Researchers at Boston Children’s Hospital have linked anxiety in young people to changes in certain brain circuits, according to a study published in the journal Imaging Neuroscience. The team said these circuits could be targeted with precise treatments to help improve mental health in young people.
The work focused on generalised and social anxiety disorders, which the researchers said affect more than 30% of teenagers in the United States. Many mental health disorders begin during adolescence, so the team wanted to understand how unusual brain development relates to these problems.
Data from nearly 3,500 young people in US study
The researchers examined brain structure and circuit organisation in almost 3,500 young people taking part in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study. The project is described as the largest long-term study of brain development and child health in the U.S. The work was led by Caterina Stamoulis from the Computational Neuroscience Laboratory at Boston Children’s.
The team identified a circuit made up of the cerebellum, amygdala and thalamus. Their findings describe these structures as important for many thinking processes and for regulating brain function, and the circuit was different in young people with anxiety.
Weaker connections tied to anxiety and structural changes
Changes in how this circuit is organised, along with weaker connections, were linked to higher anxiety and a greater chance of related disorders. By contrast, the researchers found that more efficient and resilient activity in other brain networks helped protect against social or generalised anxiety disorders.
The team also found structural brain changes in young people with anxiety. These were linked to greater difficulty understanding and working with information about where things are and how objects and shapes relate to one another. The researchers noted that this skill supports everyday tasks such as finding your way, driving, assembling furniture or tying shoelaces.
Anxiety-linked brain changes appear as early as age 11
The researchers found that changes linked to anxiety could already be seen in children as young as 11 or 12. They said this shows why early intervention matters for helping to prevent long-term problems with thinking and mental health. Stamoulis believes precision medicine could be used to create these early treatments.
“Precision psychiatry is likely to play an important role in future mental health care,” said Stamoulis. She added that the team had “identified specific circuits that are implicated in anxiety, which could become the targets of precision interventions” to improve mental health outcomes in youth.
