Functional connectivity between the seed region in the right amygdala and several regions in the frontal cortex increased from pre- to post-intervention in GAD patients who underwent the MBSR program (N = 15), but not in those who underwent the SME class (N = 11). Anatomical location displayed on an inflated surface with FreeSurfer cortex parcellations (top row), regression coefficients extracted from the clusters from the MBSR (black) and SME (blue) participants at pre- and post-interventions (middle row) and scatter plots of regression coefficients (y-axis) and Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI, x-axis) for MBSR and SME participants at post (bottom row) for the left rostral anterior cingulate cortex (ACC, column A, pre- to post increase in connectivity: p = 0.0002, multiple comparison corrections within mask of the frontal cortex/insula; correlation with BAI scores: ρ = − .229, ns, uncorrected), right superior frontal cortex (column B, pre–post increase: p = 0.04; correlation: ρ = − .470, p = .015), right rostral middle frontal cortex (column C, pre–post increase: p = 0.03; correlation: ρ = − .572, p = .002), and left rostral middle frontal cortex (column D, pre–post increase: p = 0.01; correlation: ρ = − .646, p < .001).