Enhanced Risk Aversion, But Not Loss Aversion, in Unmedicated Pathological Anxiety.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Anxiety disorders are associated with disruptions in both emotional processing and decision making. As a result, anxious individuals often make decisions that favor harm avoidance. However, this bias could be driven by enhanced aversion to uncertainty about the decision outcome (e.g., risk) or aversion to negative outcomes (e.g., loss). Distinguishing between these possibilities may provide a better cognitive understanding of anxiety disorders and hence inform treatment strategies.

Methods

To address this question, unmedicated individuals with pathological anxiety (n = 25) and matched healthy control subjects (n = 23) completed a gambling task featuring a decision between a gamble and a safe (certain) option on every trial. Choices on one type of gamble-involving

SUBMITTER: Charpentier CJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5466268 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature