Threat of shock and aversive inhibition: Induced anxiety modulates Pavlovian-instrumental interactions.

Abstract

Anxiety can be an adaptive response to potentially threatening situations. However, if experienced in inappropriate contexts, it can also lead to pathological and maladaptive anxiety disorders. Experimentally, anxiety can be induced in healthy individuals using the threat of shock (ToS) paradigm. Accumulating work with this paradigm suggests that anxiety promotes harm–avoidant mechanisms through enhanced inhibitory control. However, the specific cognitive mechanisms underlying anxiety-linked inhibitory control are unclear. Critically, behavioral inhibition can arise from at least 2 interacting valuation systems: instrumental (a goal-directed system) and Pavlovian (a “hardwired” reflexive system). The present study (N = 62) replicated a study showing improved response inhibition under ToS in healthy participants, and additionally examined the impact of ToS on aversive and appetitive Pavlovian-instrumental interactions in a reinforced go/no-go task. When Pavlovian and instrumental systems were in conflict, ToS increased inhibition to aversive events, while leaving appetitive interactions unperturbed. We argue that anxiety promotes avoidant behavior in potentially harmful situations by potentiating aversive Pavlovian reactions (i.e., promoting avoidance in the face of threats). Critically, such a mechanism would drive adaptive harm–avoidant behavior in threatening situations where Pavlovian and instrumental processes are aligned, but at the same time, result in maladaptive behaviors when misaligned and where instrumental control would be advantageous. This has important implications for our understanding of the mechanisms that underlie pathological anxiety.

The impact of induced anxiety on affective response inhibition

“…Across studies, we replicated a previous finding that threat of shock slows down reaction times to target ‘go’ stimuli [9,13,24]. We suggest an explanation for this, where being cautious when under threat of shock prevents impulsive responding, and reduces the risk of harmful behaviour.…”

Altered learning under uncertainty in unmedicated mood and anxiety disorders

“…As a manipulation check, participants retrospectively rated how anxious they felt during the safe and threat conditions on a scale from 1 (“not at all”) to 10 (“very much so”). This well-established12 manipulation has been shown to have high reliability19 and replicability28. There were four threat and four safe conditions, each involving 50 trials and lasting ~5 minutes each.…”

Pavlovian bias in Parkinson’s disease: an objective marker of impulsivity that modulates with deep brain stimulation

“…For example, people with schizophrenia exhibit reinforcement learning deficits with an associated reduction in the Go bias 23 . On the other hand, traumatic stress is associated with increased Pavlovian biases 24 while anxiety is specifically associated with increased avoidance bias in the face of threats 25 . People with depression show similar Pavlovian bias to healthy controls 69 , though interestingly in this study we found an association between avoid-loss bias and BDI.…”

“…Under normal circumstances, Pavlovian biases broadly influence adaptative behavior—they guide learning and form the basis for responding rapidly with little cognitive effort. However, they can become maladaptive 3 , 23 – 25 . People with PD in particular demonstrate difficulty in learning to withhold actions especially for reward outcomes 26 , 27 .…”