontal “reward” network, and the lateral orbitofrontal “nonreward” network. Consistent with the Research Domain Criteria initiative, these findings suggest that psychiatric illness may be productively formulated as dysfunction in transdiagnostic neurobehavioral phenotypes such as neurocircuit activation.

Formats available

You can view the full content in the following formats:

Information & Authors

Information

Published In

Go to American Journal of Psychiatry
Go to American Journal of Psychiatry
American Journal of Psychiatry
Pages: 411 - 421
PubMed: 31964160

History

Received: 14 November 2018
Revision received: 10 July 2019
Revision received: 30 August 2019
Revision received: 15 October 2019
Accepted: 24 October 2019
Published online: 22 January 2020
Published in print: May 01, 2020

Keywords

  1. Neuroimaging
  2. Neuroanatomy
  3. Meta-Analysis
  4. Transdiagnostic
  5. RDoC
  6. fMRI

Authors

Details

Lisa M. McTeague, Ph.D.
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston (McTeague, Lopez); Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles (Rosenberg); Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, Stanford University, Stanford, Calif. (Carreon, Huemer, Jiang, Chick, Etkin); Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System and the Sierra Pacific Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Center, Palo Alto, Calif. (Carreon, Huemer, Jiang, Chick, Etkin); and Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Institute for Neuroscience and Medicine (Brain and Behavior, INM-7), Research Center Jülich, Jülich, Germany, and Institute for Systems Neuroscience, School of Medicine, Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany (Eickhoff).
Benjamin M. Rosenberg, M.A.
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston (McTeague, Lopez); Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles (Rosenberg); Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, Stanford University, Stanford, Calif. (Carreon, Huemer, Jiang, Chick, Etkin); Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System and the Sierra Pacific Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Center, Palo Alto, Calif. (Carreon, Huemer, Jiang, Chick, Etkin); and Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Institute for Neuroscience and Medicine (Brain and Behavior, INM-7), Research Center Jülich, Jülich, Germany, and Institute for Systems Neuroscience, School of Medicine, Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany (Eickhoff).
James W. Lopez, B.S.
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston (McTeague, Lopez); Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles (Rosenberg); Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, Stanford University, Stanford, Calif. (Carreon, Huemer, Jiang, Chick, Etkin); Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System and the Sierra Pacific Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Center, Palo Alto, Calif. (Carreon, Huemer, Jiang, Chick, Etkin); and Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Institute for Neuroscience and Medicine (Brain and Behavior, INM-7), Research Center Jülich, Jülich, Germany, and Institute for Systems Neuroscience, School of Medicine, Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany (Eickhoff).
David M. Carreon, M.D.
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston (McTeague, Lopez); Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles (Rosenberg); Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, Stanford University, Stanford, Calif. (Carreon, Huemer, Jiang, Chick, Etkin); Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System and the Sierra Pacific Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Center, Palo Alto, Calif. (Carreon, Huemer, Jiang, Chick, Etkin); and Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Institute for Neuroscience and Medicine (Brain and Behavior, INM-7), Research Center Jülich, Jülich, Germany, and Institute for Systems Neuroscience, School of Medicine, Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany (Eickhoff).
Julia Huemer, M.D.
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston (McTeague, Lopez); Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles (Rosenberg); Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, Stanford University, Stanford, Calif. (Carreon, Huemer, Jiang, Chick, Etkin); Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System and the Sierra Pacific Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Center, Palo Alto, Calif. (Carreon, Huemer, Jiang, Chick, Etkin); and Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Institute for Neuroscience and Medicine (Brain and Behavior, INM-7), Research Center Jülich, Jülich, Germany, and Institute for Systems Neuroscience, School of Medicine, Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany (Eickhoff).
Ying Jiang, M.D.
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston (McTeague, Lopez); Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles (Rosenberg); Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, Stanford University, Stanford, Calif. (Carreon, Huemer, Jiang, Chick, Etkin); Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System and the Sierra Pacific Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Center, Palo Alto, Calif. (Carreon, Huemer, Jiang, Chick, Etkin); and Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Institute for Neuroscience and Medicine (Brain and Behavior, INM-7), Research Center Jülich, Jülich, Germany, and Institute for Systems Neuroscience, School of Medicine, Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany (Eickhoff).
Christina F. Chick, Ph.D.
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston (McTeague, Lopez); Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles (Rosenberg); Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, Stanford University, Stanford, Calif. (Carreon, Huemer, Jiang, Chick, Etkin); Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System and the Sierra Pacific Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Center, Palo Alto, Calif. (Carreon, Huemer, Jiang, Chick, Etkin); and Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Institute for Neuroscience and Medicine (Brain and Behavior, INM-7), Research Center Jülich, Jülich, Germany, and Institute for Systems Neuroscience, School of Medicine, Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany (Eickhoff).
Simon B. Eickhoff, Dr.Med.
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston (McTeague, Lopez); Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles (Rosenberg); Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, Stanford University, Stanford, Calif. (Carreon, Huemer, Jiang, Chick, Etkin); Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System and the Sierra Pacific Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Center, Palo Alto, Calif. (Carreon, Huemer, Jiang, Chick, Etkin); and Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Institute for Neuroscience and Medicine (Brain and Behavior, INM-7), Research Center Jülich, Jülich, Germany, and Institute for Systems Neuroscience, School of Medicine, Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany (Eickhoff).
Amit Etkin, M.D., Ph.D. [email protected]
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston (McTeague, Lopez); Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles (Rosenberg); Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, Stanford University, Stanford, Calif. (Carreon, Huemer, Jiang, Chick, Etkin); Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System and the Sierra Pacific Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Center, Palo Alto, Calif. (Carreon, Huemer, Jiang, Chick, Etkin); and Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Institute for Neuroscience and Medicine (Brain and Behavior, INM-7), Research Center Jülich, Jülich, Germany, and Institute for Systems Neuroscience, School of Medicine, Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany (Eickhoff).

Notes

Send correspondence to Dr. Etkin ([email protected]).

Competing Interests

Dr. McTeague has received stock options in AbleTo.com and Joyable.com for consulting services. Dr. Etkin has received stock options from Akili Interactive, Mindstrong Health, and Sizung for consulting services and receives salary and equity from Alto Neuroscience. The other authors report no financial relationships with commercial interests.

Funding Information

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairshttp://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100000738: Sierra-Pacific Mental Illness Research, Education
Helmholtz Portfolio Theme:
National Institute of Mental Healthhttp://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100000025: DP1 MH116506, K23 MH104849, R01 MH074457
National Science Foundationhttp://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100000001: DGE-1650604
Seventh Framework Programmehttp://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100011102: 604102
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschafthttp://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100001659: EI 816/4-1, LA 3071/3-1

Metrics & Citations

Metrics

Citations

Export Citations

If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.

For more information or tips please see 'Downloading to a citation manager' in the Help menu.

Format
Citation style
Style
Copy to clipboard

View Options

View options

PDF/EPUB

View PDF/EPUB

Full Text

View Full Text

Login options

Already a subscriber? Access your subscription through your login credentials or your institution for full access to this article.

Personal login Institutional Login Open Athens login
Purchase Options

Purchase this article to access the full text.

PPV Articles - American Journal of Psychiatry

PPV Articles - American Journal of Psychiatry

Not a subscriber?

Subscribe Now / Learn More

PsychiatryOnline subscription options offer access to the DSM-5-TR® library, books, journals, CME, and patient resources. This all-in-one virtual library provides psychiatrists and mental health professionals with key resources for diagnosis, treatment, research, and professional development.

Need more help? PsychiatryOnline Customer Service may be reached by emailing [email protected] or by calling 800-368-5777 (in the U.S.) or 703-907-7322 (outside the U.S.).

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

Share

Share

Share article link

Share