Department of Clinical Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Weesperplein 4, 1018 XA Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Biol Psychol. 2013 Feb;92(2):342-52. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2012.11.006. Epub 2012 Nov 19.
Trait anxiety is a well-established risk factor for developing anxiety disorders, but evidence for abnormal associative fear learning in high trait anxious (HTA) individuals is inconclusive. In part, this may due to limitations in the scope and measures used to assess fear learning. The current study therefore assessed fear learning across multiple response domains and multiple test phases in a two-day discriminative fear-conditioning paradigm. We tested whether trait anxiety is associated with deficient safety learning, by comparing HTA individuals (N=20) and healthy Controls (N=22). HTA participants showed stronger fear on the startle response and distress ratings to the safety (CS(-)) but not to the threat stimulus (CS(+)) during acquisition, along with impaired extinction and re-extinction. Trait anxiety did not affect skin conductance responses and effects on UCS-expectancy were limited. We conclude that high trait anxiety may be characterized by deficient safety learning which in turn may promote persistent and generalized fear responses.
特质焦虑是发展为焦虑障碍的一个既定风险因素，但高特质焦虑（HTA）个体存在异常的关联恐惧学习的证据尚无定论。部分原因可能是评估恐惧学习的范围和方法存在局限性。因此，本研究在两天的辨别性恐惧条件作用范式中，在多个反应域和多个测试阶段评估了恐惧学习。我们通过比较 HTA 个体（N=20）和健康对照组（N=22），来测试特质焦虑是否与安全学习缺陷有关。在获得过程中，HTA 参与者在 startle 反应和对安全刺激（CS(-)）的痛苦评分上表现出更强的恐惧，但对威胁刺激（CS(+)）没有恐惧，同时还存在消退和再消退受损。特质焦虑并不影响皮肤电反应，对 UCS 预期的影响也有限。我们的结论是，高特质焦虑可能表现为安全学习缺陷，这反过来又可能导致持续和广泛的恐惧反应。
