5. Attenuated Safety-Related vmPFC Activation is Associated With Pervasively Elevated Real-World Distress

Recognizing safety is crucial for adaptive emotion regulation; aberrant safety processing confers risk for internalizing disorders. Mechanistic and neuroimaging evidence highlight the potential importance of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), but the relevance of these discoveries to everyday emotion remains unexplored. To address this fundamental question, we used a combination of neuroimaging and smartphone digital phenotyping to test whether diminished vmPFC safety signaling is associated with pervasively elevated distress.