New research published in Advances in neuropsychopharmacology and biological psychiatry It has been suggested that people with high levels of daily anxiety experience specific changes in the way their brain networks communicate, making them more likely to experience more intense feelings of self-blame. The findings provide evidence that this heightened sense of self-blame is accompanied by unhelpful behaviors such as hiding and self-attack. These patterns may help explain the social difficulties that people with anxiety often face in their daily lives.
Researchers conducted this study to better understand how feelings of self-blame operate in people who experience anxiety, even without a formal psychiatric diagnosis. Emotions like guilt and shame can function adaptively when they prompt someone to make up for a mistake. They tend to be harmful if they lead to social withdrawal or constant self-criticism.
“People with increased anxiety levels very often experience difficulties in social environments,” said study author Michal Rafal Zareba, a researcher in the Department of Basic and Clinical Psychology and Psychobiology at Jaume I University in Castellón de la Plana, Spain. “For example, we blame ourselves excessively for negative events that occur not only to ourselves but also to others in our immediate environment.”
Professor Zareba pointed out that previous studies have investigated the brain networks involved in these negative emotions, particularly in people diagnosed with severe depression. “It has long been known that such behaviors worsen the well-being of people with anxiety, but the brain processes that may contribute to this were largely unknown,” Zareba says. Understanding these mechanisms could inform preventive strategies to help people before symptoms worsen.
To investigate these associations, the authors designed a multipart experiment. First, a group of 140 healthy volunteers completed a computer-based assessment called the “Moral Emotions and Behavioral Tendencies” task. In this activity, participants read 54 hypothetical scenarios in which they or a close friend acted in violation of social or moral rules.
For each situation, participants rated how strongly they blamed themselves or their friend on a numerical scale. They also selected the specific emotion they felt most strongly, from options such as guilt, shame, and self-centered anger. Finally, participants indicated what action they would most likely take in that scenario. Options include hiding, apologizing, physically or verbally attacking yourself, and emotionally distancing yourself.
Data from this behavioral task showed that increased anxiety was generally associated with increased feelings of self-blame. Highly anxious people were more likely to report a desire to attack themselves or hide from others when they imagined these scenarios. This occurred regardless of whether the hypothetical bad act was committed by themselves or their friends.
“Feelings of remorse are not bad in and of themselves; they are a signal that we may have done something wrong,” Zareba says. “It is their maladaptive ways of coping with anxiety that contribute to their prominent role in anxiety.”
Interestingly, when experiencing negative emotions about themselves, such as shame or self-centered anger, anxious participants were less likely to retreat mentally or move away from self-centered thoughts. In psychology, the ability to create mental space from negative emotions is known as self-distancing. “When feeling self-blame, anxious people distance themselves from others and appear to engage in more self-centered thinking rather than trying to compensate for the resulting situation,” Zareba explained.
In the next phase of the study, a subset of 80 participants underwent brain scans using functional magnetic resonance imaging. This technology allows scientists to measure brain activity by tracking small changes in blood flow. Before scanning, participants were given brief written cues about seven personal memories that made them feel guilty and seven memories that were emotionally neutral.
Inside the scanner, volunteers were shown these custom cues and asked to relive the emotion associated with each specific memory in their heads for 10 seconds. After reliving the memory, participants had 4 seconds to answer questions about the location and social nature of the event. While recalling these different memories, they completed simple math problems. This math task is designed to help students shift their attention outward and reset their emotional state before the next memory cue appears.
The researchers observed a widespread increase in brain activity across several regions during recall of guilt-inducing memories compared to neutral memories. Most notably, they found that people with high anxiety scores had enhanced functional connectivity between two specific brain regions. Functional connectivity refers to how well different areas of the brain communicate and synchronize with each other during tasks.
Enhanced communication occurred between the left superior temporal lobe and bilateral infragenital anterior cingulate cortex. The anterior superior temporal lobe is a brain region known to process social knowledge and complex social concepts. The anterior cingulate subcortex is a deeper region of the brain involved in processing social belonging and self-esteem.
“Neuroimaging analysis reveals that when anxious people experience feelings of self-blame, there is a higher level of communication between areas of the brain responsible for understanding the meaning of social emotions such as guilt and areas involved in processing self-esteem and social belonging,” Zareba said. “This suggests that feelings of self-blame may contribute more strongly to how individuals feel insecure about their sense of belonging to others as well as themselves. Interestingly, similar observations about feelings of self-blame have been previously made in patients diagnosed with major depressive disorder.”
The researchers also measured how much participants wanted to approach or avoid people or places associated with memories of guilt. They found that a strong desire to be close to a memory was associated with increased activity in the left superior anterior temporal lobe. On the other hand, a strong desire to avoid memories was associated with enhanced connectivity between corresponding regions of the right hemisphere and brain regions involved in physical embodiment and social feedback.
Another resting-state brain scan involving 86 participants provided further insight. During resting-state scans, participants simply focus on the crosshairs without performing any specific task, allowing scientists to observe baseline brain activity. The researchers found that people who reported stronger feelings of self-blame during early behavioral tasks had lower baseline activity in the right temporal pole. This particular region at the tip of the temporal lobe links social processing and emotional cognition.
As an exploratory step, the researchers also compared the brain activity patterns seen during recall of guilt to existing published maps of neurotransmitter systems in the human brain. Neurotransmitters are chemical messengers that help neurons communicate. The analysis revealed that the brain regions activated by feelings of guilt largely overlapped in the distribution of receptors for serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine, and oxytocin. This suggests that these specific chemical systems play an important role in shaping how the brain processes strong negative emotions about the self.
Although the study provides detailed insight into the brain mechanisms of anxiety and self-blame, the authors say there are some limitations to keep in mind. The study focused on healthy volunteers with subclinical anxiety, rather than patients with a formal diagnosis of mental illness. The observed pattern may be different in individuals with a long-term clinical history of severe anxiety or depression.
“Our study was carried out on a sample of patients with subclinical anxiety, so it remains to be seen whether similar differences in behavior and brain processes are found in patients diagnosed with anxiety disorders,” said lead author Maya Visser, associate professor at the Department of Basic Psychology, Clinical Psychology and Psychobiology at Jaume I University. “In fact, we are currently awaiting the results of the grant application we submitted for such a project.”
The identified neural activity may not be entirely specific to self-blame, as the imaging part of the brain contrasts an individual’s memories of guilt with neutral memories. The brain networks highlighted in the study may also be activated during other highly negative emotions. Additionally, the behavioral task was translated into Spanish, and the Spanish word for guilt can also mean remorse, limiting the ability to distinguish lexically between these two specific concepts.
The researchers suggest that future longitudinal studies should follow individuals over time to see if these patterns predict the development of more severe clinical disorders. “If we can replicate this finding in clinical samples, our study, combined with previous studies in depressed patients, could contribute to the establishment of transdiagnostic neuroimaging biomarkers of self-blame,” Visser said. “Such tools could help us better understand what is happening in patients’ brains during the course of various pharmacological and psychological treatments.”
The study, “Clinical anxiety is associated with decreased self-distancing and enhanced self-blame-related connectivity between the anterior temporal and subgenual cingulate cortices,” was authored by Michal Rafal Zareba, Ivan González-García, Marcos Ibáñez Montolio, Richard J. Binney, Paul Hoffman, and Maya Visser.
