Department of Psychology, Brock University, St. Catharines, ON, Canada.
Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci. 2022 Apr;22(2):328-340. doi: 10.3758/s13415-021-00957-y. Epub 2021 Nov 1.
Threat sensitivity is thought to be a precursor for anxiety. Yet it remains unknown whether individuals have consistently high neural activation to different threatening situations. The current study (N = 161, M = 11.26, SD = 1.79) used three ERPs from different threat-related events: 1) the P3 to receiving negative feedback; 2) the ERN to making mistakes; 3) the N170 to viewing angry faces. Participants also completed self-report measures of threat sensitivity, impulsivity, and demographics. In a follow-up analysis, we also investigated whether the results replicate when using the difference score for each ERP. Youth with higher self-reported sensitivity to threats and lower self-reported impulsivity had consistently higher neural activation to threatening situations. Males also had consistently higher neural activation to threats compared with females. When using the difference score, we found that youth with higher self-reported threat sensitivity had consistently higher neural activation to threats than nonthreats. Although it is common for youth to have high neural activation during at least one threatening situation (e.g., making mistakes), only ~12% of youth have consistently high neural activation across a variety of different threats. Thus, detecting youth who are sensitive to a variety of different threats may be an important avenue to investigate to identify youth most at risk for the development of anxiety.
威胁敏感性被认为是焦虑的前兆。然而，目前尚不清楚个体是否对不同的威胁情况始终保持着较高的神经激活。本研究（N=161，M=11.26，SD=1.79）使用了三种来自不同威胁相关事件的 ERP：1）对负面反馈的 P3；2）对犯错的 ERN；3）对愤怒面孔的 N170。参与者还完成了威胁敏感性、冲动性和人口统计学的自我报告测量。在后续分析中，我们还研究了当使用每个 ERP 的差值分数时，结果是否可以复制。自我报告对威胁更敏感且自我报告冲动性较低的年轻人对威胁情况的神经激活始终较高。与女性相比，男性对威胁的神经激活也始终较高。当使用差值分数时，我们发现自我报告威胁敏感性较高的年轻人对威胁的神经激活始终高于非威胁。尽管在至少一种威胁情况下，年轻人的神经激活很常见（例如，犯错），但只有约 12%的年轻人在各种不同的威胁下始终保持着较高的神经激活。因此，检测对各种不同威胁敏感的年轻人可能是一个重要的途径，可以识别最有可能发展为焦虑的年轻人。
