Scientific article
OA Policy
English

Whole blood serotonin levels in healthy elderly are negatively associated with the functional activity of emotion-related brain regions

Published inBiological Psychology, vol. 160, 108051
Publication date2021
Abstract

Understanding the role of neuromodulators of socio-affective processing is important to ensure psychological wellbeing during older years. Here, we investigated the link between blood serotonin levels and brain and behavioral responses to emotional information in healthy elderly. A priori regions of interest (ROI) were selected due to their role in emotion processing and their dense serotonergic innervation. Correlation analyses were performed between ROI-specific responses to emotional stimuli and whole blood serotonin levels. We found significant negative associations between serotonin and functional activity for the bilateral insula, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and subgenual gyrus. No association with behavioral measures survived correction for multiple testing. Our results mirror prior pharmacological and genetic work on the link between serotonin and emotional brain reactivity in younger adults. Given the involvement of serotonin in several age-related changes, our study encourages future research to characterize the role of this neuromodulator in emotion processing across the lifespan.

Keywords
  • 5-HT
  • Emotion
  • Insula
  • Older adults
  • Socio-affective video task
  • Subgenual gyrus
  • DACC.
Funding
  • European Commission - Investigating the impact of meditation training on mental health and wellbeing in the ageing population [667696]
Citation (ISO format)
DEZA, Yacila et al. Whole blood serotonin levels in healthy elderly are negatively associated with the functional activity of emotion-related brain regions. In: Biological Psychology, 2021, vol. 160, p. 108051. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2021.108051
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Identifiers
ISSN of the journal0301-0511
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Creation02/24/2021 3:12:00 PM
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