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Skumlien M, Mokrysz C, Freeman TP, Valton V, Wall MB, Bloomfield M, Lees R, Borissova A, Petrilli K, Giugliano M, Clisu D, Langley C, Sahakian BJ, Curran HV, Lawn W. Anhedonia, Apathy, Pleasure, and Effort-Based Decision-Making in Adult and Adolescent Cannabis Users and Controls. Int J Neuropsychopharmacol 2023; 26:9-19. [PMID: 35999024 PMCID: PMC9850660 DOI: 10.1093/ijnp/pyac056] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/15/2022] [Revised: 07/27/2022] [Accepted: 08/23/2022] [Indexed: 01/22/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Cannabis use may be linked with anhedonia and apathy. However, previous studies have shown mixed results, and few have examined the association between cannabis use and specific reward sub-processes. Adolescents may be more vulnerable than adults to harmful effects of cannabis. This study investigated (1) the association between non-acute cannabis use and apathy, anhedonia, pleasure, and effort-based decision-making for reward; and (2) whether these relationships were moderated by age group. METHODS We used data from the "CannTeen" study. Participants were 274 adult (26-29 years) and adolescent (16-17 years) cannabis users (1-7 d/wk use in the past 3 months) and gender- and age-matched controls. Anhedonia was measured with the Snaith-Hamilton Pleasure Scale (n = 274), and apathy was measured with the Apathy Evaluation Scale (n = 215). Effort-based decision-making for reward was measured with the Physical Effort task (n = 139), and subjective wanting and liking of rewards was measured with the novel Real Reward Pleasure task (n = 137). RESULTS Controls had higher levels of anhedonia than cannabis users (F1,258 = 5.35, P = .02, η p2 = .02). There were no other significant effects of user-group and no significant user-group*age-group interactions. Null findings were supported by post hoc Bayesian analyses. CONCLUSION Our results suggest that cannabis use at a frequency of 3 to 4 d/wk is not associated with apathy, effort-based decision-making for reward, reward wanting, or reward liking in adults or adolescents. Cannabis users had lower anhedonia than controls, albeit at a small effect size. These findings are not consistent with the hypothesis that non-acute cannabis use is associated with amotivation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Martine Skumlien
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
- Clinical Psychopharmacology Unit, Clinical Educational and Health Psychology Department, University College London, London, UK
| | - Claire Mokrysz
- Clinical Psychopharmacology Unit, Clinical Educational and Health Psychology Department, University College London, London, UK
| | - Tom P Freeman
- Clinical Psychopharmacology Unit, Clinical Educational and Health Psychology Department, University College London, London, UK
| | - Vincent Valton
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London, London, UK
| | - Matthew B Wall
- Clinical Psychopharmacology Unit, Clinical Educational and Health Psychology Department, University College London, London, UK
| | | | - Rachel Lees
- Clinical Psychopharmacology Unit, Clinical Educational and Health Psychology Department, University College London, London, UK
- Addiction and Mental Health Group (AIM), Department of Psychology, University of Bath, Bath, UK
| | - Anna Borissova
- Clinical Psychopharmacology Unit, Clinical Educational and Health Psychology Department, University College London, London, UK
- Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London, London, UK
| | - Kat Petrilli
- Clinical Psychopharmacology Unit, Clinical Educational and Health Psychology Department, University College London, London, UK
- Addiction and Mental Health Group (AIM), Department of Psychology, University of Bath, Bath, UK
| | - Manuela Giugliano
- Clinical Psychopharmacology Unit, Clinical Educational and Health Psychology Department, University College London, London, UK
| | - Denisa Clisu
- Clinical Psychopharmacology Unit, Clinical Educational and Health Psychology Department, University College London, London, UK
| | - Christelle Langley
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
- Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
| | - Barbara J Sahakian
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
- Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
| | - H Valerie Curran
- Clinical Psychopharmacology Unit, Clinical Educational and Health Psychology Department, University College London, London, UK
| | - Will Lawn
- Clinical Psychopharmacology Unit, Clinical Educational and Health Psychology Department, University College London, London, UK
- Department of Addictions, Institute of Psychiatry Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London, London, UK
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Abstract
In order to develop effective treatments for anhedonia we need to understand its underlying neurobiological mechanisms. Anhedonia is conceptually strongly linked to reward processing, which involves a variety of cognitive and neural operations. This chapter reviews the evidence for impairments in experiencing hedonic response (pleasure), reward valuation and reward learning based on outcomes (commonly conceptualised in terms of "reward prediction error"). Synthesising behavioural and neuroimaging findings, we examine case-control studies of patients with depression and schizophrenia, including those focusing specifically on anhedonia. Overall, there is reliable evidence that depression and schizophrenia are associated with disrupted reward processing. In contrast to the historical definition of anhedonia, there is surprisingly limited evidence for impairment in the ability to experience pleasure in depression and schizophrenia. There is some evidence that learning about reward and reward prediction error signals are impaired in depression and schizophrenia, but the literature is inconsistent. The strongest evidence is for impairments in the representation of reward value and how this is used to guide action. Future studies would benefit from focusing on impairments in reward processing specifically in anhedonic samples, including transdiagnostically, and from using designs separating different components of reward processing, formulating them in computational terms, and moving beyond cross-sectional designs to provide an assessment of causality.
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Affiliation(s)
- Karel Kieslich
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK
| | - Vincent Valton
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK
| | - Jonathan P Roiser
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK.
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Charpentier CJ, Faulkner P, Pool ER, Ly V, Tollenaar MS, Kluen LM, Fransen A, Yamamori Y, Lally N, Mkrtchian A, Valton V, Huys QJM, Sarigiannidis I, Morrow KA, Krenz V, Kalbe F, Cremer A, Zerbes G, Kausche FM, Wanke N, Giarrizzo A, Pulcu E, Murphy S, Kaltenboeck A, Browning M, Paul LK, Cools R, Roelofs K, Pessoa L, Harmer CJ, Chase HW, Grillon C, Schwabe L, Roiser JP, Robinson OJ, O'Doherty JP. How Representative are Neuroimaging Samples? Large-Scale Evidence for Trait Anxiety Differences Between fMRI and Behaviour-Only Research Participants. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 2021; 16:1057-1070. [PMID: 33950220 PMCID: PMC8483285 DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsab057] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/20/2020] [Revised: 03/13/2021] [Accepted: 05/04/2021] [Indexed: 12/15/2022] Open
Abstract
Over the past three decades, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has become crucial to study how cognitive processes are implemented in the human brain. However, the question of whether participants recruited into fMRI studies differ from participants recruited into other study contexts has received little to no attention. This is particularly pertinent when effects fail to generalize across study contexts: for example, a behavioural effect discovered in a non-imaging context not replicating in a neuroimaging environment. Here, we tested the hypothesis, motivated by preliminary findings (N = 272), that fMRI participants differ from behaviour-only participants on one fundamental individual difference variable: trait anxiety. Analysing trait anxiety scores and possible confounding variables from healthy volunteers across multiple institutions (N = 3317), we found robust support for lower trait anxiety in fMRI study participants, consistent with a sampling or self-selection bias. The bias was larger in studies that relied on phone screening (compared with full in-person psychiatric screening), recruited at least partly from convenience samples (compared with community samples), and in pharmacology studies. Our findings highlight the need for surveying trait anxiety at recruitment and for appropriate screening procedures or sampling strategies to mitigate this bias.
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Affiliation(s)
- Caroline J Charpentier
- California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA.,Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK
| | | | - Eva R Pool
- University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
| | - Verena Ly
- Department of Clinical Psychology, Leiden University; Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden, The Netherlands
| | - Marieke S Tollenaar
- Department of Clinical Psychology, Leiden University; Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden, The Netherlands
| | - Lisa M Kluen
- California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA
| | - Aniek Fransen
- California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA
| | - Yumeya Yamamori
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK
| | - Níall Lally
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK
| | - Anahit Mkrtchian
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK
| | - Vincent Valton
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK
| | - Quentin J M Huys
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | - Erdem Pulcu
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
| | - Susannah Murphy
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.,Oxford Health NHS Trust, Oxford, UK
| | - Alexander Kaltenboeck
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.,Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Clinical Division of Social Psychiatry, Medical University of Vienna, Austria
| | - Michael Browning
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.,Oxford Health NHS Trust, Oxford, UK
| | - Lynn K Paul
- California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA
| | - Roshan Cools
- Donders Institute for Brain Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.,Department of Psychiatry, Radboud University Medical Centre, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Karin Roelofs
- Donders Institute for Brain Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Luiz Pessoa
- University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
| | - Catherine J Harmer
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.,Oxford Health NHS Trust, Oxford, UK
| | - Henry W Chase
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
| | | | | | - Jonathan P Roiser
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK
| | - Oliver J Robinson
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK
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Wilkinson B, Trick L, Knight A, Valton V, Goodhand J, Kennedy NA, Heerasing N, Ahmad T, Bland A, Elliott R, Roiser JP, Dickens C. Factors associated with depression in people with inflammatory bowel disease: The relationship between active disease and biases in neurocognitive processing. Neurogastroenterol Motil 2019; 31:e13647. [PMID: 31267614 DOI: 10.1111/nmo.13647] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/05/2018] [Revised: 03/20/2019] [Accepted: 05/15/2019] [Indexed: 12/20/2022]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Depression is common among people with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), though the causes remain unclear. We conducted a cross-sectional study to investigate the role of emotional processing biases in contributing to depression among people with IBD. MATERIALS AND METHODS One hundred and twenty outpatients with IBD were recruited and: (a) completed questionnaires to record: age, sex, social support, socioeconomic status, anxiety and depression (n = 104), (b) underwent assessments of biases in emotional recognition (n = 112), emotional memory and reinforcement learning (c) had recorded from clinical records: type of IBD, duration of IBD, IBD activity and (d) provided blood for high-sensitivity C-reactive protein levels (n = 99). KEY RESULTS Sixty-eight participants had Crohn's disease and 49 had ulcerative colitis. Of these, 35 had active disease and 26 had depression. Those with depression were more likely to be female, lack social support, have active disease, be taking corticosteroids but not TNF-alpha inhibitors and exhibit less positive emotional recognition bias. On multivariable regression analysis, depression was associated independently with lack of social support (unstandardized regression coefficient (B) = -1.40, P = 0.02) and increased disease activity (B = 1.29, P = 0.03). Causal steps analysis was consistent with less positive emotional recognition bias partially mediating the effects of disease activity on depression. CONCLUSIONS AND INFERENCES This is the first study to demonstrate links between disease activity and less positive biases in emotional recognition that could explain higher rates of depression among people with active IBD. Future prospective studies are required to confirm the effects of emotional processing biases in depression and allow stronger causal inferences to be drawn.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ben Wilkinson
- Mental Health Research Group, College of Medicine and Health, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK
| | - Leanne Trick
- Mental Health Research Group, College of Medicine and Health, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK
| | - Annie Knight
- Institute of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences, College of Medicine and Health, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK
| | - Vincent Valton
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK
| | - James Goodhand
- Exeter IBD Research Group, Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust, Exeter, UK
| | - Nick A Kennedy
- Exeter IBD Research Group, Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust, Exeter, UK
| | - Neel Heerasing
- Exeter IBD Research Group, Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust, Exeter, UK
| | - Tariq Ahmad
- Exeter IBD Research Group, Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust, Exeter, UK
| | - Amy Bland
- Division of Neuroscience & Experimental Psychology, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
| | - Rebecca Elliott
- Division of Neuroscience & Experimental Psychology, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
| | - Jonathan P Roiser
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK
| | - Chris Dickens
- Mental Health Research Group, College of Medicine and Health, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK
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Valton V, Karvelis P, Richards KL, Seitz AR, Lawrie SM, Seriès P. Acquisition of visual priors and induced hallucinations in chronic schizophrenia. Brain 2019; 142:2523-2537. [PMID: 31257444 PMCID: PMC6734996 DOI: 10.1093/brain/awz171] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/12/2018] [Revised: 04/01/2019] [Accepted: 04/21/2019] [Indexed: 01/10/2023] Open
Abstract
Prominent theories suggest that symptoms of schizophrenia stem from learning deficiencies resulting in distorted internal models of the world. To test these theories further, we used a visual statistical learning task known to induce rapid implicit learning of the stimulus statistics. In this task, participants are presented with a field of coherently moving dots and are asked to report the presented direction of the dots (estimation task), and whether they saw any dots or not (detection task). Two of the directions were more frequently presented than the others. In controls, the implicit acquisition of the stimuli statistics influences their perception in two ways: (i) motion directions are perceived as being more similar to the most frequently presented directions than they really are (estimation biases); and (ii) in the absence of stimuli, participants sometimes report perceiving the most frequently presented directions (a form of hallucinations). Such behaviour is consistent with probabilistic inference, i.e. combining learnt perceptual priors with sensory evidence. We investigated whether patients with chronic, stable, treated schizophrenia (n = 20) differ from controls (n = 23) in the acquisition of the perceptual priors and/or their influence on perception. We found that although patients were slower than controls, they showed comparable acquisition of perceptual priors, approximating the stimulus statistics. This suggests that patients have no statistical learning deficits in our task. This may reflect our patients' relative wellbeing on antipsychotic medication. Intriguingly, however, patients experienced significantly fewer (P = 0.016) hallucinations of the most frequently presented directions than controls when the stimulus was absent or when it was very weak (prior-based lapse estimations). This suggests that prior expectations had less influence on patients' perception than on controls when stimuli were absent or below perceptual threshold.
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Affiliation(s)
- Vincent Valton
- Institute for Adaptive and Neural Computation, University of Edinburgh, UK
- Department of Psychiatry, Royal Edinburgh Hospital, University of Edinburgh, UK
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK
| | - Povilas Karvelis
- Institute for Adaptive and Neural Computation, University of Edinburgh, UK
| | - Katie L Richards
- Department of Psychiatry, Royal Edinburgh Hospital, University of Edinburgh, UK
| | - Aaron R Seitz
- Department of Psychology, University of California Riverside, CA, USA
| | - Stephen M Lawrie
- Department of Psychiatry, Royal Edinburgh Hospital, University of Edinburgh, UK
- Patrick Wild Centre, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
| | - Peggy Seriès
- Institute for Adaptive and Neural Computation, University of Edinburgh, UK
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Liu WH, Valton V, Wang LZ, Zhu YH, Roiser JP. Association between habenula dysfunction and motivational symptoms in unmedicated major depressive disorder. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 2017; 12:1520-1533. [PMID: 28575424 PMCID: PMC5629818 DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsx074] [Citation(s) in RCA: 48] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/06/2016] [Revised: 03/28/2017] [Accepted: 05/23/2017] [Indexed: 12/29/2022] Open
Abstract
The lateral habenula plays a central role in reward and punishment processing and has been suggested to drive the cardinal symptom of anhedonia in depression. This hypothesis is largely based on observations of habenula hypermetabolism in animal models of depression, but the activity of habenula and its relationship with clinical symptoms in patients with depression remains unclear. High-resolution functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and computational modelling were used to investigate the activity of the habenula during a probabilistic reinforcement learning task with rewarding and punishing outcomes in 21 unmedicated patients with major depression and 17 healthy participants. High-resolution anatomical scans were also acquired to assess group differences in habenula volume. Healthy individuals displayed the expected activation in the left habenula during receipt of punishment and this pattern was confirmed in the computational analysis of prediction error processing. In depressed patients, there was a trend towards attenuated left habenula activation to punishment, while greater left habenula activation was associated with more severe depressive symptoms and anhedonia. We also identified greater habenula volume in patients with depression, which was associated with anhedonic symptoms. Habenula dysfunction may contribute to abnormal response to punishment in patients with depression, and symptoms such as anhedonia.
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Affiliation(s)
- Wen-Hua Liu
- Department of Clinical Psychology, The Affiliated Brain Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University (Guangzhou Huiai Hospital), Guangzhou, China
- School of Health Management, Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Vincent Valton
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK
| | - Ling-Zhi Wang
- Department of Rehabilitation, The Affiliated Brain Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University (Guangzhou Huiai Hospital), Guangzhou, China
| | - Yu-Hua Zhu
- Department of Clinical Psychology, The Affiliated Brain Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University (Guangzhou Huiai Hospital), Guangzhou, China
| | - Jonathan P. Roiser
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK
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Nord CL, Valton V, Wood J, Roiser JP. Power-up: A Reanalysis of 'Power Failure' in Neuroscience Using Mixture Modeling. J Neurosci 2017; 37:8051-8061. [PMID: 28706080 PMCID: PMC5566862 DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.3592-16.2017] [Citation(s) in RCA: 53] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/22/2016] [Revised: 06/06/2017] [Accepted: 06/17/2017] [Indexed: 11/25/2022] Open
Abstract
Recently, evidence for endemically low statistical power has cast neuroscience findings into doubt. If low statistical power plagues neuroscience, then this reduces confidence in the reported effects. However, if statistical power is not uniformly low, then such blanket mistrust might not be warranted. Here, we provide a different perspective on this issue, analyzing data from an influential study reporting a median power of 21% across 49 meta-analyses (Button et al., 2013). We demonstrate, using Gaussian mixture modeling, that the sample of 730 studies included in that analysis comprises several subcomponents so the use of a single summary statistic is insufficient to characterize the nature of the distribution. We find that statistical power is extremely low for studies included in meta-analyses that reported a null result and that it varies substantially across subfields of neuroscience, with particularly low power in candidate gene association studies. Therefore, whereas power in neuroscience remains a critical issue, the notion that studies are systematically underpowered is not the full story: low power is far from a universal problem.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Recently, researchers across the biomedical and psychological sciences have become concerned with the reliability of results. One marker for reliability is statistical power: the probability of finding a statistically significant result given that the effect exists. Previous evidence suggests that statistical power is low across the field of neuroscience. Our results present a more comprehensive picture of statistical power in neuroscience: on average, studies are indeed underpowered-some very seriously so-but many studies show acceptable or even exemplary statistical power. We show that this heterogeneity in statistical power is common across most subfields in neuroscience. This new, more nuanced picture of statistical power in neuroscience could affect not only scientific understanding, but potentially policy and funding decisions for neuroscience research.
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Affiliation(s)
- Camilla L Nord
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, WC1N 3AZ, United Kingdom, and
| | - Vincent Valton
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, WC1N 3AZ, United Kingdom, and
| | - John Wood
- Research Department of Primary Care and Population Health, University College London Medical School, London NW3 2PF, United Kingdom
| | - Jonathan P Roiser
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, WC1N 3AZ, United Kingdom, and
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Aylward J, Valton V, Goer F, Mkrtchian A, Lally N, Peters S, Limbachya T, Robinson OJ. The impact of induced anxiety on affective response inhibition. R Soc Open Sci 2017; 4:170084. [PMID: 28680667 PMCID: PMC5493909 DOI: 10.1098/rsos.170084] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/30/2017] [Accepted: 05/10/2017] [Indexed: 06/07/2023]
Abstract
Studying the effects of experimentally induced anxiety in healthy volunteers may increase our understanding of the mechanisms underpinning anxiety disorders. Experimentally induced stress (via threat of unpredictable shock) improves accuracy at withholding a response on the sustained attention to response task (SART), and in separate studies improves accuracy to classify fearful faces, creating an affective bias. Integrating these findings, participants at two public science engagement events (n = 46, n = 55) were recruited to explore the effects of experimentally induced stress on an affective version of the SART. We hypothesized that we would see an improved accuracy at withholding a response to affectively congruent stimuli (i.e. increased accuracy at withholding a response to fearful 'no-go' distractors) under threat of shock. Induced anxiety slowed reaction time, and at the second event quicker responses were made to fearful stimuli. However, we did not observe improved inhibition overall during induced anxiety, and there was no evidence to suggest an interaction between induced anxiety and stimulus valence on response accuracy. Indeed Bayesian analysis provided decisive evidence against this hypothesis. We suggest that the presence of emotional stimuli might make the safe condition more anxiogenic, reducing the differential between conditions and knocking out any threat-potentiated improvement.
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Abstract
Although poor decision-making is a hallmark of psychiatric conditions such as attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, pathological gambling or substance abuse, a fraction of healthy individuals exhibit similar poor decision-making performances in everyday life and specific laboratory tasks such as the Iowa Gambling Task. These particular individuals may provide information on risk factors or common endophenotypes of these mental disorders. In a rodent version of the Iowa gambling task--the Rat Gambling Task (RGT), we identified a population of poor decision makers, and assessed how these rats scored for several behavioral traits relevant to executive disorders: risk taking, reward seeking, behavioral inflexibility, and several aspects of impulsivity. First, we found that poor decision-making could not be well predicted by single behavioral and cognitive characteristics when considered separately. By contrast, a combination of independent traits in the same individual, namely risk taking, reward seeking, behavioral inflexibility, as well as motor impulsivity, was highly predictive of poor decision-making. Second, using a reinforcement-learning model of the RGT, we confirmed that only the combination of extreme scores on these traits could induce maladaptive decision-making. Third, the model suggested that a combination of these behavioral traits results in an inaccurate representation of rewards and penalties and inefficient learning of the environment. Poor decision-making appears as a consequence of the over-valuation of high-reward-high-risk options in the task. Such a specific psychological profile could greatly impair clinically healthy individuals in decision-making tasks and may predispose to mental disorders with similar symptoms.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marion Rivalan
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Aquitaine Institut for Cognitive and Integrative Neuroscience, UMR 5287, Bordeaux, France
- Université de Bordeaux, Aquitaine Institut for Cognitive and Integrative Neuroscience, UMR 5287, Bordeaux, France
| | - Vincent Valton
- Institute for Adaptive and Neural Computation, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
| | - Peggy Seriès
- Institute for Adaptive and Neural Computation, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
| | - Alain R. Marchand
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Aquitaine Institut for Cognitive and Integrative Neuroscience, UMR 5287, Bordeaux, France
- Université de Bordeaux, Aquitaine Institut for Cognitive and Integrative Neuroscience, UMR 5287, Bordeaux, France
| | - Françoise Dellu-Hagedorn
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Aquitaine Institut for Cognitive and Integrative Neuroscience, UMR 5287, Bordeaux, France
- Université de Bordeaux, Aquitaine Institut for Cognitive and Integrative Neuroscience, UMR 5287, Bordeaux, France
- * E-mail:
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Valton V, Marchand A, Dellu-Hagedorn F, Seriès P. Modeling maladaptive decision-making in a rat version of the Iowa Gambling Task. BMC Neurosci 2011. [PMCID: PMC3240405 DOI: 10.1186/1471-2202-12-s1-p294] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022] Open
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