Although functional changes of the frontal and (para)limbic area for emotional hyper-reactivity and emotional dysregulation are well documented in social anxiety disorder (SAD), prior studies on structural changes have shown mixed results. This study aimed to identify differences in cortical thickness between SAD and healthy controls (CON). Thirty-five patients with SAD and forty-two matched CON underwent structural magnetic resonance imaging. A vertex-based whole brain and regional analyses were conducted for between-group comparison. The whole-brain analysis revealed increased cortical thickness in the left insula, left superior parietal lobule, left superior temporal gyrus, and left frontopolar cortex in patients with SAD compared to CON, as well as decreased thickness in the left superior/middle frontal gyrus and left fusiform gyrus in patients (after multiple-correction). The results from the ROI analysis did not align with these findings at the statistically significant level after multiple corrections. Changes in cortical thickness were not correlated with social anxiety symptoms. While consistent results were not obtained from different analysis methods, the results from the whole-brain analysis suggest that patients with SAD exhibit distinct neural deficits in areas involved in salience, attention, and socioemotional processing.

中文翻译：

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社交焦虑障碍患者额顶叶皮质厚度的变化

尽管社交焦虑障碍 (SAD) 中额叶和（旁）边缘区因情绪过度反应和情绪失调而发生的功能变化已得到充分记录，但之前关于结构变化的研究显示了不同的结果。本研究旨在确定 SAD 和健康对照 (CON) 之间皮质厚度的差异。 35 名 SAD 患者和 42 名匹配的 CON 患者接受了结构磁共振成像。进行基于顶点的全脑和区域分析以进行组间比较。全脑分析显示，与 CON 相比，SAD 患者的左岛叶、左顶上小叶、左颞上回和左额极皮质厚度增加，而左上/额中回和左额叶中回厚度减少。患者左侧梭状回（多次矫正后）。经过多次校正后，ROI 分析的结果与这些发现在统计显着水平上并不相符。皮质厚度的变化与社交焦虑症状无关。虽然不同的分析方法没有获得一致的结果，但全脑分析的结果表明，SAD 患者在涉及显着性、注意力和社会情绪处理的区域表现出明显的神经缺陷。