Greater avoidance behavior in individuals with posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms

Sheynin, Jony; Shind, Christine; Radell, Milen L.; Ebanks-Williams, Yasheca; Gilbertson, Mark W.; Beck, Kevin D.; Myers, Catherine E.

doi:10.1080/10253890.2017.1309523

Cited by 40 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…The general avoidance of situations that are not linked to the trauma ( Sheynin et al, 2017 ) can be successfully modelled in rodents using approach-avoidance conflict paradigms. Here, the avoidance-like behavior of control, susceptible and resilient mice was assessed both in the OF (day 31) and EPM (day 32) tests ( Fig.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A novel arousal-based individual screening reveals susceptibility and resilience to PTSD-like phenotypes in mice

Torrisi

Lavanco

Maurel

et al. 2021

Neurobiology of Stress

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Translational animal models for studying post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are valuable for elucidating the poorly understood neurobiology of this neuropsychiatric disorder. These models should encompass crucial features, including persistence of PTSD-like phenotypes triggered after exposure to a single traumatic event, trauma susceptibility/resilience and predictive validity. Here we propose a novel arousal-based individual screening (AIS) model that recapitulates all these features. The AIS model was designed by coupling the traumatization (24 h restraint) of C57BL/6 J mice with a novel individual screening. This screening consists of z-normalization of post-trauma changes in startle reactivity, which is a measure of arousal depending on neural circuits conserved across mammals. Through the AIS model, we identified susceptible mice showing long-lasting hyperarousal (up to 56 days post-trauma), and resilient mice showing normal arousal. Susceptible mice further showed persistent PTSD-like phenotypes including exaggerated fear reactivity and avoidance of trauma-related cue (up to 75 days post-trauma), increased avoidance-like behavior and social/cognitive impairment. Conversely, resilient mice adopted active coping strategies, behaving like control mice. We further uncovered novel transcriptional signatures driven by PTSD-related genes as well as dysfunction of hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis, which corroborated the segregation in susceptible/resilient subpopulations obtained through the AIS model and correlated with trauma susceptibility/resilience. Impaired hippocampal synaptic plasticity was also observed in susceptible mice. Finally, chronic treatment with paroxetine ameliorated the PTSD-like phenotypes of susceptible mice. These findings indicate that the AIS model might be a new translational animal model for the study of crucial features of PTSD. It might shed light on the unclear PTSD neurobiology and identify new pharmacological targets for this difficult-to-treat disorder.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A novel arousal-based individual screening reveals susceptibility and resilience to PTSD-like phenotypes in mice

Torrisi

Lavanco

Maurel

et al. 2021

Neurobiology of Stress

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“…More recently, Sheynin et al. (2017) tested this human avoidance task with Veterans and civilians expressing PTSD symptoms.…”

Section: Human Avoidance Learningmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Individuals with PTSD symptoms (PTSS) exhibited higher levels of avoidance than individuals without PTSD symptoms (noPTSS), but did not differ in avoidance responses during extinction training. Figure adapted from Sheynin et al. (2017) with permission of the authors.…”

Section: Human Avoidance Learningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inhibited Personality Temperaments Translated Through Enhanced Avoidance and Associative Learning Increase Vulnerability for PTSD

et al. 2019

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Although many individuals who experience a trauma go on to develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the rate of PTSD following trauma is only about 15–24%. There must be some pre-existing conditions that impart increased vulnerability to some individuals and not others. Diathesis models of PTSD theorize that pre-existing vulnerabilities interact with traumatic experiences to produce psychopathology. Recent work has indicated that personality factors such as behavioral inhibition (BI), harm avoidance (HA), and distressed (Type D) personality are vulnerability factors for the development of PTSD and anxiety disorders. These personality temperaments produce enhanced acquisition or maintenance of associations, especially avoidance, which is a criterion symptom of PTSD. In this review, we highlight the evidence for a relationship between these personality types and enhanced avoidance and associative learning, which may increase risk for the development of PTSD. First, we provide the evidence confirming a relationship among BI, HA, distressed (Type D) personality, and PTSD. Second, we present recent findings that BI is associated with enhanced avoidance learning in both humans and animal models. Third, we will review evidence that BI is also associated with enhanced eyeblink conditioning in both humans and animal models. Overall, data from both humans and animals suggest that these personality traits promote enhanced avoidance and associative learning, as well as slowing of extinction in some training protocols, which all support the learning diathesis model. These findings of enhanced learning in vulnerable individuals can be used to develop objective behavioral measures to pre-identify individuals who are more at risk for development of PTSD following traumatic events, allowing for early (possibly preventative) intervention, as well as suggesting possible therapies for PTSD targeted on remediating avoidance or associative learning. Future work should explore the neural substrates of enhanced avoidance and associative learning for behaviorally inhibited individuals in both the animal model and human participants.

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“…The vast majority of the participants learned the escape response with the aversive event, while most of them also learned to completely avoid point loss by performing an avoidance response to the warning signal ( Sheynin et al, 2014 ). Enhanced avoidance responding was exhibited by HA individuals ( Sheynin et al, 2014 ) and individuals self-reporting PTSD symptoms ( Sheynin et al, 2017 ). Thus, this human avoidance task not only measures learning of an avoidance response, but also is sensitive to inhibited temperaments.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A computer-based avatar task designed to assess behavioral inhibition extends to behavioral avoidance but not cognitive avoidance

Allen

2018

PeerJ

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Avoidance is a common feature of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as well as anxiety and depressive disorders. Avoidance can be expressed behaviorally as well as cognitively. Most personality assessments for avoidance involve self-report inventories which are susceptible to biased responding. The avatar task (Myers et al., 2016a) was developed as an objective measure of behavioral inhibition (BI) which is defined as a tendency for avoidance of unfamiliar people and situations. The avatar task has been demonstrated to screen avoidant behaviors related to BI, PTSD, as well as harm avoidance (HA) as measured by the Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire (TPQ). In the current work, the avatar task was tested with cognitive as well as behavioral avoidance as measured by the cognitive-behavioral avoidance scale (CBAS; Ottenbreit & Dobson, 2004). The CBAS includes four subscales which measure behavioral social (BS) avoidance, behavioral non-social (BN) avoidance, cognitive social (CS) avoidance, and cognitive non-social (CN) avoidance. It was hypothesized that avatar scores would be significantly positively related to behavioral, but not cognitive, avoidance. In addition, it was also hypothesized that performance on the avatar task would be more related to social than non-social behavioral avoidance. Participants completed the avatar task, the HA scale of the TPQ and the CBAS. Pearson’s product moment correlations revealed that avatar scores were significantly related to CBAS total scores as well as BS and BN scores, but not CS and CN scores. In addition, BS has a stronger relationship with avatar scores than BN avoidance which fits with the social aspects of the scenarios in the avatar task. A median split of the avatar scores produced a significant difference in scores on the behavioral but not the cognitive subscales. Overall, the current results supported the idea that the avatar task is measuring behavioral avoidance, specifically in social situations, rather than cognitive avoidance. Future work could adapt the avatar task to include scenarios similar to the cognitive items on the CBAS to create an objective measure of cognitive avoidance which may be relevant in measuring avoidance in depression and behavioral avoidance associated with PTSD as well as anxiety disorders.

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Greater avoidance behavior in individuals with posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms

Cited by 40 publications

References 37 publications

A novel arousal-based individual screening reveals susceptibility and resilience to PTSD-like phenotypes in mice

A novel arousal-based individual screening reveals susceptibility and resilience to PTSD-like phenotypes in mice

Inhibited Personality Temperaments Translated Through Enhanced Avoidance and Associative Learning Increase Vulnerability for PTSD

A computer-based avatar task designed to assess behavioral inhibition extends to behavioral avoidance but not cognitive avoidance

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