Hreatrelated neural activation. Supporting our hypothesis, we found that participants whoHreatrelated neural activation. Supporting our

Hreatrelated neural activation. Supporting our hypothesis, we found that participants who
Hreatrelated neural activation. Supporting our hypothesis, we located that participants who viewed safe attachmentrelated stimuli prior to completing two threatreactivity tasks showed attenuated amygdala responses to each threatening faces and threatening words. These findings add to prior attachmentsecurity priming studies which have respectively reported attenuated limbic responses within the hypothalamus and anterior cingulate to social and physical discomfort following exposure to attachment reminders (Eisenberger et al 20; Karremans et al 20). The current findings of reduced amygdala reactivity to threat following attachmentsecurity priming are in line with current theoretical accounts of attachment safety, in line with which reminders of secure attachment relationships act as security cues which modulate threat appraisals and downregulate neural responses to possible threats (Coan, 2008, 200; Eisenberger et al 20). Decreased amygdala activation inside the attachmentsecurity priming group was observed in the absence of any locations of drastically higher activation group when compared together with the manage group. These findings consequently shed light on the mechanisms by which feelings of attachment security could regulate affective responding to signs of probable threat, and are consistent with all the notion that attachment security regulates threatreactivity by way of a bottomup modulation of threat appraisal processes, rather than via topdown prefrontal mediated regulation (Coan, 2008, 200). Second, prior research exploring the therapeutic mechanisms of anxiolytic pharmacotherapies and psychotherapies has implicatedamygdala desensitisation as a crucial therapeutic mechanism (Furmark et al 2002; Harmer et al 2006; Murphy et al 2009). Consequently, our findings that attachmentsecurity priming can modulate reactivity within this identical structure raise the possibility that attachmentsecurity priming PubMed ID:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24367198 strategies might offer you a novel therapeutic avenue for anxiety disorders. Along with an impact of attachmentsecurity priming on amygdala reactivity, we replicated prior studies by finding a important correlation in between trait attachment insecurity and amygdala reactivity (Lemche et al 2005; Buchheim et al 2006; Vrtic et al 2008, 202). ka Provided the hypothesised role of get LY3023414 heightened amygdala responsivity in mediating anxious symptomatology and risk for the improvement of anxiety disorders (Etkin and Wager, 2007; Shin and Liberzon, 200), these findings support the concept that elevated risk for the development of anxiousness problems amongst insecurely attached men and women is partly mediated by elevated threat reactivity inside the amygdala. These findings are also broadly in line with preceding findings of enhanced activation within neural threat systems in response to social threat in anxiously attached individuals (Gillath et al 2005; DeWall et al 202), and are consistent with notion that anxiously attached men and women are extra vigilant for signs of social threat (Mikulincer and Shaver, 2007a). An unexpected discovering was that, unlike inside the emotional faces task, our measures of trait attachment security didn’t correlate with amygdala reactivity in the dotprobe task. Previously reported findings of threatrelated amygdala hyperactivity in insecurely attached men and women happen to be to social threat stimuli (Lemche et al 2005; Buchheim et al 2006; Vrtic et al 2008, 202). This may possibly indicate that attachka mentsecurity priming and trait attachment safety have distinct modula.