Escape the bear and fall to the lion: The impact of avoidance availability on threat acquisition and extinction

Abstract

Pervasive avoidance behaviour is a core feature of anxiety disorders. However, little is known about how the availability of avoidance modulates learned threat responding. To assess this question, we recorded avoidance behaviour, electrodermal activity and expectancy ratings in 53 healthy participants during an associative learning paradigm with embedded unavoidable and avoidable trials. When avoidance was available, we observed greater avoidance behaviour for threat versus safety cues, as well as reduced differential skin conductance responses for unavoidable threat versus safety cues. When avoidance was unavailable, as during the extinction phase, we observed sustained differential skin conductance responses for threat versus safety cues. For all phases, we found greater expectancy ratings for threat versus safe cues. Furthermore, greater avoidance behaviour predicted larger differential skin conductance responses to threat versus safety cues during extinction. Overall, the results show that the conditioned response is attenuated during situations where avoidance is available, but it recovers when avoidance is unavailable, subsequently prolonging threat extinction.

What do I do now? Intolerance of uncertainty is associated with discrete patterns of anticipatory physiological responding to different contexts

“…The amplitude of each response was scored as the difference between the onset and the offset (peak). SCR onsets and offsets were counted if the SCR onset was within 0.5–3.5 s following stimulus onset (Morriss, Chapman, Tomlinson, & van Reekum, ). Trials with no discernible SCRs were scored as zero.…”

What do I do now? Intolerance of uncertainty is associated with discrete patterns of anticipatory physiological responding to different uncertain contexts

“…The amplitude of each response was scored as the difference between the onset and the offset (maximum deflection prior to the signal flattening out or decreasing). SCR onsets and offsets were counted if the SCR onset was within 0.5-3.5 seconds following CS onset (Morriss, Chapman, Tomlinson, & Van Reekum, 2018). Trials with no discernible SCRs were scored as zero.…”

Overcoming avoidance in anxiety disorders: The contributions of Pavlovian and operant avoidance extinction methods

“…Future research studies should investigate the role of individual differences and clinically relevant trait variables in avoidance extinction . The extant data indicate roles for neuroticism, intolerance of uncertainty, behavioral flexibility, experiential avoidance and distress tolerance, among other traits, in the acquisition (e.g., Hassoulas et al, 2014;Morriss et al, 2018), extinction (e.g., Flores et al, 2018;Vervliet & Indekeu, 2015;Vervliet et al, 2017) and generalization of avoidance (e.g., Arnaudova et al, 2016;Hunt et al, 2017;Lommen et al, 2010). Further analyses with large samples are Avoidance Extinction 25 therefore needed to make clear the validity of avoidance acquisition, generalization and extinction paradigms for informing clinical treatment of anxiety-related disorders.…”

“…Further analyses with large samples are Avoidance Extinction 25 therefore needed to make clear the validity of avoidance acquisition, generalization and extinction paradigms for informing clinical treatment of anxiety-related disorders. Moreover, it is recommended that future studies present frequency distributions (e.g., Morriss et al, 2018) or apply statistical methods such as latent growth curve modelling (Krypotos, Moscarello, et al, 2018) to identify heterogenous subgroups of participants who do or do not acquire (extinguish) avoidance and explore any predictive relationships with relevant trait factors. Finally, work is needed on the neural substrates of persistent avoidance in different groups of patients and healthy controls (Boeke et al, 2017;Schlund et al, 2010).…”