Whole Brain Correlates of Individual Differences in Skin Conductance Responses during Human Fear Conditioning

Understanding the neural basis for individual differences in the conditioned skin conductance response (SCR) may inform on autonomic regulation in fear-related psychopathology. Previous region-of-interest (ROI) analyses have implicated the amygdala in regulating conditioned SCR, but whole brain analyses are lacking. This study examined correlations between individual differences in conditioned SCR and neural activity throughout the whole brain by using data from a large functional magnetic resonance imaging study (N = 285). Results show that conditioned SCR correlates with activity in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex/anterior midcingulate cortex, anterior insula, bilateral temporoparietal junction, right frontal operculum, bilateral dorsal premotor cortex, right superior parietal lobe and midbrain. A ROI analysis replicated a correlation between amygdala activity and conditioned SCR, but amygdala contribution to SCR was modest compared with other regions. We suggest that implicated neural regions belong to a large-scale midcingulo-insular network related to salience detection and autonomic-interoceptive processing. Altered activity within this network may underlie individual differences in conditioned SCR and autonomic aspects of psychopathology.