Coping in the Clinic: Effects of Clinically Elevated Anxiety on Dynamic Neurophysiological Mechanisms of Escape/Avoidance Preparation.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Treatments for anxiety and related disorders target exaggerated escape/avoidance as a core feature, but current methods fail to improve escape/avoidance habits for many treatment-seeking individuals. To support developing tools that increase treatment efficacy by targeting mechanisms more directly, the current work examined potential distinctions in the neurophysiologies of escape and avoidance and tested how clinical anxiety affects these neurophysiologies.

Methods

Twenty-five treatment-seeking individuals with varied principal diagnoses (e.g., generalized anxiety disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder) and 20 non-treatment-seeking control subjects participated. In the study task, approximately 5.25-second cues predicted aversive images that could be avoided (bl

SUBMITTER: Sege CT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9905342 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature