The effect of anxiety on mathematical thinking: An fMRI study on 12th-grade students

During adolescence, anxiety may rise more significantly due to factors such as academic achievement and has a negative impact on learning and thinking skills. Adolescents with higher levels of math anxiety need more time to analyse and repress or miss the solutions when they are presented with even the simplest arithmetic problems. fMRI is being used for investigating cognitive processes such as learning, memory, and creativity and emotional states such as anxiety. However, there is a lack of research focusing on fMRI studies on the relationships between anxiety and brain functions in adolescence. The purpose of this study was to demonstrate the relationship between anxiety and mathematical thinking capabilities of the 12th-grade students in Turkey. Initially, 68 12th-grade students were surveyed by state-trait anxiety inventory and perceived stress scale. Participants who were in the highest 20 % (n1 = 9) and the lowest 20 % (n2 = 14) groups (n = 23) were selected for the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study. The modifications of participants’ cerebral activation patterns were monitored via a 3 T MRI scanner while solving six mathematics questions. Subsequently, the data were analysed to reveal how anxiety levels correlate with brain activations and academic achievement. Activity in the frontal cortex of all participants increased during the use of mathematical skills. However, a significantly higher level of increment –intensively in the right frontal cortex- was detected on the participants with high anxiety. No statistically significant difference was observed between academic achievements and anxiety levels of the subjects.