Trial reportScientific reports2021
Processing of fMRI-related anxiety and bi-directional information flow between prefrontal cortex and brain stem.
Trial report in Scientific reports, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- The medial prefrontal cortex as a proposed regulatory structure in the relationship between anxiety and perceived social support: a review.BMC psychology · 2025Pooled it
- Cardiac-vagal rhythm echoes on the heartbeat's mechanosensory imprint in the brain.Communications biology · 2025Article
- Comprehensive Single-Cell Transcriptomic Atlas of the Mouse Pons and Medulla.Scientific data · 2025Article
- An Exploratory Study on the Regulatory Effect of Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response on Anxiety: Evidence From Functional Near-Infrared Brain Imaging Technology.The European journal of neuroscience · 2025Article
- Psychometric Properties of the Greek Version of the Claustrophobia Questionnaire.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Scan-associated anxiety (scanxiety): the enigma of emotional breathing oscillations at 0.32 Hz (19 bpm).Frontiers in neuroscience · 2024Review
- An autonomic mode of brain activity.Progress in neurobiology · 2023Article
- Dynamic fluctuations in ascending heart-to-brain communication under mental stress.American journal of physiology. Regulatory, integrative and comparative physiology · 2023Article
- Analysis of Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia and Directed Information Flow between Brain and Body Indicate Different Management Strategies of fMRI-Related Anxiety.Biomedicines · 2023Article
- Respiration-entrained brain oscillations in healthy fMRI participants with high anxiety.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Depression as a cardiovascular disorder: central-autonomic network, brain-heart axis, and vagal perspectives of low mood.Frontiers in network physiology · 2023Article
- Differences in the neural basis and transcriptomic patterns in acute and persistent pain-related anxiety-like behaviors.Frontiers in molecular neuroscience · 2023Article
- Processing of fMRI-related anxiety and information flow between brain and body revealed a preponderance of oscillations at 0.15/0.16 Hz.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Brain-heart interactions in the neurobiology of consciousness.Current research in neurobiology · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Brain-heart synchronization is fundamental for emotional-well-being and brain-heart desynchronization is characteristic for anxiety disorders including specific phobias. Recording BOLD signals with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is an important noninvasive diagnostic tool; however, 1-2% of fMRI examinations have to be aborted due to claustrophobia. In the present study, we investigated the information flow between regions of interest (ROI's) in the cortex and brain stem by using a frequency band close to 0.1 Hz. Causal coupling between signals important in brain-heart interaction (cardiac intervals, respiration, and BOLD signals) was studied by means of Directed Transfer Function based on the Granger causality principle. Compared were initial resting states with elevated anxiety and final resting states with low or no anxiety in a group of fMRI-naïve young subjects. During initial high anxiety the results showed an increased information flow from the middle frontal gyrus (MFG) to the pre-central gyrus (PCG) and to the brainstem. There also was an increased flow from the brainstem to the PCG. While the top-down flow during increased anxiety was predominant, the weaker ascending flow from brainstem structures may characterize a rhythmic pacemaker-like activity that (at least in part) drives respiration. We assume that these changes in information flow reflect successful anxiety processing.
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