Uncovering Neural Correlates of Anxious-Apprehension in Anticipation of Rewards

Andrew R. Kittleson; C. Robin Nusslock; James E. Glazer

doi:https://doi.org/10.21985/N2211V

Work

Uncovering Neural Correlates of Anxious-Apprehension in Anticipation of Rewards

Public Deposited

Download file

Download All Files (.zip)

Anxiety disorders are the most common group of mental illnesses in the United States and affect over 15% of the population. Prior work utilizing electroencephalogram (EEG) to investigate event-related potentials (ERPs) from the scalp has shown success in isolating certain neural correlates related to increased risk for developing anxiety disorders. However, most of these studies investigate error- and threat-related processing. Far fewer have explored potential relationships between anxiety and abnormal reward-related ERPs. The relationship between anxiety and the stimulus-preceding negativity (SPN), an ERP directly preceding reward feedback, was investigated here. The SPN is a negative deflection that reflects increases in attentional and perceptual systems during the anticipation of an upcoming stimulus, such as reward feedback. Results reveal that anxious-apprehension was related to a blunted SPN reflecting inefficient feedback anticipation, likely due to intrusive and uncontrollable cognitive worry. The current findings of this study illuminate how decision-making and reward-anticipation are affected by a specific set of cognitive symptoms seen in anxiety disorders.

Last modified