Department of Animals in Science and Society, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands; Rudolf Magnus Institute of Neuroscience, UMC Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Neuropsychologia. 2010 May;48(6):1598-606. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2010.01.027. Epub 2010 Feb 6.
Excessive levels of trait anxiety are a risk factor for psychiatric conditions, including anxiety disorders and substance abuse. High trait anxiety has been associated with altered cognitive functioning, in particular with an attentional bias towards aversive stimuli. Decision-making is a crucial aspect of cognitive functioning that relies on the correct processing and control of emotional stimuli. Interestingly, anxiety and decision-making share underlying neural substrates, involving cortico-limbic pathways, including the amygdala, striatum and medial and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices. In the present study, we investigated the relationship between trait anxiety, measured by the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, and complex decision-making, measured by the Iowa Gambling Task, in healthy male and female volunteers. The main focus of this study was the inclusion of gender as a discriminative factor. Indeed, we found distinct gender-specific effects of trait anxiety: in men, both low and high anxiety groups showed impaired decision-making compared to medium anxiety individuals, whereas in women only high anxiety individuals performed poorly. Furthermore, anxiety affected decision-making in men early in the task, i.e. the exploration phase, as opposed to an effect on performance in women during the second part of the test, i.e. the exploitation phase. These findings were related to different profiles of trait anxiety in men and women, and were independent of performance in the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test and cortisol levels. Our data show gender-specific effects of trait anxiety on emotional decision-making. We suggest gender-specific endophenotypes of anxiety to exist, that differentially affect cognitive functioning.
特质焦虑水平过高是精神疾病的一个风险因素，包括焦虑症和药物滥用。高特质焦虑与认知功能改变有关，特别是对厌恶刺激的注意力偏向。决策是认知功能的一个关键方面，它依赖于对情绪刺激的正确处理和控制。有趣的是，焦虑和决策有共同的潜在神经基础，涉及皮质-边缘通路，包括杏仁核、纹状体以及内侧和背外侧前额叶皮质。在本研究中，我们调查了特质焦虑（通过状态-特质焦虑量表测量）与复杂决策（通过爱荷华赌博任务测量）之间的关系，研究对象为健康的男性和女性志愿者。本研究的主要重点是将性别纳入鉴别因素。事实上，我们发现特质焦虑存在明显的性别特异性影响：在男性中，低焦虑和高焦虑组的决策能力都比中焦虑个体差，而在女性中只有高焦虑个体表现不佳。此外，焦虑在男性中影响任务的早期决策，即探索阶段，而在女性中则影响测试的第二部分，即利用阶段的表现。这些发现与男性和女性特质焦虑的不同模式有关，与威斯康星卡片分类测试和皮质醇水平的表现无关。我们的数据显示，特质焦虑对情绪决策有性别特异性影响。我们建议存在焦虑的性别特异性内表型，它们会以不同的方式影响认知功能。
