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Approach-Avoidance Decisions Under Threat: The Role of Autonomic Psychophysiological States

Acutely challenging or threatening situations frequently require approach-avoidance decisions. Acute threat triggers fast autonomic changes that prepare the body to freeze, fight or flee. However, such autonomic changes may also influence subsequent instrumental approach-avoidance decisions. Since d...

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Autores principales: Livermore, James J. A., Klaassen, Felix H., Bramson, Bob, Hulsman, Anneloes M., Meijer, Sjoerd W., Held, Leslie, Klumpers, Floris, de Voogd, Lycia D., Roelofs, Karin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8044748/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33867915
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2021.621517
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author Livermore, James J. A.
Klaassen, Felix H.
Bramson, Bob
Hulsman, Anneloes M.
Meijer, Sjoerd W.
Held, Leslie
Klumpers, Floris
de Voogd, Lycia D.
Roelofs, Karin
author_facet Livermore, James J. A.
Klaassen, Felix H.
Bramson, Bob
Hulsman, Anneloes M.
Meijer, Sjoerd W.
Held, Leslie
Klumpers, Floris
de Voogd, Lycia D.
Roelofs, Karin
author_sort Livermore, James J. A.
collection PubMed
description Acutely challenging or threatening situations frequently require approach-avoidance decisions. Acute threat triggers fast autonomic changes that prepare the body to freeze, fight or flee. However, such autonomic changes may also influence subsequent instrumental approach-avoidance decisions. Since defensive bodily states are often not considered in value-based decision-making models, it remains unclear how they influence the decision-making process. Here, we aim to bridge this gap by discussing the existing literature on the potential role of threat-induced bodily states on decision making and provide a new neurocomputational framework explaining how these effects can facilitate or bias approach-avoid decisions under threat. Theoretical accounts have stated that threat-induced parasympathetic activity is involved in information gathering and decision making. Parasympathetic dominance over sympathetic activity is particularly seen during threat-anticipatory freezing, an evolutionarily conserved response to threat demonstrated across species and characterized by immobility and bradycardia. Although this state of freezing has been linked to altered information processing and action preparation, a full theoretical treatment of the interactions with value-based decision making has not yet been achieved. Our neural framework, which we term the Threat State/Value Integration (TSI) Model, will illustrate how threat-induced bodily states may impact valuation of competing incentives at three stages of the decision-making process, namely at threat evaluation, integration of rewards and threats, and action initiation. Additionally, because altered parasympathetic activity and decision biases have been shown in anxious populations, we will end with discussing how biases in this system can lead to characteristic patterns of avoidance seen in anxiety-related disorders, motivating future pre-clinical and clinical research.
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spelling pubmed-80447482021-04-15 Approach-Avoidance Decisions Under Threat: The Role of Autonomic Psychophysiological States Livermore, James J. A. Klaassen, Felix H. Bramson, Bob Hulsman, Anneloes M. Meijer, Sjoerd W. Held, Leslie Klumpers, Floris de Voogd, Lycia D. Roelofs, Karin Front Neurosci Neuroscience Acutely challenging or threatening situations frequently require approach-avoidance decisions. Acute threat triggers fast autonomic changes that prepare the body to freeze, fight or flee. However, such autonomic changes may also influence subsequent instrumental approach-avoidance decisions. Since defensive bodily states are often not considered in value-based decision-making models, it remains unclear how they influence the decision-making process. Here, we aim to bridge this gap by discussing the existing literature on the potential role of threat-induced bodily states on decision making and provide a new neurocomputational framework explaining how these effects can facilitate or bias approach-avoid decisions under threat. Theoretical accounts have stated that threat-induced parasympathetic activity is involved in information gathering and decision making. Parasympathetic dominance over sympathetic activity is particularly seen during threat-anticipatory freezing, an evolutionarily conserved response to threat demonstrated across species and characterized by immobility and bradycardia. Although this state of freezing has been linked to altered information processing and action preparation, a full theoretical treatment of the interactions with value-based decision making has not yet been achieved. Our neural framework, which we term the Threat State/Value Integration (TSI) Model, will illustrate how threat-induced bodily states may impact valuation of competing incentives at three stages of the decision-making process, namely at threat evaluation, integration of rewards and threats, and action initiation. Additionally, because altered parasympathetic activity and decision biases have been shown in anxious populations, we will end with discussing how biases in this system can lead to characteristic patterns of avoidance seen in anxiety-related disorders, motivating future pre-clinical and clinical research. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-03-31 /pmc/articles/PMC8044748/ /pubmed/33867915 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2021.621517 Text en Copyright © 2021 Livermore, Klaassen, Bramson, Hulsman, Meijer, Held, Klumpers, de Voogd and Roelofs. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Livermore, James J. A.
Klaassen, Felix H.
Bramson, Bob
Hulsman, Anneloes M.
Meijer, Sjoerd W.
Held, Leslie
Klumpers, Floris
de Voogd, Lycia D.
Roelofs, Karin
Approach-Avoidance Decisions Under Threat: The Role of Autonomic Psychophysiological States
title Approach-Avoidance Decisions Under Threat: The Role of Autonomic Psychophysiological States
title_full Approach-Avoidance Decisions Under Threat: The Role of Autonomic Psychophysiological States
title_fullStr Approach-Avoidance Decisions Under Threat: The Role of Autonomic Psychophysiological States
title_full_unstemmed Approach-Avoidance Decisions Under Threat: The Role of Autonomic Psychophysiological States
title_short Approach-Avoidance Decisions Under Threat: The Role of Autonomic Psychophysiological States
title_sort approach-avoidance decisions under threat: the role of autonomic psychophysiological states
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8044748/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33867915
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2021.621517
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