Implicitly and explicitly assessed anxiety: No relationships with recognition of and brain response to facial emotions

Suslow, Thomas; Hußlack, Anja; Bujanow, Anna; Henkelmann, Jeanette; Kersting, Anette; Hoffmann, Karl‐Titus; Egloff, Boris; Lobsien, Donald; Günther, Vivien

doi:10.1016/j.neuroscience.2019.03.059

Cited by 14 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 60 publications

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“…Our findings are in line with previous studies which have demonstrated that implicit affect, as measured by the IPANAT, can predict spontaneous psychophysiological and brain responses to emotional stimuli and stress ( Quirin et al, 2009b , Suslow et al, 2015 , van der Ploeg et al, 2016 ). In contrast, a previous study on emotional face recognition suggests that implicit anxiety, as determined by a performance based Implicit Association Test (IAT), is not associated with brain activity during controlled processing of briefly presented, masked fearful expressions ( Suslow et al, 2019 ). With regard to these null results and based on our findings, it can be argued that implicit anxiety rather facilitates automatic processing of fearful faces in the amygdala and temporal gyrus.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 77%

Individual differences in anxiety and automatic amygdala response to fearful faces: A replication and extension of Etkin et al. (2004)

Günther

Hußlack

Weil

et al. 2020

NeuroImage: Clinical

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Highlights The relationship between non-conscious threat vigilance and anxiety was re-examined. Anxiety was assessed using direct (self-report) and indirect (implicit) measures. Unawareness of briefly presented fear stimuli was carefully controlled. The relationship of trait anxiety with automatic amygdala activation was replicated. Implicit anxiety was related to masked fear processing in the amygdala.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 77%

Individual differences in anxiety and automatic amygdala response to fearful faces: A replication and extension of Etkin et al. (2004)

Günther

Hußlack

Weil

et al. 2020

NeuroImage: Clinical

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“…The functions of temporal lobe are linked to verbal expression and memory (35, 36). Processing happy facial expressions was related to the activation of the inferior temporal cortex (37), while when processing face emotion recognition tasks, temporal and parietal cortices showed higher activity in patients with general anxiety disorder than in healthy controls (38), which may indicate the insufficient ability in emotional working memory in the patient group. Existing study results showed the higher activation of the inferior temporal gyrus in the high anxious population compared to the low anxious population (19).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Previous research found increased activity in the right parahippocampal gyrus of people with high anxiety compared to people with low anxiety (19). While processing the happy facial expressions, the parahippocampal gyrus showed increased activation compared to processing neutral facial expressions (37). Previous imaging research revealed the key role of the parahippocampal gyrus in anxiety, particularly linked to anxiety-related somatic complaints, and researchers found a correlation between the volume of parahippocampal and somatic complaints in non-clinical population (43).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Altered Somatic Brain Network in State Anxiety

Zhang

et al. 2019

Front. Psychiatry

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Highly anxious individuals often show excessive emotional arousal, somatic arousal, and characteristics of mental illness. Previous researches have extensively investigated the emotional and cognitive biases of individuals with high anxiety, but overlooked the spontaneous brain activity and functional connections associated with somatic arousal. In this study, we investigated the relationship between state anxiety and the spontaneous brain activity of the somatosensory cortex in a non-clinical healthy population with state anxiety. Furthermore, we also explored the functional connections of the somatosensory cortex. We found that state anxiety was positively correlated with the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (ALFFs) of somatic related brain regions, including the right postcentral gyrus (somatosensory cortex) and the right precentral gyrus (somatic motor cortex). Furthermore, we found that state anxiety was positively correlated with the connections between the postcentral gyrus and the left cerebellum gyrus, whereas state anxiety was negatively correlated with the connectivity between the postcentral gyrus and brain regions including the left inferior frontal cortex and left medial superior frontal cortex. These results revealed the association between the anxious individuals’ body-loop and state anxiety in a healthy population, which revealed the importance of somatic brain regions in anxiety symptoms and provided a new perspective on anxiety for further study.

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“…The correlation between speeded responses to fear and severity of anxiety is in line with findings suggesting that anxiety biases responses to affect-congruent stimuli. This association has been shown via increased accuracy of identification of fearful faces by individuals with high trait anxiety 64,65 (although other studies have failed to replicate this finding 66,67 ), and by increased accuracy of fearful face identification by healthy volunteers under threat of electrical shock, a condition that otherwise degrades accuracy of identification of neutral or happy faces 68 . A specific speeding of reaction time for identifying fearful faces has also been observed in adolescents with depressive and anxiety symptoms 69 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Parallel valence processing alterations associated with compulsive behavior in SAPAP3 knockout mice and human OCD

Kajs

Roessel

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Abnormalities in valence processing - the processing of aversive or appetitive stimuli - may be an underrecognized component of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Independent experimental paradigms have suggested disturbance of emotional valence systems in OCD, yet no standardized assay has been employed to assess both negative and positive valence processing in clinical studies of OCD patients, either at baseline or in response to therapeutic interventions. Additionally, preclinical rodent models are critical for treatment discovery in OCD, yet investigations examining whether rodent models of compulsive behavior similarly show alterations in valence systems have been limited. We sought to establish paradigms for assessing valence processing across both human OCD patients and in a preclinical rodent model: in OCD patients, we used validated behavioral tests to assess explicit and implicit processing of fear-related facial expressions (negative valence) and socially-rewarding happy expressions (positive valence); in the SAPAP3 knockout (KO) mouse model of compulsive behavior, we used auditory fear conditioning and extinction (negative valence) and reward-based operant conditioning (positive valence). We find that OCD patients show enhanced negative and impaired positive valence processing, and that performance on valence processing tasks correlates with clinical measures of OCD severity. We further find that SAPAP3 KO mice show heightened negative and impaired positive valence processing alterations similar to those of OCD patients. Our results show parallel valence processing abnormalities in OCD patients and a preclinical rodent model of compulsive behavior, and suggest valence processing alterations as novel therapeutic targets across a translational research spectrum.

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Implicitly and explicitly assessed anxiety: No relationships with recognition of and brain response to facial emotions

Cited by 14 publications

References 60 publications

Individual differences in anxiety and automatic amygdala response to fearful faces: A replication and extension of Etkin et al. (2004)

Individual differences in anxiety and automatic amygdala response to fearful faces: A replication and extension of Etkin et al. (2004)

The Altered Somatic Brain Network in State Anxiety

Parallel valence processing alterations associated with compulsive behavior in SAPAP3 knockout mice and human OCD

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