Neural correlates of affective forecasting in individuals with high trait anxiety: evidence from resting-state functional connectivity

Previous literature has indicated that individuals with high trait anxiety have negative bias in forecasting future emotions, but the neural mechanisms underlying this remain unclear. Individuals with high trait anxiety (HTA; n = 38) and individuals with low trait anxiety (LTA; n = 38) were recruited. All participants completed the Social Affective Forecasting task and underwent resting-state fMRI scanning. Compared with the LTA group, the HTA group anticipated lower levels of arousal for future positive events but showed comparable performance for anticipated valence for future positive events. Moreover, the HTA group demonstrated intact performance in reporting anticipated valence and anticipated arousal for future negative events. In addition, the HTA group demonstrated increased functional connectivity between the left ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and left lingual gyrus relative to the LTA group. Besides, the HTA group also showed increased functional connectivity between the dorsal anterior insula and right posterior cingulate cortex compared to the LTA group. No significant associations were found between the altered functional connectivity and affective forecasting performance. Increased functional connectivity observed in the HTA group suggested that HTA individuals may devote more efforts when anticipating future events, to maintain intact in anticipating valence for future events.