Linking subjective experience of anxiety to brain function using natural language processing

Comprehensive Summary

Due to the vastness and unfamiliarity with anxiety research on neurophysiological responses, a study was conducted to determine whether the same neurological circuits lead to a similar subjective experience of anxiety. Using a semi-naturalistic, anxiogenic stimulus to evoke anxiety during fMRI in a sample of pediatric patients, participants were asked to respond to interview questions, and data was quantified via natural language processing algorithms. These analyses demonstrated that wide-spread brain activity during the movie, including in the anterior insula cortex, related to how the participants described the movie. This study shows that anxiety symptoms may be indicative of insula activity during movie-watching, as well as the recall of details after watching. This demonstrates that movie viewing paradigms may provide subjective emotional experiences in anxiety.

Outcomes and Implications

The results demonstrate that the relationship between anxiety symptoms and the type of content recalled about a movie is related to the activity in the brain’s insula, default mode, and visual networks. While anxiety has often been linked to insula-associated processes such as interoception, autonomic arousal, and salience detection, related parts of the insula can shape the type of notable details to which participants attend, encode, and later recall. This study reflects the first time natural language processing algorithms have been employed to relate subjective experiences to brain dynamics in a clinical sample.