Deficient safety learning characterizes high trait anxious individuals

Gazendam, Femke J.; Kamphuis, Jan H.; Kindt, Merel

doi:10.1016/j.biopsycho.2012.11.006

Cited by 136 publications

(132 citation statements)

References 99 publications

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“…Nevertheless, as stated in the introduction, results are not conclusive (see Baas, van Ooijen, Goudriaan, & Kenemans 2008;Indovina et al, 2011;Gazendam, Kamphuis, & Kindt, 2013). Recent research suggests that complex fear conditioning paradigms (e.g.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Conditioned Fear Acquisition and Generalization in Generalized Anxiety Disorder

et al. 2015

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Abnormal fear conditioning processes (including fear acquisition and conditioned fear-generalization) have been implicated in the pathogenesis of anxiety disorders. Previous research has shown that individuals with panic disorder present enhanced conditioned fear-generalization in comparison to healthy controls. Enhanced conditioned fear-generalization could also characterize generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), but research so far is inconclusive. An important confounding factor in previous research is comorbidity. The present study examined conditioned fear-acquisition and fear-generalization in 28 patients with GAD and 30 healthy controls using a recently developed fear acquisition and generalization paradigm assessing fear-potentiated startle and online expectancies of the unconditioned stimulus. Analyses focused on GAD patients without comorbidity but included also patients with comorbid anxiety disorders. Patients and controls did not differ as regards fear acquisition. However, contrary to our hypothesis, both groups did not differ either in most indexes of conditioned fear-generalization.Moreover, dimensional measures of GAD symptoms were not correlated with conditioned fear-generalization indexes. Similar results were obtained for patients with comorbidity.These results suggest that conditioned fear-generalization is not enhanced in GAD. Results are discussed with special attention to the possible effects of comorbidity on fear learning abnormalities.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Conditioned Fear Acquisition and Generalization in Generalized Anxiety Disorder

et al. 2015

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“…In our data, state anxietydependent differences in discrimination following reinstatement in SCRs were driven by genuine differences in CS discrimination which could not be attributed to response enhancement or decrement in any CS-type specifically. Previous studies have suggested deficient safety signal processing in high and pathological anxiety (Gazendam, Kamphuis, & Kindt, 2013;Haaker et al, 2015;Haddad, Pritchett, Lissek, & Lau, 2012;Kong, Monje, Hirsch, & Pollak, 2014) potentially contributing to generalized conditioned responding after adverse events (e.g. reinstatement, life events) in these individuals.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

State anxiety modulates the return of fear

Kuhn

Mertens

Lonsdorf

2016

International Journal of Psychophysiology

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Current treatments for anxiety disorders are effective but limited by the high frequency of clinical relapse. Processes underlying relapse are thought to be experimentally modeled in fear conditioning experiments with return fear (ROF) inductions. Thereby reinstatementinduced ROF might be considered a model to study mechanisms underlying adversity-induced relapse. Previous studies have reported differential ROF (i.e. specific for the danger stimulus) but also generalized ROF (i.e. for safe and danger stimuli), but reasons for these divergent findings are not clear yet. Hence, the response pattern (i.e. differential or generalized) following reinstatement may be of importance for the prediction of risk or resilience for ROF.The aim of this study was to investigate state anxiety as a potential individual difference factor contributing to differentiability or generalization of return of fear.Thirty-six participants underwent instructed fear expression, extinction and ROF induction through reinstatement while physiological (skin conductance response, fear potentiated startle) and subjective measures of fear and US expectancy were acquired. Our data show that, as expected, high state anxious individuals show deficits in SCR discrimination between dangerous and safe cues after reinstatement induced ROF (i.e. generalization) as compared to low state anxious individuals.The ability to maintain discrimination under aversive circumstances is negatively associated with pathological anxiety and predictive of resilient responding while excessive generalization is a hallmark of anxiety disorders. Therefore, we suggest that experimentally induced ROF might prove useful in predicting relapse risk in clinical settings and might have implications for possible interventions for relapse prevention.

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“…There is ample evidence that individuals who are at risk for developing fear and anxiety disorders e either by their very nature or due to personal circumstances e display impairments in extinction learning (e.g., Craske et al, 2008;Gazendam, Kamphuis, & Kindt, 2013;Grillon & Ameli, 2001;Liberman, Lipp, Spence, & March, 2006; see for a review Lissek et al, 2005), though this finding is not unequivocal (e.g., see for null findings Fredrikson & Georgiades, 1992;Otto et al, 2007;Pineles, Vogt, & Orr, 2009;Torrents-Rodas et al, 2012). Also, patients who already developed an anxiety disorder exhibit impaired extinction learning Norrholm et al, 2011;Orr et al, 2006;Pitman & Orr, 1986), or reduced extinction memory (Milad et al, 2008).…”

Section: Anxiety Disorders and Deficits In Fear Inhibitionmentioning

confidence: 94%