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Fear Inhibition in High Trait Anxiety
Trait anxiety is recognized as an individual risk factor for the development of anxiety disorders but the neurobiological mechanisms remain unknown. Here we test whether trait anxiety is associated with impaired fear inhibition utilizing the AX+/BX- conditional discrimination procedure that allows f...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2014
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3894202/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24454969 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0086462 |
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author | Kindt, Merel Soeter, Marieke |
author_facet | Kindt, Merel Soeter, Marieke |
author_sort | Kindt, Merel |
collection | PubMed |
description | Trait anxiety is recognized as an individual risk factor for the development of anxiety disorders but the neurobiological mechanisms remain unknown. Here we test whether trait anxiety is associated with impaired fear inhibition utilizing the AX+/BX- conditional discrimination procedure that allows for the independent evaluation of startle fear potentiation and inhibition of fear [1]. Sixty undergraduate students participated in the study - High Trait Anxious: n = 28 and Low Trait Anxious: n = 32. We replicated earlier findings that a transfer of conditioned inhibition for startle responses requires contingency awareness. However, contrary to the fear inhibition hypothesis, our data suggest that high trait anxious individuals show a normal fear inhibition of conditioned startle responding. Only at the cognitive level the high trait anxious individuals showed evidence for impaired inhibitory learning of the threat cue. Together with other findings where impaired fear inhibition was only observed in those PTSD patients who were either high on hyperarousal symptoms [2] or with current anxiety symptoms [3], we question whether impaired fear inhibition is a biomarker for the development of anxiety disorders. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-3894202 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2014 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-38942022014-01-21 Fear Inhibition in High Trait Anxiety Kindt, Merel Soeter, Marieke PLoS One Research Article Trait anxiety is recognized as an individual risk factor for the development of anxiety disorders but the neurobiological mechanisms remain unknown. Here we test whether trait anxiety is associated with impaired fear inhibition utilizing the AX+/BX- conditional discrimination procedure that allows for the independent evaluation of startle fear potentiation and inhibition of fear [1]. Sixty undergraduate students participated in the study - High Trait Anxious: n = 28 and Low Trait Anxious: n = 32. We replicated earlier findings that a transfer of conditioned inhibition for startle responses requires contingency awareness. However, contrary to the fear inhibition hypothesis, our data suggest that high trait anxious individuals show a normal fear inhibition of conditioned startle responding. Only at the cognitive level the high trait anxious individuals showed evidence for impaired inhibitory learning of the threat cue. Together with other findings where impaired fear inhibition was only observed in those PTSD patients who were either high on hyperarousal symptoms [2] or with current anxiety symptoms [3], we question whether impaired fear inhibition is a biomarker for the development of anxiety disorders. Public Library of Science 2014-01-16 /pmc/articles/PMC3894202/ /pubmed/24454969 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0086462 Text en © 2014 Kindt and Soeter http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Kindt, Merel Soeter, Marieke Fear Inhibition in High Trait Anxiety |
title | Fear Inhibition in High Trait Anxiety |
title_full | Fear Inhibition in High Trait Anxiety |
title_fullStr | Fear Inhibition in High Trait Anxiety |
title_full_unstemmed | Fear Inhibition in High Trait Anxiety |
title_short | Fear Inhibition in High Trait Anxiety |
title_sort | fear inhibition in high trait anxiety |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3894202/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24454969 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0086462 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT kindtmerel fearinhibitioninhightraitanxiety AT soetermarieke fearinhibitioninhightraitanxiety |