TY - JOUR
T1 - Anxiety-mediated facilitation of behavioral inhibition
T2 - Threat processing and defensive reactivity during a go/no-go task
AU - Grillon, Christian
AU - Robinson, Oliver J.
AU - Krimsky, Marissa
AU - O'Connell, Katherine
AU - Alvarez, Gabriella
AU - Ernst, Monique
N1 - Funding Information:
Financial support of this study was provided by the Intramural Research Program of the National Institute of Mental Health, ZIAMH002798 (ClinicalTrial.gov Identifier: NCT00026559: Protocol ID 01-M-0185).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 American Psychological Association.
PY - 2017/3/1
Y1 - 2017/3/1
N2 - Anxiety can be broken down into multiple facets including behavioral components, such as defensive reactivity, and cognitive components, such as distracting anxious thoughts. In a previous study, we showed that anticipation of unpredictable shocks facilitated response inhibition to infrequent no-go trials during a go/no-go task. The present study extends this work to examine the distinct contribution of defensive reactivity, measures with fear-potentiated startle, and anxious thought, assessed with thought probes, on go and no-go performance. Consistent with our prior findings, shock anticipation facilitated response inhibition (i.e., reduced errors of commission) on the no-go trials. Regression analyses showed that (a) no-go accuracy was positively associated with fear-potentiated startle and negatively associated with threat-related/task-unrelated thoughts and (b) go accuracy correlated negatively with fearpotentiated startle. Thus, while the present findings confirm the influence of anxiety on response inhibition, they also show that such influence reflects the balance between the positive effect of defensive reactivity and the negative effect of distracting anxious thoughts.
AB - Anxiety can be broken down into multiple facets including behavioral components, such as defensive reactivity, and cognitive components, such as distracting anxious thoughts. In a previous study, we showed that anticipation of unpredictable shocks facilitated response inhibition to infrequent no-go trials during a go/no-go task. The present study extends this work to examine the distinct contribution of defensive reactivity, measures with fear-potentiated startle, and anxious thought, assessed with thought probes, on go and no-go performance. Consistent with our prior findings, shock anticipation facilitated response inhibition (i.e., reduced errors of commission) on the no-go trials. Regression analyses showed that (a) no-go accuracy was positively associated with fear-potentiated startle and negatively associated with threat-related/task-unrelated thoughts and (b) go accuracy correlated negatively with fearpotentiated startle. Thus, while the present findings confirm the influence of anxiety on response inhibition, they also show that such influence reflects the balance between the positive effect of defensive reactivity and the negative effect of distracting anxious thoughts.
KW - Anxiety
KW - Distraction
KW - Fear-potentiated startle
KW - Go/no-go task
KW - Response inhibition
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U2 - 10.1037/emo0000214
DO - 10.1037/emo0000214
M3 - Article
C2 - 27642657
AN - SCOPUS:84987917160
SN - 1528-3542
VL - 17
SP - 259
EP - 266
JO - Emotion
JF - Emotion
IS - 2
ER -