Tactile P300 to unpredictable electric shocks: Association with anxiety symptoms, intolerance of uncertainty, and neuroticism

Intolerance of uncertainty and neural measures of anticipation and reactivity for affective stimuli

Intolerance of uncertainty (IU) is a transdiagnostic construct referring to the aversive interpretation of contexts characterized by uncertainty. Indeed, there is a growing body of research examining individual differences in IU and how these are associated with emotional anticipation and reactivity during periods of certainty and uncertainty, however, how these associations are reflected via neurophysiological indices remain understudied and poorly understood. The present study examined the relationship between self-reported IU and neurophysiological measures of emotional anticipation and reactivity, namely stimulus preceding negativity (SPN) and late positive potential (LPP), and self-report measures of emotional experiences. These measures were captured during an S1-S2 picture viewing tasks in which participants were presented with cues (S1) that either indicated the affective valence of upcoming picture (S2) or provided no information about the valence. Findings here provide evidence for significant associations between SPN amplitude and IU scores during uncertain and certain-positive cueing conditions, and significant associations between LPP amplitude and IU scores during both certain- and uncertain-negative picture viewing conditions that appear driven by prospective IU sub-scores. These positive associations between IU and SPN amplitude are suggestive of heightened emotional anticipation following S1 cues, while positive associations between IU and LPP are suggestive of heightened emotional reactivity following S2 images. These findings are discussed in detail relative to existing IU literature, and potential implications of these findings.

Auditory and cross-modal attentional bias toward positive natural sounds: Behavioral and ERP evidence

Recently, researchers have expanded the investigation into attentional biases toward positive stimuli; however, few studies have examined attentional biases toward positive auditory information. In three experiments, the present study employed an emotional spatial cueing task using emotional sounds as cues and auditory stimuli (Experiment 1) or visual stimuli (Experiment 2 and Experiment 3) as targets to explore whether auditory or visual spatial attention could be modulated by positive auditory cues. Experiment 3 also examined the temporal dynamics of cross-modal auditory bias toward positive natural sounds using event-related potentials (ERPs). The behavioral results of the three experiments consistently demonstrated that response times to targets were faster after positive auditory cues than they were after neutral auditory cues in the valid condition, indicating that healthy participants showed a selective auditory attentional bias (Experiment 1) and cross-modal attentional bias (Experiment 2 and Experiment 3) toward positive natural sounds. The results of Experiment 3 showed that N1 amplitudes were more negative after positive sounds than they were after neutral sounds, which further provided electrophysiological evidence that positive auditory information enhances attention at early stages in healthy adults. The results of the experiments performed in the present study suggest that humans exhibit an attentional bias toward positive natural sounds.

Unbalanced functional connectivity at rest affects the ERP correlates of affective prediction in high intolerance of uncertainty individuals: A high density EEG investigation

In a recent study we outlined the link between Intolerance of Uncertainty (IU) and the neural correlates of affective predictions, as constructed by the brain (generation stage) to prepare to relevant stimuli (implementation stage), and update predictive models according to incoming stimuli (updating stage). In this study we further explored whether the brain's functional organization at rest can modulate neural activity elicited within an emotional S1-S2 paradigm as a function of IU and uncertainty of S1-S2 contingencies. We computed resting state functional connectivity (RS-FC) from a 3-min resting period recorded with high density EEG, and we tested whether RS graph theory nodal measures (i.e., strength, clustering coefficient, betweenness centrality) predicted in-task ERP modulation as a function of IU. We found that RS-FC differently predicted in-task ERPs within the generation and updating stages. Higher IU levels were associated to altered RS-FC patterns within both domain-specific (i.e., right superior temporal sulcus) and domain-general regions (i.e., right orbitofrontal cortex), predictive of a reduced modulation of in-task ERPs in the generation and updating stages. This is presumably ascribable to an unbalancing between synchronization and integration within these regions, which may disrupt the exchange of information between top-down and bottom-up pathways. This altered RS-FC pattern may in turn result in the construction of less efficient affective predictions and a reduced ability to deal with contextual uncertainty in individuals high in IU.

Neural and Self-report Measures of Sensitivity to Uncertainty as Predictors of COVID-Related Negative Affect

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a period of unprecedented uncertainty. Research indicates individuals differ in their response to uncertainty and these differences are mediated by anterior insula (aINS) function. Those most sensitive to uncertainty are likely vulnerable to negative affect in the context of the pandemic. The current study was designed to directly test this question using both neural and self-reported measures of sensitivity to uncertainty. Fifty-nine volunteers completed a task designed to probe neural response to anticipation of predictable (P-) and unpredictable (U-) threat-of-electric-shock during functional magnetic resonance imaging and a self-report measure of intolerance of uncertainty (IU). Approximately two years later, during the peak of the pandemic, participants reported their emotional reactions to the COVID-19 crisis. Multilevel mixed models revealed that greater aINS activation to U-threat and greater self-reported IU were independent predictors of increased COVID-related negative affect. These findings were significant when adjusting for biological sex and depression and anxiety symptom severity. The results add to a growing literature demonstrating that individual differences in response to uncertainty have a robust impact on mood and functioning. Results also highlight that individuals highly sensitive to uncertainty may be at increased risk for poor mental health during the ongoing pandemic.