Anxiety makes time pass quicker: neural correlates

Anxiety can be adaptive, but at a cost. One theory suggests that whilst anxiety promotes harm-avoidant cognitive processing, it impairs concurrent (non-harm-related) processing by commandeering finite neurocognitive resources. Our previous work has shown that anxiety reliably 'speeds up time', promoting temporal underestimation, possibly due to a loss of temporal information. Whether this results from anxiety overloading neurocognitive systems involved in time processing remains unclear. Here, we examined whether anxiety and time processing overlap, particularly in regions of the cingulate cortex. Across two studies (an exploratory Study 1, N = 13, informing a pre-registered Study 2, N = 29), we combined a well-established anxiety manipulation (threat of shock) with a temporal bisection task while participants underwent fMRI. Consistent with our previous findings, time was perceived to pass more quickly under anxiety. Anxiety induction led to widespread activation in the cingulate cortex, while perceiving longer intervals was associated with more circumscribed activation in a mid-cingulate region. Importantly, conjunction analysis revealed convergence between anxiety and time processing in the insula and mid-cingulate cortex. These results tentatively support the idea that anxiety overloads already-engaged neural resources. In particular, overloading mid-cingulate capacity may drive emotion-related changes in temporal perception, consistent with its hypothesised role in mediating responses to anxiety.