Measuring inter-individual differences in stress sensitivity during MR-guided prostate biopsy

People often experience high level of distress during invasive interventions, which may exceed their coping abilities. This may be in particular evident when confronted with the suspicion of cancer. Taking the example of prostate biopsy sampling, we aimed at investigating the impact of an MRI guided prostate biopsy on the acute stress response and its mechanistic basis.
We recruited 20 men with a clinical suspicion of prostate cancer. Next to an MRI guided biopsy procedure, we simultaneously conducted fMRI to assess resting-state brain connectivity. Physiological and hormonal stress measures were taken during the procedure and associated with questionnaires, hair cortisol levels and brain measures to elucidate mechanistic factors for elevated stress.
As expected, patients reported a stress-related change in affect. Decreased positive affect was associated with higher hair but not saliva cortisol concentration. Stronger use of maladaptive emotion regulation techniques, elevated depression scores and higher within-salience-network connectivity was associated with stronger increase in negative affect and/or decrease of positive affect during the procedure.
While being limited in its generalization due to age, sample size and gender, our proof of concept study demonstrates the utility of real-life stressors and large-scale brain network measures in stress regulation research with potential impact in clinical practice.