Morphological similarity of amygdala-ventral prefrontal pathways represents trait anxiety in younger and older adults

Abstract

Stronger amygdala-ventral prefrontal white matter connectivity has been associated with lower trait anxiety, possibly reflecting an increased capacity for efficient communication between the two regions. However, there are also reports arguing against this brain–anxiety association. To address these inconsistencies in the literature, we tested the possibility that idiosyncratic tract morphology may account for meaningful individual differences in trait anxiety, even among those with comparable microstructural integrity. Here, we adopted intersubject representational similarity analysis, an analytic framework that captures multivariate patterns of similarity, to analyze the morphological similarity of amygdala-ventral prefrontal pathways. Data drawn from the Leipzig Study for Mind–Body-Emotion Interactions dataset showed that younger adults (20 to 35 y of age) with low trait anxiety, in contrast to trait-anxious individuals, had consistently similar morphological configurations in their left amygdala-ventral prefrontal pathways. Additional tests on an independent sample of older adults (60 to 75 y of age) validated this finding. Our study reveals a generalizable pattern of brain–anxiety association that is embedded within the shared geometries between fiber tract morphology and trait anxiety data.