Charpentier Caroline J, Hindocha Chandni, Roiser Jonathan P, Robinson Oliver J
Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London WC1N 3AR, UK.
Affective Brain Lab, Department of Experimental Psychology, University College London, London WC1H 0AP, UK.
Sci Rep. 2016 Apr 21;6:24746. doi: 10.1038/srep24746.
Pathological anxiety is associated with disrupted cognitive processing, including working memory and decision-making. In healthy individuals, experimentally-induced state anxiety or high trait anxiety often results in the deployment of adaptive harm-avoidant behaviours. However, how these processes affect cognition is largely unknown. To investigate this question, we implemented a translational within-subjects anxiety induction, threat of shock, in healthy participants reporting a wide range of trait anxiety scores. Participants completed a gambling task, embedded within an emotional working memory task, with some blocks under unpredictable threat and others safe from shock. Relative to the safe condition, threat of shock improved recall of threat-congruent (fearful) face location, especially in highly trait anxious participants. This suggests that threat boosts working memory for mood-congruent stimuli in vulnerable individuals, mirroring memory biases in clinical anxiety. By contrast, Bayesian analysis indicated that gambling decisions were better explained by models that did not include threat or treat anxiety, suggesting that: (i) higher-level executive functions are robust to these anxiety manipulations; and (ii) decreased risk-taking may be specific to pathological anxiety. These findings provide insight into the complex interactions between trait anxiety, acute state anxiety and cognition, and may help understand the cognitive mechanisms underlying adaptive anxiety.
病理性焦虑与认知加工紊乱有关，包括工作记忆和决策。在健康个体中，实验诱导的状态焦虑或高特质焦虑通常会导致适应性伤害回避行为的出现。然而，这些过程如何影响认知在很大程度上尚不清楚。为了研究这个问题，我们在报告了广泛特质焦虑分数的健康参与者中实施了一种转化性的受试者内焦虑诱导——电击威胁。参与者完成了一项嵌入在情绪工作记忆任务中的赌博任务，一些组块处于不可预测的威胁之下，而其他组块则无电击风险。相对于安全条件，电击威胁提高了对威胁一致（恐惧）面孔位置的回忆，尤其是在高特质焦虑的参与者中。这表明威胁增强了易受影响个体中与情绪一致刺激的工作记忆，反映了临床焦虑中的记忆偏差。相比之下，贝叶斯分析表明，赌博决策由不包括威胁或特质焦虑的模型能更好地解释，这表明：（i）高级执行功能对这些焦虑操纵具有鲁棒性；（ii）冒险行为减少可能是病理性焦虑所特有的。这些发现为特质焦虑、急性状态焦虑和认知之间的复杂相互作用提供了见解，并可能有助于理解适应性焦虑背后的认知机制。
