Investigating Brain Networks in Anxious-Misery and Fear Symptom Dimensions

Abstract

Anxiety and depressive symptoms can be dissociated into anxious-misery and fear components; however, little is known about how these two symptom dimensions differ in terms of brain network properties. Thus, the purpose of this study was to compare the local efficiency of the default mode network (DMN) and frontoparietal network (FPN) in anxious-misery and fear symptom dimensions, with examination of six additional networks and small-worldness as exploratory analyses. To do this, we used data from children ages 9-10 years old from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study database. Our primary measure of interest was local efficiency, which measures the efficiency of information exchange between nodes of a network when one node is removed. We hypothesized that the DMN would exhibit increased local efficiency and the FPN would show decreased local efficiency in anxious-misery symptoms, and both networks would have lower local efficiency in fear symptoms. We found no significant associations between local efficiency and anxious-misery and fear dimensions or between small-world omega and the dimensions. However, we found a significant positive association between anxious-misery symptoms and local efficiency in the FPN and a significant negative association between fear symptoms and local efficiency in the FPN at uncorrected levels. These results suggest the need for further study of local efficiency in the FPN in an older population and the use of other network metrics in anxious-misery and fear symptom dimensions.