Birkbeck University of London, London, UK.
Biol Psychol. 2011 Mar;86(3):337-48. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2010.12.013. Epub 2011 Jan 26.
We investigated the neural correlates of cognitive effort/pre-target preparation (Contingent Negative Variation activity; CNV) in anxiety using a mixed antisaccade task that manipulated the interval between offset of instructional cue and onset of target (CTI). According to attentional control theory (Eysenck et al., 2007) we predicted that anxiety should result in increased levels of compensatory effort, as indicated by greater frontal CNV, to maintain comparable levels of performance under competing task demands. Our results showed that anxiety resulted in faster antisaccade latencies during medium compared with short and long CTIs. Accordingly, high-anxious individuals compared with low-anxious individuals showed greater levels of CNV activity at frontal sites during medium CTI suggesting that they exerted greater cognitive effort and invested more attentional resources in preparation for the task goal. Our results are the first to demonstrate the neural correlates of processing efficiency and compensatory effort in anxiety and are discussed within the framework of attentional control theory.
我们使用混合反扫视任务来研究焦虑症的认知努力/预目标准备（条件负变活动；CNV）的神经相关性，该任务通过改变指导线索和目标出现之间的间隔（CTI）来操纵。根据注意控制理论（Eysenck 等人，2007），我们预测焦虑症应该会导致代偿性努力水平增加，表现为在竞争任务需求下保持可比的表现，这表明更大的额 CNV。我们的结果表明，在中 CTI 期间，与短和长 CTI 相比，焦虑症患者的反扫视潜伏期更快。相应地，与低焦虑个体相比，高焦虑个体在中 CTI 期间在前额区域显示出更大水平的 CNV 活动，这表明他们在任务目标的准备过程中投入了更多的认知努力和注意力资源。我们的结果首次证明了焦虑症中处理效率和代偿性努力的神经相关性，并在注意控制理论框架内进行了讨论。
