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Background

Neuroticism/negative emotionality (N/NE)—the tendency to experience negative affect—is a fundamental dimension of mammalian temperament. Individuals with a neurotic disposition are more likely to develop anxiety disorders and depression and, if they do, to experience more severe and treatment-resistant symptoms. Yet the underlying neurobiology remains poorly understood, impeding treatment development.

Methods

We used fMRI, a genuinely distressing threat-anticipation (‘threat-of-shock’) paradigm, and machine learning to test whether N/NE reflects exaggerated threat reactivity in the central nucleus of the amygdala (Ce) and bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BST) in 220 emerging adults selectively recruited from a pool of 6,594 to capture a broad spectrum of N/NE. Parallel analyses were performed for an emotional-faces paradigm. Although ‘threat-related’faces activate the amygdala and …