Anxious Individuals Are Impulsive Decision-Makers in the Delay Discounting Task: An ERP Study

Abstract

Impulsivity, which is linked to a wide range of psychiatric disorders, is often characterized by a preference for immediate but smaller rewards over delayed but larger rewards. However, debate exists on the relationship between anxiety and impulsivity. Here we use event-related potential (ERP) components as biomarkers in the temporal discounting task to examine the effect of anxiety on inter-temporal decision-making. Our behavioral results indicated that the high trait anxiety (HTA) group made significantly more immediate choices than the low trait anxiety (LTA) group. Compared with the LTA group, shorter response time was associated with immediate rewards in the HTA group. Furthermore, previous studies have demonstrated three ERP components that are associated with impulsivity and/or delay discounting. First, the N1 is an early sensory component involved in selective attention and attention processing for goal-directed actions. Second, the reward positivity (RewP) reflects reward-related dopaminergic activity and encodes reward values. Third, the P3 is regarded as a measure of motivational significance in the decision-making literature. Accordingly, this study found in the immediate-option-evoked ERPs that the HTA group had a larger N1 than the LTA group did. For the delayed-option-evoked ERPs, the HTA group had larger N1 and RewP for the immediate choice than the LTA group did, while the LTA group had a larger P3 for the delayed choice than the HTA group did. These results support the notion that anxiety individuals are impulsive decision-makers in the Delay Discounting Task.

The neural substrates responsible for how trait anxiety affects delay discounting: Right hippocampal and cerebellar connectivity with bistable right inferior parietal lobule

“…In general, trait anxiety is considered to be either the presence of, or susceptible to, an anxiety disorder (Mcnally, ; Sylvester et al, ), which undoubtedly impacts on various aspects of life (i.e., risk taking, substance abuse, cognitive performance, subjective well‐being) (Comeau, Stewart, & Loba, ; Derakshan & Eysenck, ; Vancampfort et al, ). Particularly, previous studies have clarified that those with anxiety‐like thoughts (i.e., high trait anxiety [HTA], high worry) show more preference for immediate rewards (Luhmann, Ishida, & Hajcak, ; Worthy, Byrne, & Fields, ; Xia, Gu, Zhang, & Luo, ). However, little is known about the neural substrates underlying how trait anxiety affects individuals' delay discounting.…”

Increased Temporal Discounting in Social Anxiety Disorder Normalizes after Oxytocin Treatment

“…In accord with this are neurocircuitry models of SAD which emphasize overreactivity of the amygdala and resultant hyperattention to social stimuli due to deficient cognitive (top-down) control [3]. Of particular relevance in this context are findings that anxious temperament is associated with aberrant reward-based decision-making abilities as assessed by delay (temporal) discounting [4, 5]. In a temporal discounting task, participants are asked to choose between small immediate rewards and larger later rewards, enabling the estimation of individual discount rates that reflect the degree to which a reward is subjectively discounted when delayed in time.…”

Can Neuroscience Assist Us in Constructing Better Patterns of Economic Decision-Making?

“…The feature of economics that might be extremely constructive to neuroscientists is its taking over of an integrated theoretical scheme for comprehending human conduct. The latter may be viewed as selecting options with the objective of augmenting utility and is not the outcome of an individual mechanism (Xia et al, 2017), but to a certain extent indicates the interplay of distinct specialized subsystems. Even though these systems generally combine synergistically to regulate conduct, now and then they oppose, generating various dispositions with regard to the same input.…”