Cognitive control and cortisol response to stress in generalised anxiety disorder: a study of working memory capacity with negative and neutral distractors.

We investigated the association between cognitive control and individual differences in cortisol response to stress in participants with generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) and in never-disordered controls (CTL). To assess cognitive control, participants completed an affective version of the reading span task, which measures working memory capacity (WMC) in the presence of negative and neutral distractors. Participants then completed a standard psychosocial stressor and provided salivary cortisol samples throughout. The relation between WMC and cortisol response to stress was dependent on diagnostic group and distractor valence. Within the GAD group, greater WMC in the presence of neutral distractors was associated with attenuated cortisol response to stress, and greater WMC in the presence of negative distractors was associated with faster cortisol recovery from stress. In contrast, within the CTL group, WMC was unrelated to cortisol stress reactivity or recovery.

Working memory capacity and spontaneous emotion regulation in generalised anxiety disorder.

Researchers have postulated that deficits in cognitive control are associated with, and thus may underlie, the perseverative thinking that characterises generalised anxiety disorder (GAD). We examined associations between cognitive control and levels of spontaneous state rumination following a stressor in a sample of healthy control participants (CTL; n = 27) and participants with GAD (n = 21). We assessed cognitive control by measuring working memory capacity (WMC), defined as the ability to maintain task-relevant information by ignoring task-irrelevant information. To this end, we used an affective version of the reading span task with valenced (negative or neutral) distractors. Lower WMC in the presence of negative distractors was associated with greater state rumination in the GAD group, but not in the CTL group. These findings suggest that difficulty maintaining task-relevant information due to interference from negative distractors contributes to perseverative thinking in GAD.