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Nothing is safe: Intolerance of uncertainty is associated with compromised fear extinction learning

Extinction-resistant fear is considered to be a central feature of pathological anxiety. Here we sought to determine if individual differences in Intolerance of Uncertainty (IU), a potential risk factor for anxiety disorders, underlies compromised fear extinction. We tested this hypothesis by record...

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Autores principales: Morriss, Jayne, Christakou, Anastasia, van Reekum, Carien M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Elsevier Science B.V 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5154327/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27178640
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2016.05.001
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author Morriss, Jayne
Christakou, Anastasia
van Reekum, Carien M.
author_facet Morriss, Jayne
Christakou, Anastasia
van Reekum, Carien M.
author_sort Morriss, Jayne
collection PubMed
description Extinction-resistant fear is considered to be a central feature of pathological anxiety. Here we sought to determine if individual differences in Intolerance of Uncertainty (IU), a potential risk factor for anxiety disorders, underlies compromised fear extinction. We tested this hypothesis by recording electrodermal activity in 38 healthy participants during fear acquisition and extinction. We assessed the temporality of fear extinction, by examining early and late extinction learning. During early extinction, low IU was associated with larger skin conductance responses to learned threat vs. safety cues, whereas high IU was associated with skin conductance responding to both threat and safety cues, but no cue discrimination. During late extinction, low IU showed no difference in skin conductance between learned threat and safety cues, whilst high IU predicted continued fear expression to learned threat, indexed by larger skin conductance to threat vs. safety cues. These findings suggest a critical role of uncertainty-based mechanisms in the maintenance of learned fear.
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spelling pubmed-51543272016-12-19 Nothing is safe: Intolerance of uncertainty is associated with compromised fear extinction learning Morriss, Jayne Christakou, Anastasia van Reekum, Carien M. Biol Psychol Article Extinction-resistant fear is considered to be a central feature of pathological anxiety. Here we sought to determine if individual differences in Intolerance of Uncertainty (IU), a potential risk factor for anxiety disorders, underlies compromised fear extinction. We tested this hypothesis by recording electrodermal activity in 38 healthy participants during fear acquisition and extinction. We assessed the temporality of fear extinction, by examining early and late extinction learning. During early extinction, low IU was associated with larger skin conductance responses to learned threat vs. safety cues, whereas high IU was associated with skin conductance responding to both threat and safety cues, but no cue discrimination. During late extinction, low IU showed no difference in skin conductance between learned threat and safety cues, whilst high IU predicted continued fear expression to learned threat, indexed by larger skin conductance to threat vs. safety cues. These findings suggest a critical role of uncertainty-based mechanisms in the maintenance of learned fear. Elsevier Science B.V 2016-12 /pmc/articles/PMC5154327/ /pubmed/27178640 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2016.05.001 Text en © 2016 The Authors http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Morriss, Jayne
Christakou, Anastasia
van Reekum, Carien M.
Nothing is safe: Intolerance of uncertainty is associated with compromised fear extinction learning
title Nothing is safe: Intolerance of uncertainty is associated with compromised fear extinction learning
title_full Nothing is safe: Intolerance of uncertainty is associated with compromised fear extinction learning
title_fullStr Nothing is safe: Intolerance of uncertainty is associated with compromised fear extinction learning
title_full_unstemmed Nothing is safe: Intolerance of uncertainty is associated with compromised fear extinction learning
title_short Nothing is safe: Intolerance of uncertainty is associated with compromised fear extinction learning
title_sort nothing is safe: intolerance of uncertainty is associated with compromised fear extinction learning
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5154327/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27178640
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2016.05.001
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