Neural and cognitive correlates of adolescent anxiety: Widespread brain network alterations, increased control costs, and visuospatial processing deficits.
- 1Department of Pediatrics, Division of Adolescence and Young Adult Medicine, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA, United States.
- 2Department of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States.
Abstract
This study investigated the neural substrates and cognitive correlates of adolescent anxiety, which are currently incompletely understood, in N = 3,499 youth with median (IQR) age 12.0 (1.1) years (~51.0% females), from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Study. Resting-state fMRI, structural MRI, anxiety (scores and related disorder diagnoses), and neurocognitive data were analyzed. Mixed-effects regression models were used to examine associations between anxiety, brain characteristics (topological and morphometric properties, and regulatory (control) costs of intrinsic network dynamics), and cognitive outcomes. Females, older youth, and those with more parental mental health problems had higher anxiety (β = 0.04-1.15, 95% CI = [0.01, 2.18]). Higher resting-state connectivity and/or centrality (network importance) of the cerebellum, amygdala, and thalamus, and higher cerebellum-basal-ganglia-thalamus control costs were associated with higher anxiety (β = 0.04-0.08, 95% CI = [0.01, 0.11]). In contrast, temporoparietal and frontoparietal network efficiency and resilience (robustness) were protective for social and/or generalized anxiety disorders (adjusted odds ratio (aOR) = 0.72-0.80, 95% CI = [0.62, 0.98]). Higher cortical thickness and/or volume of the superior temporal gyrus, pars opercularis, precentral gyrus, and putamen were associated with higher odds of generalized or social anxiety disorder (aOR = 1.28-1.44, 95% CI = [1.07, 1.78]). Finally, anxiety was associated with lower response accuracy in the Little Man Task (β = -0.05, 95% CI = [-0.09, -0.01]), and attenuated positive brain-task performance associations. These findings suggest that adolescent anxiety is associated with widespread brain alterations, especially in the cerebellum-basal ganglia-thalamus network, while the organization of frontoparietal and temporoparietal networks, which play as key role in emotion regulation and social function, is protective for anxiety disorders. It is also associated with lower visuospatial processing and alterations in the networks that support it.
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BibTeX
@article{manjunath2026neural,
title = {{Neural and cognitive correlates of adolescent anxiety: Widespread brain network alterations, increased control costs, and visuospatial processing deficits.}},
author = {Madhumitha Manjunath and Catherine Stamoulis},
journal = {Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1162/imag.a.1409},
url = {https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42974051},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Neural and cognitive correlates of adolescent anxiety: Widespread brain network alterations, increased control costs, and visuospatial processing deficits.
AU - Madhumitha Manjunath
AU - Catherine Stamoulis
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/30
JO - Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)
DO - 10.1162/imag.a.1409
UR - https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42974051
AB - This study investigated the neural substrates and cognitive correlates of adolescent anxiety, which are currently incompletely understood, in N = 3,499 youth with median (IQR) age 12.0 (1.1) years (~51.0% females), from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Study. Resting-state fMRI, structural MRI, anxiety (scores and related disorder diagnoses), and neurocognitive data were analyzed. Mixed-effects regression models were used to examine associations between anxiety, brain characteristics (topological and morphometric properties, and regulatory (control) costs of intrinsic network dynamics), and cognitive outcomes. Females, older youth, and those with more parental mental health problems had higher anxiety (β = 0.04-1.15, 95% CI = [0.01, 2.18]). Higher resting-state connectivity and/or centrality (network importance) of the cerebellum, amygdala, and thalamus, and higher cerebellum-basal-ganglia-thalamus control costs were associated with higher anxiety (β = 0.04-0.08, 95% CI = [0.01, 0.11]). In contrast, temporoparietal and frontoparietal network efficiency and resilience (robustness) were protective for social and/or generalized anxiety disorders (adjusted odds ratio (aOR) = 0.72-0.80, 95% CI = [0.62, 0.98]). Higher cortical thickness and/or volume of the superior temporal gyrus, pars opercularis, precentral gyrus, and putamen were associated with higher odds of generalized or social anxiety disorder (aOR = 1.28-1.44, 95% CI = [1.07, 1.78]). Finally, anxiety was associated with lower response accuracy in the Little Man Task (β = -0.05, 95% CI = [-0.09, -0.01]), and attenuated positive brain-task performance associations. These findings suggest that adolescent anxiety is associated with widespread brain alterations, especially in the cerebellum-basal ganglia-thalamus network, while the organization of frontoparietal and temporoparietal networks, which play as key role in emotion regulation and social function, is protective for anxiety disorders. It is also associated with lower visuospatial processing and alterations in the networks that support it.
SN - 2837-6056
ER -