RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Sex differences in brain correlates of STEM anxiety
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 528075
DO 10.1101/528075
A1 Ariel A. Gonzalez
A1 Katherine L. Bottenhorn
A1 Jessica E. Bartley
A1 Timothy Hayes
A1 Michael C. Riedel
A1 Taylor Salo
A1 Elsa I. Bravo
A1 Rosalie Odean
A1 Alina Nazareth
A1 Robert W. Laird
A1 Matthew T. Sutherland
A1 Eric Brewe
A1 Shannon M. Pruden
A1 Angela R. Laird
YR 2019
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/01/23/528075.abstract
AB Anxiety is known to dysregulate the salience, default mode, and central executive networks of the human brain, yet this phenomenon has not been fully explored across the STEM learning experience, where anxiety can impact negatively academic performance. Here, we evaluated anxiety and large-scale brain connectivity in 101 undergraduate physics students. We found sex differences in STEM-related but not clinical anxiety, with longitudinal increases in science anxiety observed for both female and male students. Sex-specific impacts of STEM anxiety on brain connectivity emerged, with male students exhibiting distinct inter-network connectivity for STEM and clinical anxiety and female students demonstrating no significant within-sex correlations. Anxiety was negatively correlated with academic performance in sex-specific ways at both pre- and post-instruction. Moreover, math anxiety in male students mediated the relation between default mode-salience connectivity and course grade. Together, these results reveal complex sex differences in the neural mechanisms driving how anxiety impacts STEM learning.