Neural processes linking joint hypermobility and anxiety: key roles for the amygdala and insular cortex 2025 Harrison, Eccles et al

Abstract

Background
Anxiety symptoms are elevated among people with joint hypermobility. The underlying neural mechanisms are attributed theoretically to effects of variant connective tissue on the precision of interoceptive representations contributing to emotions.

Aim
To investigate the neural correlates of anxiety and hypermobility using functional neuroimaging.

Method
We used functional magnetic resonance neuroimaging to quantify regional brain responses to emotional stimuli (facial expressions) in people with generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) (N = 30) and a non-anxious comparison group (N = 33). All participants were assessed for joint laxity and were classified (using Brighton Criteria) for the presence and absence of hypermobility syndrome (HMS: now considered hypermobility spectrum disorder).

Results
Participants with HMS showed attenuated neural reactivity to emotional faces in specific frontal (inferior frontal gyrus, pre-supplementary motor area), midline (anterior mid and posterior cingulate cortices) and parietal (precuneus and supramarginal gyrus) regions. Notably, interaction between HMS and anxiety was expressed in reactivity of the left amygdala (a region implicated in threat processing) and mid insula (primary interoceptive cortex) where activity was amplified in people with HMS with GAD. Severity of hypermobility in anxious, compared with non-anxious, individuals correlated with activity within the anterior insula (implicated as the neural substrate linking anxious feelings to physiological state). Amygdala-precuneus functional connectivity was stronger in participants with HMS, compared with non-HMS participants.

Conclusions
The predisposition to anxiety in people with variant connective tissue reflects dynamic interactions between neural centres processing threat (amygdala) and representing bodily state (insular and parietal cortices). Correspondingly, interventions to regulate amygdala reactivity while enhancing interoceptive precision may have therapeutic benefit for symptomatic hypermobile individuals.

Open access

 

I find it hard to follow but it seems the HMS people responded less to emotive faces except "notably" (cos it fits the theory) anxious HMS people responded more in one tiny bit of brain.

The whole thing seems to be an entry for the Ignobel Prize 2025.

 

When I am queen of the universe, this kind of cherry-picking and suppression of results to fit preconceived ideas will result in the researcher(s) concerned being automatically disqualified from receiving any funding ever again. And possibly their institutions too. Tough love, it's the only way.

 

Why not be the red queen of the universe?

Off with their heads!

 

BREAKING NEWS!!
Prominent chronic fatigue anti-recovery activist wants to behead scientists that disagrees with him.

I expect a Pulitzer and police protection for my work here. Or at least some funding to research how online activity influences chronic fatigue patients’ willingness to behead scientists.