The electrophysiology correlation of the cognitive bias in anxiety under uncertainty

Abstract

the intolerance of uncertainty (iU) model holds that excessive emotional response under uncertain conditions is conducive to the maintenance of anxiety, and individuals with a high anxiety level may exhibit a negative bias and experience anxiety when processing uncertain information. However, the dynamic electrophysiological correlation of this negative bias is not clear. Therefore, we used an adapted study-test paradigm to explore the changes in the electroencephalography (eeG) of subjects when processing uncertain cues and certain cues (certain neutral and certain threatening) and correlated the differences with anxiety level. The behavioral results showed that there was a significant positive correlation between the trait anxiety score and β value under the threatening condition, which indicated that individuals with high trait anxiety take a more conservative approach in the face of negative stimuli. The results of EEG showed that during the test stage, the components N1 and P2, which are related to early perception, had significant conditional main effects. Meanwhile, under uncertain conditions, the N1 peak was positively correlated with the state anxiety score. In the study stage, we found that the N400 component was significantly larger in the early study stage than in the late study stage under uncertain conditions. In sum, individuals with high anxiety levels had a negative bias in the early cue processing of the test stage, and anxiety did not affect the study stage. A large number of studies have shown that patients with anxiety disorders have a wide range of cognitive impairments, including deficits in attention, executive functioning, learning and memory, and other abilities 1. Patients with anxiety disorders have characteristic cognitive patterns, such as negative self-evaluation and negative thinking, and these factors are closely related to anxiety and avoidance behavior in daily life 2. The core symptoms of anxiety are emotional, cognitive, and behavioral changes caused by negative expectations regarding uncertain events in the future 3. In this process, excessive fear or worry will affect physical and mental health and cause inconvenience to daily life. The Attention Control Theory developed from Processing Efficiency Theory which was proposed by Eysenck and Calvo 4 assumes that anxiety can impair the executive function of the goal-oriented attention system. In addition to reducing attentional control, anxiety increases attention to threat-related stimuli 5. MacLeod 6 used dot-probe task to compare the responses of clinically anxious patients and normal subjects to threat-related stimuli. The results showed that anxious subjects continued to turn their attention to threatening words, while the normal control group tended to distract themselves from these materials. A recent review summarized years of observations that lead to the same idea, which is that attention bias toward threats leads to the development of anxiety disorders 7. Spielberg proposed a classification method dividing anxiety into...

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