Dispositional negativity, cognition, and anxiety disorders: An integrative translational neuroscience framework

Neuroticism/negative emotionality is associated with increased reactivity to uncertain threat in the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, not the amygdala

Neuroticism/Negative Emotionality (N/NE)-the tendency to experience anxiety, fear, and other negative emotions-is a fundamental dimension of temperament with profound consequences for health, wealth, and wellbeing. Elevated N/NE is associated with a panoply of adverse outcomes, from reduced socioeconomic attainment to psychiatric illness. Animal research suggests that N/NE reflects heightened reactivity to uncertain threat in the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BST) and central nucleus of the amygdala (Ce), but the relevance of these discoveries to humans has remained unclear. Here we used a novel combination of psychometric, psychophysiological, and neuroimaging approaches to rigorously test this hypothesis in an ethnoracially diverse, sex-balanced sample of 220 emerging adults selectively recruited to encompass a broad spectrum of N/NE. Cross-validated robust-regression analyses demonstrated that N/NE is preferentially associated with heightened BST activation during the uncertain anticipation of a genuinely distressing threat (aversive multimodal stimulation), whereas N/NE was unrelated to BST activation during certain-threat anticipation, Ce activation during either type of threat anticipation, or BST/Ce reactivity to threat-related faces. It is often assumed that different threat paradigms are interchangeable assays of individual differences in brain function, yet this has rarely been tested. Our results revealed negligible associations between BST/Ce reactivity to the anticipation of threat and the presentation of threat-related faces, indicating that the two tasks are non-fungible. These observations provide a framework for conceptualizing emotional traits and disorders; for guiding the design and interpretation of biobank and other neuroimaging studies of psychiatric risk, disease, and treatment; and for informing mechanistic research.

Annual Research Review: Neuroimmune network model of depression: a developmental perspective

Depression is a serious public health problem, and adolescence is an 'age of risk' for the onset of Major Depressive Disorder. Recently, we and others have proposed neuroimmune network models that highlight bidirectional communication between the brain and the immune system in both mental and physical health, including depression. These models draw on research indicating that the cellular actors (particularly monocytes) and signaling molecules (particularly cytokines) that orchestrate inflammation in the periphery can directly modulate the structure and function of the brain. In the brain, inflammatory activity heightens sensitivity to threats in the cortico-amygdala circuit, lowers sensitivity to rewards in the cortico-striatal circuit, and alters executive control and emotion regulation in the prefrontal cortex. When dysregulated, and particularly under conditions of chronic stress, inflammation can generate feelings of dysphoria, distress, and anhedonia. This is proposed to initiate unhealthy, self-medicating behaviors (e.g. substance use, poor diet) to manage the dysphoria, which further heighten inflammation. Over time, dysregulation in these brain circuits and the inflammatory response may compound each other to form a positive feedback loop, whereby dysregulation in one organ system exacerbates the other. We and others suggest that this neuroimmune dysregulation is a dynamic joint vulnerability for depression, particularly during adolescence. We have three goals for the present paper. First, we extend neuroimmune network models of mental and physical health to generate a developmental framework of risk for the onset of depression during adolescence. Second, we examine how a neuroimmune network perspective can help explain the high rates of comorbidity between depression and other psychiatric disorders across development, and multimorbidity between depression and stress-related medical illnesses. Finally, we consider how identifying neuroimmune pathways to depression can facilitate a 'next generation' of behavioral and biological interventions that target neuroimmune signaling to treat, and ideally prevent, depression in youth and adolescents.

Social anxiety of the citizens of Kazakhstan: The dynamics of change and its impact on public consciousness

The purpose of the study is to analyze the factors associated with the formation of social anxiety and to explore trends in their impact on society in the Republic of Kazakhstan. The authors have used comparative, descriptive, and deductive methods to achieve the research goals. The results of the study determined that anxiety phenomena have become increasingly common over time and social anxiety is one of the most dangerous due to its degree of limitation. The vast majority of people experience some form of social anxiety, which occurs when distorted reality intervenes and certain moments signalize as dangerous. As a product of individual experience and sociopolitical construct, fear becomes the element organizing the state order. The social aspects are notably relevant to the process when the common sense of public consciousness puts security in the foreground as a matter of the greatest importance and urgency.

Dispositional traits help explain individual differences in relationships between a radiographic knee osteoarthritis measure, pain, and physical function

Background

The concordance between radiograph-derived Kellgren-Lawrence (KL) scores for knee osteoarthritis (KOA) and experimental and clinical pain and KOA-related physical function is conflicting.

Objectives

We investigate whether the inclusion of dispositional traits reduces variability between KOA radiographic findings, experimental pain, clinical pain, and function in individuals with knee pain.

Design

This study is a cross-sectional, secondary analysis of data collected from the UPLOAD-II study.

Methods

Adults aged 45-85 years with and without knee pain were enrolled. Data collected included sociodemographics, knee radiographs, experimental pain, clinical pain and function, and trait affect. Vulnerable and protective dispositional traits were classified from combined positive and negative trait affect measures. KL scores were determined from the knee radiographs. Unadjusted and adjusted (age, sex, comorbidities, and body mass index) regression analyses were completed with SAS version 9.4 (Cary, NC, USA).

Results

The study included 218 individuals with a mean age of 58 years, 63.6% women, and 48.2% non-Hispanic black adults. Dispositional traits were associated with the experimental pain measures. No association between radiographic KOA and experimental pain was observed. In a combined and adjusted analysis, dispositional traits were predictive of knee punctate pain temporal summation (p = 0.0382). Both dispositional traits and radiographic KOA scores independently and combined were predictive of Graded Chronic Pain Scale pain and function, and Western Ontario and McMaster University pain and function (ps ⩽ 0.01). Improvements in R2 were noted across all models with the inclusion of dispositional traits.

Conclusion

Consideration of dispositional traits reduces the variability between radiographic KOA and pain and function. Non-pathological and associated pain-related psychological factors and dispositional traits might serve as parsimonious proxy tools to improve clinical assessments.

Registration

N/A.

Effects of acute stress and depression on functional connectivity between prefrontal cortex and the amygdala

Stress is known to be a significant risk factor for the development of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), yet the neural mechanisms that underlie this risk are poorly understood. Prior work has heavily implicated the corticolimbic system in the pathophysiology of MDD. In particular, the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and amygdala play a central role in regulating the response to stress, with dorsal PFC and ventral PFC exhibiting reciprocal excitatory and inhibitory influences on amygdala subregions. However, it remains unclear how best to disentangle the impact of stress from the impact of current MDD symptoms on this system. Here, we examined stress-induced changes in resting state functional connectivity (rsFC) within an a priori corticolimbic network in MDD patients and healthy controls (total n = 80) before and after an acute stressor or a "no stress" control condition. Using graph theoretic analysis, we found that connectivity between basolateral amygdala and dorsal prefrontal nodes of the corticolimbic network had a negative association with individual differences in chronic perceived stress at baseline. Following the acute stressor, healthy individuals showed a reduction of the amygdala node strength, while MDD patients exhibited little change. Finally, dorsal PFC-particularly dorsomedial PFC- connectivity to the basolateral amygdala was associated with the strength of the basolateral amygdala responses to loss feedback during a reinforcement learning task. These findings highlight attenuated connectivity between basolateral amygdala and prefrontal cortex in patients with MDD. In healthy individuals, acute stress exposure was found to push the corticolimbic network to a "stress-phenotype" that may be chronically present in patients with current depression and high levels of perceived stress. In sum, these results help to identify circuit mechanisms underlying the effects of acute stress and their role in mood disorders.

Introduction to the special issue on the Neurobiology of Human Fear and Anxiety

Pathological fear and anxiety are a leading cause of human misery and morbidity, afflicting millions of individuals worldwide. Yet existing treatments are inconsistently effective or associated with significant adverse effects, underscoring the urgency of developing a more complete understanding of the neural systems governing fear and anxiety in humans. This emphasis reflects the fact that fear and anxiety disorders are defined and diagnosed based on subjective symptoms, and human studies are essential for understanding the neural mechanisms that underlie the experience of fear and anxiety. Human studies are also crucial for identifying the features of animal models that are conserved and, hence, most relevant to human disease and treatment development ('forward translation'). Finally, human studies afford opportunities for developing objective biomarkers of disease or disease risk, accelerating the development of new diagnostic and treatment strategies, and generating novel hypotheses that can be mechanistically assessed in animal models ('reverse translation'). The present Special Issue-The Neurobiology of Human Fear and Anxiety-provides a concise survey of recent progress in this burgeoning area of research. Here we provide an Introduction to the Special Issue, highlighting some of the most significant and exciting advances.

Calibrating your own fears: Feasibility of a remote fear conditioning paradigm with semi-subjective stimulus calibration and differences in fear learning

Fear conditioning studies have occurred mostly in the laboratory, but recently researchers have started to adapt fear conditioning procedures for remote application. Standardization of aversive stimulus material not causing unnecessarily strong discomfort remains an issue especially relevant to research without experimental supervision. The present study introduces a novel semi-subjective method to calibrate aversive sounds in a remotely conducted fear conditioning paradigm. To demonstrate feasibility and proof of concept, 165 participants completed the paradigm, calibrating the loudness of an aversive sound without the guidance of an experimental instructor. This study also aimed to replicate existing findings of participant groups that differed in their early CS-UCS contingency awareness. Participants were classified as Accurate (UCS more likely after the CS+ than CS-), Poor (UCS more likely after the CS- than CS+, or UCS unlikely after either CS), and Threat Biased (UCS equally likely after the CS+ and CS-). Results indicated both the feasibility and efficacy of the paradigm, with participants showing typical patterns of fear learning. Threat Biased participants showed significantly higher uncertainty towards safety signals. There were no differences between the groups in terms of personality traits, thus questioning whether these attributes mediate differences in fear learning and the emergence of anxiety disorders. Using semi-subjective sound calibration appears to be functional, and future studies may consider implementing the new method when remotely administering fear conditioning paradigms.

Understanding anxiety symptoms as aberrant defensive responding along the threat imminence continuum

Threat-anticipatory defensive responses have evolved to promote survival in a dynamic world. While inherently adaptive, aberrant expression of defensive responses to potential threat could manifest as pathological anxiety, which is prevalent, impairing, and associated with adverse outcomes. Extensive translational neuroscience research indicates that normative defensive responses are organized by threat imminence, such that distinct response patterns are observed in each phase of threat encounter and orchestrated by partially conserved neural circuitry. Anxiety symptoms, such as excessive and pervasive worry, physiological arousal, and avoidance behavior, may reflect aberrant expression of otherwise normative defensive responses, and therefore follow the same imminence-based organization. Here, empirical evidence linking aberrant expression of specific, imminence-dependent defensive responding to distinct anxiety symptoms is reviewed, and plausible contributing neural circuitry is highlighted. Drawing from translational and clinical research, the proposed framework informs our understanding of pathological anxiety by grounding anxiety symptoms in conserved psychobiological mechanisms. Potential implications for research and treatment are discussed.

Acute nicotine abstinence amplifies subjective withdrawal symptoms and threat-evoked fear and anxiety, but not extended amygdala reactivity

Tobacco smoking imposes a staggering burden on public health, underscoring the urgency of developing a deeper understanding of the processes that maintain addiction. Clinical and experience-sampling data highlight the importance of anxious withdrawal symptoms, but the underlying neurobiology has remained elusive. Mechanistic work in animals implicates the central extended amygdala (EAc)-including the central nucleus of the amygdala and the neighboring bed nucleus of the stria terminalis-but the translational relevance of these discoveries remains unexplored. Here we leveraged a randomized trial design, well-established threat-anticipation paradigm, and multidimensional battery of assessments to understand the consequences of 24-hour nicotine abstinence. The threat-anticipation paradigm had the expected consequences, amplifying subjective distress and arousal, and recruiting the canonical threat-anticipation network. Abstinence increased smoking urges and withdrawal symptoms, and potentiated threat-evoked distress, but had negligible consequences for EAc threat reactivity, raising questions about the translational relevance of prominent animal and human models of addiction. These observations provide a framework for conceptualizing nicotine abstinence and withdrawal, with implications for basic, translational, and clinical science.

Connecting Circuits with Networks in Addiction Neuroscience: A Salience Network Perspective

Human neuroimaging has demonstrated the existence of large-scale functional networks in the cerebral cortex consisting of topographically distant brain regions with functionally correlated activity. The salience network (SN), which is involved in detecting salient stimuli and mediating inter-network communication, is a crucial functional network that is disrupted in addiction. Individuals with addiction display dysfunctional structural and functional connectivity of the SN. Furthermore, while there is a growing body of evidence regarding the SN, addiction, and the relationship between the two, there are still many unknowns, and there are fundamental limitations to human neuroimaging studies. At the same time, advances in molecular and systems neuroscience techniques allow researchers to manipulate neural circuits in nonhuman animals with increasing precision. Here, we describe attempts to translate human functional networks to nonhuman animals to uncover circuit-level mechanisms. To do this, we review the structural and functional connections of the salience network and its homology across species. We then describe the existing literature in which circuit-specific perturbation of the SN sheds light on how functional cortical networks operate, both within and outside the context of addiction. Finally, we highlight key outstanding opportunities for mechanistic studies of the SN.

The Nature and Neurobiology of Fear and Anxiety: State of the Science and Opportunities for Accelerating Discovery

Fear and anxiety play a central role in mammalian life, and there is considerable interest in clarifying their nature, identifying their biological underpinnings, and determining their consequences for health and disease. Here we provide a roundtable discussion on the nature and biological bases of fear- and anxiety-related states, traits, and disorders. The discussants include scientists familiar with a wide variety of populations and a broad spectrum of techniques. The goal of the roundtable was to take stock of the state of the science and provide a roadmap to the next generation of fear and anxiety research. Much of the discussion centered on the key challenges facing the field, the most fruitful avenues for future research, and emerging opportunities for accelerating discovery, with implications for scientists, funders, and other stakeholders. Understanding fear and anxiety is a matter of practical importance. Anxiety disorders are a leading burden on public health and existing treatments are far from curative, underscoring the urgency of developing a deeper understanding of the factors governing threat-related emotions.

A Neurobiological Profile Underlying Comorbidity Load and Prospective Increases in Dysphoria in a Focal Fear Sample

BACKGROUND

Knowledge of the neural mechanisms underlying increased disease burden in anxiety disorders that is unaccounted for by individual categorical diagnoses could lead to improved clinical care. Here, we tested the utility of a joint functional magnetic resonance imaging-electroencephalography neurobiological profile characterized by overvaluation of negative stimuli (amygdala) in combination with blunted elaborated processing of these same stimuli (the late positive potential [LPP], an event-related potential) in predicting increased psychopathology across a 2-year period in people with anxiety disorders.

METHODS

One hundred ten participants (64 female, 45 male, 1 other) including 78 participants with phobias who varied in the extent of their internalizing comorbidity and 32 participants who were free from psychopathology viewed negative and neutral pictures during separate functional magnetic resonance imaging blood oxygen level-dependent and electroencephalogram recordings. Dysphoria was assessed at baseline and 2 years later.

RESULTS

Participants with both heightened amygdala activation and blunted LPPs to negative pictures showed the greatest increases in dysphoria 2 years later. Cross-sectionally, participants with higher comorbidity load (≥2 additional diagnoses, n = 34) showed increased amygdala activation to negative pictures compared with participants with lower comorbidity load (≤1 additional diagnosis, n = 44) and compared with participants free from psychopathology. In addition, high comorbid participants showed reduced LPPs to negative pictures compared with low comorbid participants.

CONCLUSIONS

Heightened amygdala in response to negative stimuli in combination with blunted LPPs could indicate overvaluation of threatening stimuli in the absence of elaborated processing that might otherwise help regulate threat responding. This brain profile could underlie the worsening and maintenance of internalizing psychopathology over time.

Anxiety onset in adolescents: a machine-learning prediction

Recent longitudinal studies in youth have reported MRI correlates of prospective anxiety symptoms during adolescence, a vulnerable period for the onset of anxiety disorders. However, their predictive value has not been established. Individual prediction through machine-learning algorithms might help bridge the gap to clinical relevance. A voting classifier with Random Forest, Support Vector Machine and Logistic Regression algorithms was used to evaluate the predictive pertinence of gray matter volumes of interest and psychometric scores in the detection of prospective clinical anxiety. Participants with clinical anxiety at age 18-23 (N = 156) were investigated at age 14 along with healthy controls (N = 424). Shapley values were extracted for in-depth interpretation of feature importance. Prospective prediction of pooled anxiety disorders relied mostly on psychometric features and achieved moderate performance (area under the receiver operating curve = 0.68), while generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) prediction achieved similar performance. MRI regional volumes did not improve the prediction performance of prospective pooled anxiety disorders with respect to psychometric features alone, but they improved the prediction performance of GAD, with the caudate and pallidum volumes being among the most contributing features. To conclude, in non-anxious 14 year old adolescents, future clinical anxiety onset 4-8 years later could be individually predicted. Psychometric features such as neuroticism, hopelessness and emotional symptoms were the main contributors to pooled anxiety disorders prediction. Neuroanatomical data, such as caudate and pallidum volume, proved valuable for GAD and should be included in prospective clinical anxiety prediction in adolescents.

An emotion-eliciting version of the Hayling Sentence Completion Test

INTRODUCTION

Executive functions comprise a suite of higher-order cognitive processes, which interact with other processes, such as emotion, to drive goal-directed behavior. The Hayling Sentence Completion Test is a widely used standard neuropsychological tool to measure executive functions, namely verbal initiation and suppression. The current studies aimed to establish and validate an emotion-eliciting version of the Hayling Sentence Completion Test, in order to examine the executive processes of initiation and suppression in an emotional context. Study 1 aimed to provide a quantitative evaluation of the emotional content of the Emotional Hayling Test. Study 2 investigated the differences between the Standard and Emotional Hayling Tests, and explored how performance relates to specific emotional properties of the sentences within the Emotional Hayling.

METHODS

Study 1 included N = 100 participants, who were asked to rate each Emotional Hayling Sentence stem in terms of valence (pleasant-unpleasant) and arousal (intensity: low-high). Study 2 included N = 204 participants who completed the Emotional Hayling Test, along with other neuropsychological measures of cognitive and affective functioning.

RESULTS

As designed, the sentence stimuli in the Emotional Hayling were rated as significantly higher in absolute emotional valence and arousal, compared to the Standard Hayling (Study 1). Overall, initiation and suppression on the Emotional Hayling were significantly poorer than on the Standard Hayling (Study 2). Finally, within the Emotional Hayling, participants made more suppression errors in response to negative sentences compared to positive sentences, and this effect was present in younger but not older adults.

CONCLUSIONS

Reduced performance on the Emotional Hayling Test, particularly in response to negative sentences, is consistent with the emotional content placing increased demands on the executive function system. We present the Emotional Hayling Test as a promising clinical tool, with the potential to capture disruptions in emotional processing.

Sometimes I feel the fear of uncertainty: How intolerance of uncertainty and trait anxiety impact fear acquisition, extinction and the return of fear

It is hypothesized that the ability to discriminate between threat and safety is impaired in individuals with high dispositional negativity, resulting in maladaptive behavior. A large body of research investigated differential learning during fear conditioning and extinction protocols depending on individual differences in intolerance of uncertainty (IU) and trait anxiety (TA), two closely-related dimensions of dispositional negativity, with heterogenous results. These might be due to varying degrees of induced threat/safety uncertainty. Here, we compared two groups with high vs. low IU/TA during periods of low (instructed fear acquisition) and high levels of uncertainty (delayed non-instructed extinction training and reinstatement). Dependent variables comprised subjective (US expectancy, valence, arousal), psychophysiological (skin conductance response, SCR, and startle blink), and neural (fMRI BOLD) measures of threat responding. During fear acquisition, we found strong threat/safety discrimination for both groups. During early extinction (high uncertainty), the low IU/TA group showed an increased physiological response to the safety signal, resulting in a lack of CS discrimination. In contrast, the high IU/TA group showed strong initial threat/safety discrimination in physiology, lacking discriminative learning on startle, and reduced neural activation in regions linked to threat/safety processing throughout extinction training indicating sustained but non-adaptive and rigid responding. Similar neural patterns were found after the reinstatement test. Taken together, we provide evidence that high dispositional negativity, as indicated here by IU and TA, is associated with greater responding to threat cues during the beginning of delayed extinction, and, thus, demonstrates altered learning patterns under changing environments.

Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Stress-Induced Network Reconfigurations Reflect Negative Affectivity

BACKGROUND

Maladaptive stress responses are important risk factors in the etiology of mood and anxiety disorders, but exact pathomechanisms remain to be understood. Mapping individual differences of acute stress-induced neurophysiological changes, especially on the level of neural activation and functional connectivity (FC), could provide important insights in how variation in the individual stress response is linked to disease risk.

METHODS

Using an established psychosocial stress task flanked by two resting states, we measured subjective, physiological, and brain responses to acute stress and recovery in 217 participants with and without mood and anxiety disorders. To estimate blockwise changes in stress-induced activation and FC, we used hierarchical mixed-effects models based on denoised time series within predefined stress-related regions. We predicted inter- and intraindividual differences in stress phases (anticipation vs. stress vs. recovery) and transdiagnostic dimensions of stress reactivity using elastic net and support vector machines.

RESULTS

We identified four subnetworks showing distinct changes in FC over time. FC but not activation trajectories predicted the stress phase (accuracy = 70%, p_perm < .001) and increases in heart rate (R² = 0.075, p_perm < .001). Critically, individual spatiotemporal trajectories of changes across networks also predicted negative affectivity (ΔR² = 0.075, p_perm = .030) but not the presence or absence of a mood and anxiety disorder.

CONCLUSIONS

Spatiotemporal dynamics of brain network reconfiguration induced by stress reflect individual differences in the psychopathology dimension of negative affectivity. These results support the idea that vulnerability for mood and anxiety disorders can be conceptualized best at the level of network dynamics, which may pave the way for improved prediction of individual risk.

The prognostic utility of personality traits versus past psychiatric diagnoses: Predicting future mental health and functioning

Past psychiatric diagnoses are central to patient case formulation and prognosis. Recently, alternative classification models such as the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP) proposed to assess traits to predict clinically-relevant outcomes. The current study directly compared personality traits and past diagnoses as predictors of future mental health and functioning in three independent, prospective samples. Regression analyses found that personality traits significantly predicted future first onsets of psychiatric disorders (ΔR2=06-.15), symptom chronicity (ΔR2=.03-.06), and functioning (ΔR2=.02-.07), beyond past and current psychiatric diagnoses. Conversely, past psychiatric diagnoses did not provide an incremental prediction of outcomes when personality traits and other concurrent predictors were already included in the model. Overall, personality traits predicted a variety of outcomes in diverse settings, beyond diagnoses. Past diagnoses were generally not informative about future outcomes when personality was considered. Together, these findings support the added value of personality traits assessment in case formulation, consistent with HiTOP model.

The Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP) in psychiatric practice and research

The Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP) has emerged out of the quantitative approach to psychiatric nosology. This approach identifies psychopathology constructs based on patterns of co-variation among signs and symptoms. The initial HiTOP model, which was published in 2017, is based on a large literature that spans decades of research. HiTOP is a living model that undergoes revision as new data become available. Here we discuss advantages and practical considerations of using this system in psychiatric practice and research. We especially highlight limitations of HiTOP and ongoing efforts to address them. We describe differences and similarities between HiTOP and existing diagnostic systems. Next, we review the types of evidence that informed development of HiTOP, including populations in which it has been studied and data on its validity. The paper also describes how HiTOP can facilitate research on genetic and environmental causes of psychopathology as well as the search for neurobiologic mechanisms and novel treatments. Furthermore, we consider implications for public health programs and prevention of mental disorders. We also review data on clinical utility and illustrate clinical application of HiTOP. Importantly, the model is based on measures and practices that are already used widely in clinical settings. HiTOP offers a way to organize and formalize these techniques. This model already can contribute to progress in psychiatry and complement traditional nosologies. Moreover, HiTOP seeks to facilitate research on linkages between phenotypes and biological processes, which may enable construction of a system that encompasses both biomarkers and precise clinical description.

Anxiety-Related Frontocortical Activity Is Associated With Dampened Stressor Reactivity in the Real World

Negative affect is a fundamental dimension of human emotion. When extreme, it contributes to a variety of adverse outcomes, from physical and mental illness to divorce and premature death. Mechanistic work in animals and neuroimaging research in humans and monkeys have begun to reveal the broad contours of the neural circuits governing negative affect, but the relevance of these discoveries to everyday distress remains incompletely understood. Here, we used a combination of approaches-including neuroimaging assays of threat anticipation and emotional-face perception and more than 10,000 momentary assessments of emotional experience-to demonstrate that individuals who showed greater activation in a cingulo-opercular circuit during an anxiety-eliciting laboratory paradigm experienced lower levels of stressor-dependent distress in their daily lives (ns = 202-208 university students). Extended amygdala activation was not significantly related to momentary negative affect. These observations provide a framework for understanding the neurobiology of negative affect in the laboratory and in the real world.

Measuring maladaptive avoidance: from animal models to clinical anxiety

Avoiding stimuli that predict danger is required for survival. However, avoidance can become maladaptive in individuals who overestimate threat and thus avoid safe situations as well as dangerous ones. Excessive avoidance is a core feature of anxiety disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). This avoidance prevents patients from confronting maladaptive threat beliefs, thereby maintaining disordered anxiety. Avoidance is associated with high levels of psychosocial impairment yet is poorly understood at a mechanistic level. Many objective laboratory assessments of avoidance measure adaptive avoidance, in which an individual learns to successfully avoid a truly noxious stimulus. However, anxiety disorders are characterized by maladaptive avoidance, for which there are fewer objective laboratory measures. We posit that maladaptive avoidance behavior depends on a combination of three altered neurobehavioral processes: (1) threat appraisal, (2) habitual avoidance, and (3) trait avoidance tendency. This heterogeneity in underlying processes presents challenges to the objective measurement of maladaptive avoidance behavior. Here we first review existing paradigms for measuring avoidance behavior and its underlying neural mechanisms in both human and animal models, and identify how existing paradigms relate to these neurobehavioral processes. We then propose a new framework to improve the translational understanding of maladaptive avoidance behavior by adapting paradigms to better differentiate underlying processes and mechanisms and applying these paradigms in clinical populations across diagnoses with the goal of developing novel interventions to engage specific identified neurobehavioral targets.

Vulnerable Dispositional Traits and Chronic Pain: Predisposing but not Predetermining

Dispositional traits can be protective or contribute to increased vulnerability in individuals with chronic pain. This study aims to evaluate the association between two dispositional trait measures, affect balance style and multi-domain trait groups, with psychosocial measures, clinical pain, functional pain, and experimental pain at two years in individuals with chronic knee pain. The study is a prospective analysis of 168 community dwelling individuals aged 45 to 85 years old with knee pain with or at risk for knee osteoarthritis. At baseline, affect balance style and multi-domain trait groups were associated with psychosocial measures, clinical pain, and functional status. At the two-year time point, the multi-domain trait groups were associated with the clinical pain measures. Interestingly, individuals with previously demonstrated vulnerable traits showed more variability in dispositional trait status at the two-year time point compared to those with dispositional traits previously demonstrated as more protective. Findings reiterate that dispositional traits are predisposing but are not predetermining regarding pain-related experiences. PERSPECTIVE: Vulnerable and protective dispositional traits are positively and negatively associated with clinical pain and functional limitations respectively. Although considered relatively stable, a 30-50% shift in dispositional traits was indicated over a two-year period. Findings highlight that dispositional trait are modifiable and thus, predisposing but not predetermining for persisting chronic pain.

Subiculum - BNST Structural Connectivity in Humans and Macaques

Invasive tract-tracing studies in rodents implicate a direct connection between the subiculum and bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) as a key component of neural pathways mediating hippocampal regulation of the Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) axis. A clear characterisation of the connections linking the subiculum and BNST in humans and non-human primates is lacking. To address this, we first delineated the projections from the subiculum to the BNST using anterograde tracers injected into macaque monkeys, revealing evidence for a monosynaptic subiculum-BNST projection involving the fornix. Second, we used in vivo diffusion MRI tractography in macaques and humans to demonstrate substantial subiculum complex connectivity to the BNST in both species. This connection was primarily carried by the fornix, with additional connectivity via the amygdala, consistent with rodent anatomy. Third, utilising the twin-based nature of our human sample, we found that microstructural properties of these tracts were moderately heritable (h² ∼ 0.5). In a final analysis, we found no evidence of any significant association between subiculum complex-BNST tract microstructure and indices of perceived stress/dispositional negativity and alcohol use, derived from principal component analysis decomposition of self-report data. Our findings address a key translational gap in our knowledge of the neurocircuitry regulating stress.

Subjective cognition in adults with common psychiatric classifications; a systematic review

The aim is to assess whether instruments developed to measure subjective cognitive complaints (SCCs) and in neurology and aging can reliably be used in ADHD and other common psychiatric classifications. MEDLINE, PsycINFO, CINAHL and EMBASE+EMBASE CLASSIC were searched for relevant work on SCCs in psychiatric classifications (ADHD, autism, mood disorders, schizophrenia) in two phases: 1 identify instruments, 2 relevant studies. 35 studies with varying study quality were included. SCCs are most commonly studied in ADHD and mood disorders, but are found in all psychiatric classifications. SCCs show inconsistent and low associations to objective cognition across disorders, but higher and consistent relations are found with behavioral outcomes. SCCs are not qualitatively different for ADHD compared to other psychiatric classifications, and should thus not be seen as analogous to well validated measures of objective cognition. However, SCCs do reflect suffering, behavioral difficulties and problems experienced by across those with psychiatric problems in daily life.

Virtual Reality for Health Care Professionals During a Pandemic: A Pilot Program

Objective:

The purpose of this pilot study was to evaluate the safety and use of a nature-based virtual reality (VR) experience among health care providers (HCP) during a pandemic.

Methods:

Twenty-four frontline HCP participated in this crossover pilot where the viewing order of the experiences were randomized. All participants attended in-person consent, baseline, and end-of-study visits. The intervention consisted of viewing 2 nature-based scenes (“walk in the woods” and “forest of focus”) through 3-D VR and with computer 4K graphic imagery. Randomization took place with regards to the viewing order (VR vs 4K computer video, scene 1 and 2). Outcomes measured were safety, acceptability and changes in intensity of anxiety feelings, resilience, emotional distress, cognitive function, and self-efficacy.

Results:

Among the 26 HCP expressing interest in the study, 24 enrolled in this study. The majority were male (58.3%), white (66.7%) and of an average age of 46.3 ± 10.5 years (standard deviation (SD)). End of the study survey showed that almost all participants (96%) would participate in the study again and recommend it to others. Twenty-three of the 24 participants also felt relaxed after seeing the imagery. With respect to anxiety (as measured by the STAI Y1), the VR “walk in the woods” had the greatest reduction from pre to post (6.4 points, SD = 5.98) followed by VR “forest of focus” (5.8 points, SD = 9.29), computer screen “forest of focus” (5.0 points, SD = 8.89), and computer screen “walk in the woods” (4.1 points, SD = 6.22). All 4 sessions had a significant decrease in score from pre to post (P-values ≤.005), but there was no significant difference in the change from pre- to post-session between the 4 groups (P-value = .5835).

Conclusion:

The use of the VR among HCP has promise for reducing stress among health care providers during a high stress period, such as a pandemic but much larger studies are needed.

Personality Neuroscience: An Emerging Field with Bright Prospects

Personality neuroscience is the study of persistent psychological individual differences, typically in the general population, using neuroscientific methods. It has the potential to shed light on the neurobiological mechanisms underlying individual differences and their manifestation in ongoing behavior and experience. The field was inaugurated many decades ago, yet has only really gained momentum in the last two, as suitable technologies have become widely available. Personality neuroscience employs a broad range of methods, including molecular genetics, pharmacological assays or manipulations, electroencephalography, and various neuroimaging modalities, such as magnetic resonance imaging and positron emission tomography. Although exciting progress is being made in this young field, much remains unknown. In this brief review, we discuss discoveries that have been made, methodological challenges and advances, and important questions that remain to be answered. We also discuss best practices for personality neuroscience research and promising future directions for the field.

Dynamic Tracking of State Anxiety via Multi-Modal Data and Machine Learning

Anxiety induction is widely used in the investigations of the mechanism and treatment of state anxiety. State anxiety is accompanied by immediate psychological and physiological responses. However, the existing state anxiety measurement, such as the commonly used state anxiety subscale of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, mainly relies on questionnaires with low temporal resolution. This study aims to develop a tracking model of state anxiety with high temporal resolution. To capture the dynamic changes of state anxiety levels, we induced the participants' state anxiety through exposure to aversive pictures or the risk of electric shocks and simultaneously recorded multi-modal data, including dimensional emotion ratings, electrocardiogram, and galvanic skin response. Using the paired self-reported state anxiety levels and multi-modal measures, we trained and validated machine learning models to predict state anxiety based on psychological and physiological features extracted from the multi-modal data. The prediction model achieved a high correlation between the predicted and self-reported state anxiety levels. This quantitative model provides fine-grained and sensitive measures of state anxiety levels for future affective brain-computer interaction and anxiety modulation studies.

Interaction of irritability and anxiety on emotional responding and emotion regulation: a functional MRI study

BACKGROUND

Irritability and anxiety frequently co-occur in pediatric populations. Studies separately looking at the neural correlates of these symptoms have identified engagement of similar neural systems - particularly those implicated in emotional processing. Both irritability and anxiety can be considered negative valence emotional states that might relate to emotion dysregulation. However, previous work has not examined the neural responding during the performance of an emotion regulation task as a function of interaction between irritability and anxiety simultaneously.

METHODS

This fMRI study involved 155 participants (90 with significant psychopathologies and 92 male) who performed the Affective Stroop Task, designed to engage emotion regulation as a function of task demands. The Affective Reactivity Index (ARI) was used to index irritability and the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED) was used to index anxiety.

RESULTS

Levels of irritability, but not anxiety, was positively correlated with responses to visual images within the right rostro-medial prefrontal cortex and left anterior cingulate cortex during view trials. The second region of ventral anterior cingulate cortex showed a condition-by-emotion-by-ARI score-by-SCARED score interaction. Specifically, anxiety level was significantly correlated with a decreased differential BOLD response to negative relative to neutral view trials but only in the presence of relatively high irritability.

CONCLUSIONS

Atypical maintenance of emotional stimuli within the rostro-medial prefrontal cortex may exacerbate the difficulties faced by adolescents with irritability. Moreover, increased anxiety combined with significant irritability may disrupt an automatic emotional conflict-based form of emotion regulation that is particularly associated with the ventral anterior cingulate cortex.

Paternal expressed emotion influences psychobiological indicators of threat and safety learning in daughters: A preliminary study

This preliminary study examined the association of children's anxiety, paternal expressed emotion (EE), and their interaction with psychophysiological indices of children's threat and safety learning. Participants included 24 father-daughter dyads. Daughters (ages 8-13 years, 100% Latina) self-reported their anxiety levels and completed a differential threat conditioning and extinction paradigm, during which psychophysiological responding was collected. Fathers completed a Five-Minute Speech Sample, from which paternal EE (i.e., criticism, emotional overinvolvement) was assessed. Anxiety-dependent associations emerged between paternal EE and individual differences in daughters' psychophysiological responding to safety signals during threat conditioning. Paternal EE was positively associated with psychophysiological responding to safety in daughters with high and mean, but not low, levels of anxiety. Although previous work suggests that chronic harsh maternal parenting is a potential risk factor for children's general threat and safety learning, these preliminary findings implicate milder forms of negative parenting behavior in fathers, particularly for highly anxious children.

Exploring Molecular Approaches in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: Drug Targets from Clinical and Pre-Clinical Findings

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a fatal motor neuron disease (MND) characterized by the death of upper and lower motor neurons (corticospinal tract) in the motor cortex, basal ganglia, brain stem, and spinal cord. The patient experiences the sign and symptoms between 55 to 75 years of age, which include impaired motor movement, difficulty in speaking and swallowing, grip loss, muscle atrophy, spasticity, and sometimes associated with memory and cognitive impairments. Median survival is 3 to 5 years after diagnosis and 5 to 10% of the patients live for more than 10 years. The limited intervention of pharmacologically active compounds, that are used clinically, is majorly associated with the narrow therapeutic index. Pre-clinically established experimental models, where neurotoxin methyl mercury mimics the ALS like behavioural and neurochemical alterations in rodents associated with neuronal mitochondrial dysfunctions and downregulation of adenyl cyclase mediated cAMP/CREB, is the main pathological hallmark for the progression of ALS in central as well in the peripheral nervous system. Despite the considerable investigation into neuroprotection, it still constrains treatment choices to strong care and organization of ALS complications. Therefore, this current review specially targeted the investigation of clinical and pre-clinical features available for ALS to understand the pathogenic mechanisms and to explore the pharmacological interventions associated with the up-regulation of intracellular adenyl cyclase/cAMP/ CREB and activation of mitochondrial-ETC coenzyme-Q10 as a future drug target in the amelioration of ALS mediated motor neuronal dysfunctions.

Amygdala substructure volumes in Major Depressive Disorder

The role of the amygdala in the experience of emotional states and stress is well established. Connections from the amygdala to the hypothalamus activate the hypothalamic-pituitaryadrenal (HPA) axis and the cortisol response. Previous studies have failed to find consistent whole amygdala volume changes in Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), but differences may exist at the smaller substructural level of the amygdala nuclei. High-resolution T1 and T2-weighted-fluid-attenuated inversion recovery MRIs were compared between 80 patients with MDD and 83 healthy controls (HC) using the automated amygdala substructure module in FreeSurfer 6.0. Volumetric assessments were performed for individual nuclei and three anatomico-functional composite groups of nuclei. Salivary cortisol awakening response (CAR), as a measure of HPA responsivity, was measured in a subset of patients. The right medial nucleus volume was larger in MDD compared to HC (p = 0.002). Increased right-left volume ratios were found in MDD for the whole amygdala (p = 0.004), the laterobasal composite (p = 0.009) and in the central (p = 0.003) and medial (p = 0.014) nuclei. The CAR was not significantly different between MDD and HC. Within the MDD group the left corticoamygdaloid transition area was inversely correlated with the CAR, as measured by area under the curve (AUCg) (p ≤ 0.0001). In conclusion, our study found larger right medial nuclei volumes in MDD compared to HC and relatively increased right compared to left whole and substructure volume ratios in MDD. The results suggest that amygdala substructure volumes may be involved in the pathophysiology of depression.

Linking RDoC and HiTOP: A new interface for advancing psychiatric nosology and neuroscience

The Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) and the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP) represent major dimensional frameworks proposing two alternative approaches to accelerate progress in the way psychopathology is studied, classified, and treated. RDoC is a research framework rooted in neuroscience aiming to further the understanding of transdiagnostic biobehavioral systems underlying psychopathology and ultimately inform future classifications. HiTOP is a dimensional classification system, derived from the observed covariation among symptoms of psychopathology and maladaptive traits, which seeks to provide more informative research and treatment targets (i.e., dimensional constructs and clinical assessments) than traditional diagnostic categories. This article argues that the complementary strengths of RDoC and HiTOP can be leveraged in order to achieve their respective goals. RDoC's biobehavioral framework may help elucidate the underpinnings of the clinical dimensions included in HiTOP, whereas HiTOP may provide psychometrically robust clinical targets for RDoC-informed research. We present a comprehensive mapping between dimensions included in RDoC (constructs and subconstructs) and HiTOP (spectra and subfactors) based on narrative review of the empirical literature. The resulting RDoC-HiTOP interface sheds light on the biobehavioral correlates of clinical dimensions and provides a broad set of dimensional clinical targets for etiological and neuroscientific research. We conclude with future directions and practical recommendations for using this interface to advance clinical neuroscience and psychiatric nosology. Ultimately, we envision that this RDoC-HiTOP interface has the potential to inform the development of a unified, dimensional, and biobehaviorally-grounded psychiatric nosology.

Extended-amygdala intrinsic functional connectivity networks: A population study

Pre-clinical and human neuroimaging research implicates the extended-amygdala (ExtA) (including the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis [BST] and central nucleus of the amygdala [CeA]) in networks mediating negative emotional states associated with stress and substance-use behaviours. The extent to which individual ExtA structures form a functionally integrated unit is controversial. We utilised a large sample (n > 1,000 healthy young adult humans) to compare the intrinsic functional connectivity networks (ICNs) of the BST and CeA using task-free functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data from the Human Connectome Project. We assessed whether inter-individual differences within these ICNs were related to two principal components representing negative disposition and alcohol use. Building on recent primate evidence, we tested whether within BST-CeA intrinsic functional connectivity (iFC) was heritable and further examined co-heritability with our principal components. We demonstrate the BST and CeA to have discrete, but largely overlapping ICNs similar to previous findings. We found no evidence that within BST-CeA iFC was heritable; however, post hoc analyses found significant BST iFC heritability with the broader superficial and centromedial amygdala regions. There were no significant correlations or co-heritability associations with our principal components either across the ICNs or for specific BST-Amygdala iFC. Possible differences in phenotype associations across task-free, task-based, and clinical fMRI are discussed, along with suggestions for more causal investigative paradigms that make use of the now well-established ExtA ICNs.

Reciprocal effects of neuroticism and life stress in adolescence

BACKGROUND

Stressful life experiences and personality can influence one another. Personality may contribute to the amount and type of stress individuals experience, which is referred to as a selection effect. Life stress may also impact one's personality, which is referred to as a socialization effect. It was hypothesized that neuroticism would predict increased chronic and episodic stress (selection effect) and that chronic and episodic stress would predict increased neuroticism (socialization effect).

METHODS

The current study investigated selection and socialization effects of neuroticism and life stress over a three-year period in 627 adolescents. Life stress data were examined in terms of duration (chronic versus episodic) and type (interpersonal versus non-interpersonal). Episodic stress data were examined as dependent or independent.

RESULTS

The results from ten cross-lagged panel models provided some evidence for significant selection and socialization effects depending on stress type. Over three years, we observed that neuroticism increases interpersonal chronic stress and non-interpersonal stressful events (selection effects) and that dependent non-interpersonal stressful events and chronic stress increase neuroticism (socialization effects).

LIMITATIONS

Study limitations include a lack of a lifespan perspective and a statistical approach that does not differentiate between- from within-person variance.

CONCLUSIONS

Findings suggest the value of attending to stress response as well as targeting neuroticism in prevention and intervention approaches in adolescents.

The Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP): A Quantitative Nosology Based on Consensus of Evidence

Traditional diagnostic systems went beyond empirical evidence on the structure of mental health. Consequently, these diagnoses do not depict psychopathology accurately, and their validity in research and utility in clinicalpractice are therefore limited. The Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP) consortium proposed a model based on structural evidence. It addresses problems of diagnostic heterogeneity, comorbidity, and unreliability. We review the HiTOP model, supporting evidence, and conceptualization of psychopathology in this hierarchical dimensional framework. The system is not yet comprehensive, and we describe the processes for improving and expanding it. We summarize data on the ability of HiTOP to predict and explain etiology (genetic, environmental, and neurobiological), risk factors, outcomes, and treatment response. We describe progress in the development of HiTOP-based measures and in clinical implementation of the system. Finally, we review outstanding challenges and the research agenda. HiTOP is of practical utility already, and its ongoing development will produce a transformative map of psychopathology.

Larger increase in trait negative affect is associated with greater future cognitive decline and vice versa across 23 years

BACKGROUND

Trait negative affect (NA) is a central feature of anxiety and depression disorders. Neurocognitive and scar models propose that within-person increase in NA across one period of time relates to a decline in cognitive functioning at a future period of time and vice versa. Yet, there has been little research on whether a within-person change in trait NA across one time-lag precedes and is associated with a change in cognition across a future time lag and vice versa. Due to a growing aging population, such knowledge can inform evidence-based prevention.

METHODS

Participants were 520 dementia-free community-dwelling adults (mean age = 59.76 years [standard deviation = 8.96], 58.08% females). Trait-level NA (negative emotionality scale), spatial cognition (block design and card rotations), verbal working memory (WM; digit span backward), and processing speed (symbol digit modalities) were assessed at five time points (waves) across 23 years. Bivariate dual latent change score (LCS) approaches were used to adjust for regression to the mean, lagged outcomes, and between-person variability.

RESULTS

Unique bivariate LCS models showed that within-person increase in trait NA across two sequential waves was related to declines in spatial cognition, verbal WM, and processing speed across the subsequent two waves. Moreover, within-person reductions in spatial cognition, verbal WM, and processing speed across two sequential waves were associated with future increases in trait NA across the subsequent two waves.

CONCLUSIONS

Findings concur with neurobiological and scar theories of psychopathology. Furthermore, results support process-based emotion regulation models that highlight the importance of verbal WM, spatial cognition, and processing speed capacities for downregulating NA.

Sensory processing and cortisol at age 4 years: Procedural pain-related stress in children born very preterm

Children born preterm display altered sensory processing, which may manifest as hyper- and/or hypo-sensitivity to sensory information. In this vulnerable population, exposure to neonatal pain-related stress is associated with altered stress regulation, as indexed by alterations in cortisol levels. It is unknown whether sensory processing behaviors are also affected by early life adversity, and whether dysregulated cortisol is related to sensory processing problems in preterm children. We examined relationships between neonatal pain-related stress, sensory processing profiles and cortisol levels at age 4 years, and whether pathways were sex-specific. In a longitudinal prospective cohort study, N = 146 infants born 24-32 weeks gestational age were recruited from BC Women's Hospital, Vancouver, BC, Canada; neonatal factors were collected from daily chart review. At age 4 years, saliva to assay cortisol was collected three times across cognitive assessment (pre-test, during, end) and parents completed the Short Sensory Profile questionnaire. Using generalized linear modeling, independent of other neonatal factors, higher number of invasive procedures (pain/stress) was associated with more sensory processing problems (total, hypo- and hyper-sensitivity) for girls only. After accounting for neonatal factors, greater cortisol output across the assessment was associated with more total sensory processing problems in girls only, and hypersensitivity to sensory input in both boys and girls. Findings suggest that in children born very preterm, how a child responds to sensory input and cortisol reactivity to stress are related but may have different precursors. Girls may be somewhat more susceptible to neonatal pain-related stress exposure in relation to sensory processing at preschool age.

Anxiety and the Neurobiology of Temporally Uncertain Threat Anticipation

When extreme, anxiety-a state of distress and arousal prototypically evoked by uncertain danger-can be debilitating. Uncertain anticipation is a shared feature of situations that elicit signs and symptoms of anxiety across psychiatric disorders, species, and assays. Despite the profound significance of anxiety for human health and wellbeing, the neurobiology of uncertain-threat anticipation remains unsettled. Leveraging a paradigm adapted from animal research and optimized for fMRI signal decomposition, we examined the neural circuits engaged during the anticipation of temporally uncertain and certain threat in 99 men and women. Results revealed that the neural systems recruited by uncertain and certain threat anticipation are anatomically colocalized in frontocortical regions, extended amygdala, and periaqueductal gray. Comparison of the threat conditions demonstrated that this circuitry can be fractionated, with frontocortical regions showing relatively stronger engagement during the anticipation of uncertain threat, and the extended amygdala showing the reverse pattern. Although there is widespread agreement that the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis and dorsal amygdala-the two major subdivisions of the extended amygdala-play a critical role in orchestrating adaptive responses to potential danger, their precise contributions to human anxiety have remained contentious. Follow-up analyses demonstrated that these regions show statistically indistinguishable responses to temporally uncertain and certain threat anticipation. These observations provide a framework for conceptualizing anxiety and fear, for understanding the functional neuroanatomy of threat anticipation in humans, and for accelerating the development of more effective intervention strategies for pathological anxiety.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Anxiety-an emotion prototypically associated with the anticipation of uncertain harm-has profound significance for public health, yet the underlying neurobiology remains unclear. Leveraging a novel neuroimaging paradigm in a relatively large sample, we identify a core circuit responsive to both uncertain and certain threat anticipation, and show that this circuitry can be fractionated into subdivisions with a bias for one kind of threat or the other. The extended amygdala occupies center stage in neuropsychiatric models of anxiety, but its functional architecture has remained contentious. Here we demonstrate that its major subdivisions show statistically indistinguishable responses to temporally uncertain and certain threat. Collectively, these observations indicate the need to revise how we think about the neurobiology of anxiety and fear.

Better Safe Than Sorry: A Common Signature of General Vulnerability for Psychopathology

Several labels, such as neuroticism, negative emotionality, and dispositional negativity, indicate a broad dimension of psychopathology. However, largely separate, often disorder-specific research lines have developed that focus on different cognitive and affective characteristics that are associated with this dimension, such as perseverative cognition (worry, rumination), reduced autobiographical memory specificity, compromised fear learning, and enhanced somatic-symptom reporting. In this article, we present a theoretical perspective within a predictive-processing framework in which we trace these phenotypically different characteristics back to a common underlying “better-safe-than-sorry” processing strategy. This implies information processing that tends to be low in sensory-perceptual detail, which allows threat-related categorical priors to dominate conscious experience and for chronic uncertainty/surprise because of a stagnated error-reduction process. This common information-processing strategy has beneficial effects in the short term but important costs in the long term. From this perspective, we suggest that the phenomenally distinct cognitive and affective psychopathological characteristics mentioned above represent the same basic processing heuristic of the brain and are only different in relation to the particular type of information involved (e.g., in working memory, in autobiographical memory, in the external and internal world). Clinical implications of this view are discussed.

Social context and the real-world consequences of social anxiety

BACKGROUND

Social anxiety lies on a continuum, and young adults with elevated symptoms are at risk for developing a range of psychiatric disorders. Yet relatively little is known about the factors that govern the hour-by-hour experience and expression of social anxiety in the real world.

METHODS

Here we used smartphone-based ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to intensively sample emotional experience across different social contexts in the daily lives of 228 young adults selectively recruited to represent a broad spectrum of social anxiety symptoms.

RESULTS

Leveraging data from over 11 000 real-world assessments, our results highlight the central role of close friends, family members, and romantic partners. The presence of such close companions was associated with enhanced mood, yet socially anxious individuals had fewer confidants and spent less time with the close companions that they do have. Although higher levels of social anxiety were associated with a general worsening of mood, socially anxious individuals appear to derive larger benefits - lower levels of negative affect, anxiety, and depression - from their close companions. In contrast, variation in social anxiety was unrelated to the amount of time spent with strangers, co-workers, and acquaintances; and we uncovered no evidence of emotional hypersensitivity to these less-familiar individuals.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings provide a framework for understanding the deleterious consequences of social anxiety in emerging adulthood and set the stage for developing improved intervention strategies.

BNST and amygdala activation to threat: Effects of temporal predictability and threat mode

Recent animal and human studies highlight the uncertainty about the onset of an aversive event as a crucial factor for the involvement of the centromedial amygdala (CM) and bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) activity. However, studies investigating temporally predictable or unpredictable threat anticipation and confrontation processes are rare. Furthermore, the few existing fMRI studies analyzing temporally predictable and unpredictable threat processes used small sample sizes or limited fMRI paradigms. Therefore, we measured functional brain activity in 109 predominantly female healthy participants during a temporally predictable-unpredictable threat paradigm, which aimed to solve limited aspects of recent studies. Results showed higher BNST activity compared to the CM during the cue indicating that the upcoming confrontation is aversive relative to the cue indicating an upcoming neutral confrontation. Both the CM and BNST showed higher activity during the confrontation with unpredictable and aversive stimuli, but the reaction to aversive confrontation relative to neutral confrontation was stronger in the CM compared to the BNST. Additional modulation analyses by NPSR1 rs324981 genotype revealed higher BNST activity relative to the CM in unpredictable anticipation relative to predictable anticipation in T-carriers compared to AA carriers. Our results indicate that during the confrontation with aversive or neutral stimuli, temporal unpredictability modulates CM and BNST activity. Further, there is a differential activity concerning threat processing, as BNST is more involved when focussing on fear-related anticipation processes and CM is more involved when focussing on threat confrontation.

The electrophysiology correlation of the cognitive bias in anxiety under uncertainty

The intolerance of uncertainty (IU) model holds that excessive emotional response under uncertain conditions is conducive to the maintenance of anxiety, and individuals with a high anxiety level may exhibit a negative bias and experience anxiety when processing uncertain information. However, the dynamic electrophysiological correlation of this negative bias is not clear. Therefore, we used an adapted study–test paradigm to explore the changes in the electroencephalography (EEG) of subjects when processing uncertain cues and certain cues (certain neutral and certain threatening) and correlated the differences with anxiety level. The behavioral results showed that there was a significant positive correlation between the trait anxiety score and β value under the threatening condition, which indicated that individuals with high trait anxiety take a more conservative approach in the face of negative stimuli. The results of EEG showed that during the test stage, the components N1 and P2, which are related to early perception, had significant conditional main effects. Meanwhile, under uncertain conditions, the N1 peak was positively correlated with the state anxiety score. In the study stage, we found that the N400 component was significantly larger in the early study stage than in the late study stage under uncertain conditions. In sum, individuals with high anxiety levels had a negative bias in the early cue processing of the test stage, and anxiety did not affect the study stage.

Grant Report on Anxiety-CBT: Dimensional Brain Behavior Predictors of CBT Outcomes in Pediatric Anxiety

In the following grant report, we describe initial and planned work supported by our National Institute of Mental Health R01-funded, Research Domain Criteria (RDoc) informed project, “Dimensional Brain Behavior Predictors of CBT Outcomes in Pediatric Anxiety”. This project examines response to cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) in a large sample of anxiety-affected and low-anxious youth ages 7 to 18 years using multiple levels of analysis, including brain imaging, behavioral performance, and clinical measures. The primary goal of the project is to understand how brain-behavioral markers of anxiety-relevant constructs, namely acute threat, cognitive control, and their interaction, associate with CBT response in youth with clinically significant anxiety. A secondary goal is to determine whether child age influences how these markers predict, and/or change, across varying degrees of CBT response. Now in its fourth year, data from this project has informed the examination of (1) baseline (i.e., pre-CBT) anxiety severity as a function of brain-behavioral measures of cognitive control, and (2) clinical characteristics of youth and parents that associate with anxiety severity and/or predict response to CBT. Analysis of brain-behavioral markers before and after CBT will assess mechanisms of CBT effect, and will be conducted once the data collection in the full sample has been completed. This knowledge will help guide the treatment of clinically anxious youth by informing for whom and how does CBT work.

Redefining phenotypes to advance psychiatric genetics: Implications from hierarchical taxonomy of psychopathology

Genetic discovery in psychiatry and clinical psychology is hindered by suboptimal phenotypic definitions. We argue that the hierarchical, dimensional, and data-driven classification system proposed by the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP) consortium provides a more effective approach to identifying genes that underlie mental disorders, and to studying psychiatric etiology, than current diagnostic categories. Specifically, genes are expected to operate at different levels of the HiTOP hierarchy, with some highly pleiotropic genes influencing higher order psychopathology (e.g., the general factor), whereas other genes conferring more specific risk for individual spectra (e.g., internalizing), subfactors (e.g., fear disorders), or narrow symptoms (e.g., mood instability). We propose that the HiTOP model aligns well with the current understanding of the higher order genetic structure of psychopathology that has emerged from a large body of family and twin studies. We also discuss the convergence between the HiTOP model and findings from recent molecular studies of psychopathology indicating broad genetic pleiotropy, such as cross-disorder SNP-based shared genetic covariance and polygenic risk scores, and we highlight molecular genetic studies that have successfully redefined phenotypes to enhance precision and statistical power. Finally, we suggest how to integrate a HiTOP approach into future molecular genetic research, including quantitative and hierarchical assessment tools for future data-collection and recommendations concerning phenotypic analyses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Neural dynamics of emotion and cognition: From trajectories to underlying neural geometry

How can we study, characterize, and understand the neural underpinnings of cognitive-emotional behaviors as inherently dynamic processes? In the past 50 years, Stephen Grossberg has developed a research program that embraces the themes of dynamics, decentralized computation, emergence, selection and competition, and autonomy. The present paper discusses how these principles can be heeded by experimental scientists to advance the understanding of the brain basis of behavior. It is suggested that a profitable way forward is to focus on investigating the dynamic multivariate structure of brain data. Accordingly, central research problems involve characterizing "neural trajectories" and the associated geometry of the underlying "neural space." Finally, it is argued that, at a time when the development of neurotechniques has reached a fever pitch, neuroscience needs to redirect its focus and invest comparable energy in the conceptual and theoretical dimensions of its research endeavor. Otherwise we run the risk of being able to measure "every atom" in the brain in a theoretical vacuum.

Freezing of gaze during action preparation under threat imminence

When confronted with threatening stimuli, animals typically respond with freezing behavior characterized by reduced movement and heart rate deceleration. Freezing-like responses during threat anticipation have also been observed in humans and are associated with anxiety. Recent evidence yet suggests that freezing does not necessarily reflect helpless immobility but can also aid the preparation of a threat escape. To investigate which further behavioral responses human freezing encompasses, we presented 50 young adults (10 male) with aversive stimuli that could sometimes be avoided while measuring gaze, cardiovascular and electrodermal activity. In trials in which the threat could be escaped, participants displayed reduced heart rate, increased electrodermal activity and reduced visual exploration. Furthermore, heart rate deceleration and restricted visual exploration predicted the speed of flight responses. These results provide evidence for freezing behavior in measures of visual exploration and suggest that such responding is adaptive in preparing the subsequent escape of approaching threats.