Academic Journal
The Cost of Scrutiny: Subclinical Social Anxiety and Performance Context Reshape Frontal-Midline Theta Network Reconfigurations during Probabilistic Learning.
| Τίτλος: | The Cost of Scrutiny: Subclinical Social Anxiety and Performance Context Reshape Frontal-Midline Theta Network Reconfigurations during Probabilistic Learning. |
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| Συγγραφείς: | Liu H; Institute of Psychology, Leiden University, Leiden 2333 AK, The Netherlands.; School of Mathematics, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China., van der Molen MJW; Institute of Psychology, Leiden University, Leiden 2333 AK, The Netherlands m.j.w.van.der.molen@fsw.leidenuniv.nl.; Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden 2333 AK, The Netherlands. |
| Πηγή: | The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience [J Neurosci] 2026 Oct 07; Vol. 46 (40). Date of Electronic Publication: 2026 Oct 07. |
| Τύπος έκδοσης: | Journal Article |
| Γλώσσα: | English |
| Στοιχεία περιοδικού: | Publisher: Society for Neuroscience Country of Publication: United States NLM ID: 8102140 Publication Model: Electronic Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1529-2401 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 02706474 NLM ISO Abbreviation: J Neurosci Subsets: MEDLINE |
| Imprint Name(s): | Publication: Washington, DC : Society for Neuroscience Original Publication: [Baltimore, Md.] : The Society, c1981- |
| Ιατρικοί όροι (MeSH): | Theta Rhythm*/physiology , Anxiety*/physiopathology , Anxiety*/psychology , Nerve Net*/physiopathology , Frontal Lobe*/physiopathology , Frontal Lobe*/physiology , Probability Learning*, Humans ; Female ; Male ; Young Adult ; Adult ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging ; Adolescent ; Brain Mapping |
| Περίληψη: | Social anxiety is reliably characterized by biases toward avoidance and aversive learning. Frontal-midline theta (FM-theta) oscillations have been implicated as a key neural mechanism underlying these learning biases. Here, we combined a dynamic network neuroscience approach with computational modeling to investigate how FM-theta oscillatory activity coordinates large-scale functional network interactions on a trial-to-trial basis during feedback-guided learning. Additionally, we examined how these neural dynamics are associated with social anxiety across different social contexts. A sample of 146 human participants (124 female; mean age, 20.4 years) with varying levels of social anxiety completed a probabilistic selection task while performing alone and under scrutiny. Using non-negative matrix factorization, we identified two functional neural subgraphs supported by FM-theta. Frontoparietal connectivity increased following aversive outcomes and scaled with positive prediction errors, consistent with error-monitoring and belief-updating. Fronto-occipital connectivity scaled with prediction errors when participants performed alone but not under scrutiny, indicative of context-sensitive disruption of belief-updating. Participants with elevated social anxiety showed increased fronto-occipital connectivity, as well as stronger subgraph coupling, indexing cross-network integration. This latter effect facilitated learning of simple stimulus-reward associations but hampered learning of difficult stimulus-reward associations. Together, these findings reveal that social anxiety amplifies fronto-occipital FM-theta connectivity and cross-network integration, facilitating learning under low task demands while hampering learning under high task demands. (Copyright © 2026 the authors.) |
| Competing Interests: | The authors declare no competing financial interests. |
| Contributed Indexing: | Keywords: FM-theta; computational modeling; functional connectivity; network neuroscience; social anxiety |
| Entry Date(s): | Date Created: 20260914 Date Completed: 20261007 Latest Revision: 20261007 |
| Update Code: | 20261008 |
| DOI: | 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2161-25.2026 |
| PMID: | 42736023 |
| Βάση Δεδομένων: | MEDLINE |
| ISSN: | 1529-2401 |
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| DOI: | 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2161-25.2026 |