ArticlePsychiatry research. Neuroimaging2017
Brain structural changes in late-life generalized anxiety disorder.
Article in Psychiatry research. Neuroimaging, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
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Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 45 citations in OpenAlex.
- [Long-term courses of anxiety disorders].Der Nervenarzt · 2025Pooled it
- Grey matter structural alterations in anxiety disorders: a voxel-based meta-analysis.Brain imaging and behavior · 2024Pooled it
- Pathological fear, anxiety and negative affect exhibit distinct neurostructural signatures: evidence from psychiatric neuroimaging meta-analysis.Translational psychiatry · 2022Pooled it
- Systematic review and meta-analyses of neural structural and functional differences in generalized anxiety disorder and healthy controls using magnetic resonance imaging.NeuroImage. Clinical · 2019Pooled it
- MRI Correlates of Depression and Anxiety in Multiple Sclerosis.Diseases (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Impaired slow-wave sleep accounts for brain aging-related increases in anxiety.Communications psychology · 2026Article
- Understanding the brain mechanisms behind anxiety disorders in late life: progress and limitations of the past 15 years.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- Older and wiser? The neural correlates of worry induction and reappraisal in older adults.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2025Article
- The Desegregation of Neural Networks During Worry Induction in Late Life: An Effective Connectivity Analysis.Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging · 2025Article
- Behavioral disorders in multiple sclerosis: a comprehensive review.Journal of neural transmission (Vienna, Austria : 1996) · 2025Review
- A preliminary investigation of worry, cortical amyloid burden, and stressor-evoked brain and cardiovascular reactivity in older adults.Journal of affective disorders · 2024Article
- Hippocampal subfield volume in older adults with and without mild cognitive impairment: Effects of worry and cognitive reappraisal.Neurobiology of aging · 2024Article
- White Noise-Is Anxiety in Late-Life Associated With White Matter Hyperintensity Burden?The American journal of geriatric psychiatry : official journal of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry · 2024Article
- Impact of Stress on Brain Morphology: Insights into Structural Biomarkers of Stress-related Disorders.Current neuropharmacology · 2024Review
- Examining the relationship between anxiety and regional brain volumes in the National Alzheimer's Coordinating Center uniform, imaging, and biomarker datasets.Cerebral circulation - cognition and behavior · 2024Article
- Depressive symptoms, anxiety and cognitive impairment: emerging evidence in multiple sclerosis.Translational psychiatry · 2023Review
- Dose-response association between plasma homocysteine and white matter lesions in patients with hypertension: a case-control study.Hypertension research : official journal of the Japanese Society of Hypertension · 2022Article
- Network alterations underlying anxiety symptoms in early multiple sclerosis.Journal of neuroinflammation · 2022Article
- Cortical and subcortical brain structure in generalized anxiety disorder: findings from 28 research sites in the ENIGMA-Anxiety Working Group.Translational psychiatry · 2021Article
- Aging faster: worry and rumination in late life are associated with greater brain age.Neurobiology of aging · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Late-life Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) is relatively understudied and the underlying structural and functional neuroanatomy has received little attention. In this study, we compare the brain structural characteristics in white and gray matter in 31 non-anxious older adults and 28 late-life GAD participants. Gray matter indices (cortical thickness and volume) were measured using FreeSurfer parcellation and segmentation, and mean diffusivity was obtained through Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI). We assessed both macroscopic white matter changes [using white matter hyperintensity (WMH) burden] and microscopic white matter integrity [using fractional anisotropy (FA)]. No differences in macro- or microscopic white matter integrity were found between GAD and non-anxious controls (HC). GAD participants had lower cortical thickness in the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), inferior frontal gyrus, and pregenual anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Higher worry severity was associated with gray matter changes in OFC, ACC and the putamen. The results did not survive the multiple comparison correction, but the effect sizes indicate a moderate effect. The study suggests that late-life GAD is associated with gray matter changes in areas involved in emotion regulation, more so than with white matter changes. We conclude that anxiety-related chronic hypercortisolemia may have a dissociative effect on gray and white matter integrity.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.