Anxiety-mediated facilitation of behavioral inhibition: Threat processing and defensive reactivity during a go/no-go task.

ABSTRACT: Anxiety can be broken down into multiple facets including behavioral components, such as defensive reactivity, and cognitive components, such as distracting anxious thoughts. In a previous study, we showed that anticipation of unpredictable shocks facilitated response inhibition to infrequent no-go trials during a go/no-go task. The present study extends this work to examine the distinct contribution of defensive reactivity, measures with fear-potentiated startle, and anxious thought, assessed with thought probes, on go and no-go performance. Consistent with our prior findings, shock anticipation facilitated response inhibition (i.e., reduced errors of commission) on the no-go trials. Regression analyses showed that (a) no-go accuracy was positively associated with fear-potentiated startle

SUBMITTER: Grillon C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5328922 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature