An fMRI study of cognitive regulation of reward processing in generalized anxiety disorder (GAD)

Cognitive regulation can affect the process of decision making. Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) patients seem to have an impairment in cognitive regulation of reward processing concerning food stimuli. This study aims to explore the impact of GAD in cognitive regulation of food-related rewards.

GAD patients (n=11) and healthy controls (n=15) performed a cognitive regulation craving task with food images while undergoing a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) acquisition. Between-group differences in functional connectivity were measured using dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) seeds during cognitive regulation.

During cognitive regulation, there was a significant interaction for functional connectivity between the right dlPFC and bilateral vmPFC with the thalamus. GAD patients had lower functional connectivity for cognitive regulation conditions (distance and indulge) than for the non-regulated condition in these clusters, while control participants presented the opposite pattern. GAD group presented fixed food valuation scores after cognitive regulation.

GAD participants showed inflexibility while valuating food images, that could be produced by cognitive regulation deficits underpinned by functional connectivity alterations between prefrontal regions and the thalamus. These results show cognitive inflexibility and difficulty in the modulation of cognitive responses during decision making in GAD patients.