Increased skin conductance responses and neural activity during fear conditioning are associated with a repressive coping style

Cognitive Avoidance Is Associated with Decreased Brain Responsiveness to Threat Distractors under High Perceptual Load

Cognitive coping strategies to deal with anxiety-provoking events have an impact on mental and physical health. Dispositional vigilance is characterized by an increased analysis of the threatening environment, whereas cognitive avoidance comprises strategies to inhibit threat processing. To date, functional neuroimaging studies on the neural underpinnings of these coping styles are scarce and have revealed discrepant findings. In the present study, we examined automatic brain responsiveness as a function of coping styles using functional magnetic resonance imaging. We administered a perceptual load paradigm with contemptuous and fearful faces as distractor stimuli in a sample of N = 43 healthy participants. The Mainz Coping Inventory was used to assess cognitive avoidance and vigilance. An association of cognitive avoidance with reduced contempt and fear processing under high perceptual load was observed in a widespread network including the amygdala, thalamus, cingulate gyrus, insula, and frontal, parietal, temporal, and occipital areas. Our findings indicate that the dispositional tendency to divert one's attention away from distressing stimuli is a valuable predictor of diminished automatic neural responses to threat in several cortical and subcortical areas. A reduced processing in brain regions involved in emotion perception and attention might indicate a potential threat resilience associated with cognitive avoidance.

Biased information processing and anxiety coping: differences in attentional and approach patterns towards positive cues in repressors

Individual differences in emotional coping styles are likely to affect information processing on different stages. Repressive coping is assumed to be related to an attentional bias away from threatening information. Possible links to biases in later stages of information processing have not been investigated to date. In the current study, 82 participants completed the visual dot-probe task as a measure of attentional bias and the Approach-Avoidance Task (AAT) as a measure of approach/avoidance bias and classified into coping groups via the Mainz Coping Inventory (MCI). Prevalence of attention bias and approach/avoidance bias were compared between groups. Main results revealed a strong approach tendency toward positive stimuli for repressors and a strong avoidance tendency for sensitizers. No group differences were found for approach bias to negative stimuli or for attention bias. The present findings of strong preferential processing of positive stimuli in repressors may be part of broader information processing alterations, which may also be linked to alterations in emotion processing.

Development and reliability and validity test of the Fear of Cancer Scale (FOCS)

OBJECTIVE

To develop a Fear of Cancer Scale (FOCS) for non-cancer populations.

METHODS

FOCS was developed by classical measurement theory. A total of 15 college students were invited to conduct semi-structured interviews. Seven experts were invited for expert consultation. A total of 2012 Chinese college students who had completed the electronic questionnaire on WJX.cn platform was included. The reliability and validity of FOCS were verified. Multiple linear regression analysis was adopted to explore the influencing factors of cancer fear among college students and further verify the validity of FOCS.

RESULTS

There were 17 items in the FOCS, including two subscales - direct fear (8 items), and indirect fear (9 items). FOCS had good validity and reliability. Multiple linear regression showed that GAD-7 score, CSDS score, negative coping score, positive coping score, guardian's highest education, gender, life satisfaction, nationality and major were the influencing factors of cancer fear (p < .05).

CONCLUSIONS

The 17-item FOCS was a reliable and valid measure to examine the level of cancer fear in non-cancer populations.

Coping With Anxiety: Brain Structural Correlates of Vigilance and Cognitive Avoidance

BACKGROUND

Individuals differ in their dispositional coping behavior when they are confronted with anxiety-provoking situations. Cognitive avoidance is characterized by a withdrawal from threatening information, whereas vigilance denotes the intensive search for threat-related information. Functional neuroimaging studies indicate alterations in brain responsivity to emotional stimuli as a function of cognitive avoidant and vigilant coping, but findings are partially discrepant. Studies on structural correlates of coping styles are scarce.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

By using structural magnetic resonance imaging, the present study examined the relationship between brain gray matter volume and coping strategies in 114 healthy individuals. Individual differences in vigilance and cognitive avoidance were measured by the Mainz Coping Inventory.

RESULTS

Exploratory whole-brain analyses were conducted. Cognitive avoidant coping significantly predicted reduced gray matter volume in the bilateral thalamus, whereas vigilant coping was associated with volumetric increases in the bilateral thalamus. These relationships remained significant when controlling for a potential influence of age, sex, depressive symptoms, and trait anxiety.

DISCUSSION

Our findings indicate that dispositional strategies to deal with anxiety-provoking situations are related to volumetric alterations in the thalamus, a brain structure that has been implicated in the mediation of attentional processes and alertness, and the anticipation of harm. The dispositional tendency to monitor the environment for potential threats (i.e., vigilance), appears to be associated with volumetric increases in the thalamus, whereas the dispositional inclination to divert one's attention away from distressing stimuli (i.e., cognitive avoidance) seems to go along with reductions in thalamic gray matter density.

Fear balance is maintained by bodily feedback to the insular cortex in mice

[Figure: see text].

Individual differences in cognitive reappraisal use and emotion regulatory brain function in combat-exposed veterans with and without PTSD

BACKGROUND

Veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) exhibit marked deficits in emotion regulation. Past research has demonstrated underengagement of the prefrontal cortex during regulation of negative affect in those with PTSD, but has been unable to find evidence of impaired downregulation of the amygdala. One possibility is that there exists variability in amygdala reactivity that cuts across diagnostic status and which can be characterized using a continuous measure of individual differences. In healthy/nontraumatized volunteers, individual variability in amygdala engagement during emotion processing and regulation has been shown to relate to habitual use of regulation strategies.

METHODS

The current study examined whether self-reported use of cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression regulation strategies correlated with brain activation during cognitive reappraisal in combat-exposed veterans with (n = 28) and without PTSD (combat-exposed controls, CEC; n = 20).

RESULTS

Results showed that greater self-reported use of cognitive reappraisal was associated with less activation in the right amygdala during volitional attempts to attenuate negative affect using reappraisal, irrespective of PTSD diagnosis.

CONCLUSIONS

This finding is in line with prior work and extends evidence of an association between habitual use of regulation strategies and amygdala engagement during emotion regulation to a trauma-exposed sample of individuals both with and without PTSD. Furthermore, by providing evidence of individual differences in regulation-related amygdala response in a traumatized sample, this result may increase understanding of the neural mechanisms that support variability in symptom manifestation observed across individuals with PTSD.

Neuroticism and extraversion moderate neural responses and effective connectivity during appetitive conditioning

Classical appetitive conditioning constitutes a basic learning process through which environmental stimuli can be associated with reward. Previous studies showed that individual differences in neuroticism and extraversion influence emotional processing and have been shown to modulate neural activity in subcortical and prefrontal areas in response to emotional stimuli. However, the role of individual differences in appetitive conditioning has so far not been investigated in detail. The aim of this study was to assess the association between neuroticism and extraversion with neural activity and connectivity during appetitive conditioning. The conditioned stimulus (CS) was either a picture of a dish or a cup. One stimulus (CS+) was paired with a monetary reward and the other stimulus (CS-) was associated with its absence while hemodynamic activity was measured by means of functional magnetic resonance imaging. A significant negative correlation of neuroticism scores with amygdala activity was observed during appetitive conditioning. Further, extraversion was positively associated with responses in the hippocampus and the thalamus. In addition, effective connectivity between the amygdala as a seed region and the anterior cingulate cortex, the insula, and the thalamus was negatively correlated with neuroticism scores and positively correlated with extraversion scores. The results may indicate a neural correlate for the deficits in appetitive learning in subjects with high neuroticism scores and point to a facilitating effect of extraversion on reward-related learning. Hum Brain Mapp 37:2992-3002, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Altered Appetitive Conditioning and Neural Connectivity in Subjects With Compulsive Sexual Behavior

INTRODUCTION

There has been growing interest in a better understanding of the etiology of compulsive sexual behavior (CSB). It is assumed that facilitated appetitive conditioning might be an important mechanism for the development and maintenance of CSB, but no study thus far has investigated these processes.

AIM

To explore group differences in neural activity associated with appetitive conditioning and connectivity in subjects with CSB and a healthy control group.

METHODS

Two groups (20 subjects with CSB and 20 controls) were exposed to an appetitive conditioning paradigm during a functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment, in which a neutral stimulus (CS+) predicted visual sexual stimuli and a second stimulus (CS-) did not.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

Blood oxygen level-dependent responses and psychophysiologic interaction.

RESULTS

As a main result, we found increased amygdala activity during appetitive conditioning for the CS+ vs the CS- and decreased coupling between the ventral striatum and prefrontal cortex in the CSB vs control group.

CONCLUSION

The findings show that neural correlates of appetitive conditioning and neural connectivity are altered in patients with CSB. The increased amygdala activation might reflect facilitated conditioning processes in patients with CSB. In addition, the observed decreased coupling could be interpreted as a marker for impaired emotion regulation success in this group.