Anxiety Sensitivity and Arousal Symptom Implicit Association Task Performance: An Event-Related Potential Study of Cognitive Processing of Anxiety-Relevant Stimuli.

BACKGROUND: Anxiety sensitivity (AS), or the fear of anxious arousal, is a transdiagnostic risk factor. Despite the proliferation of self-report research showing AS is related to anxiety, cognitive processes underlying AS are poorly understood. Specifically, AS may reflect processes related to early attentional orientation and response monitoring (reflecting automatic processes), or later engagement and assigning emotional salience towards stimuli (reflecting conscious processes). METHODS: To elucidate cognitive processes underlying AS, event-related potential (ERP) components were elicited in the current study during a novel implicit association task (IAT) in which participants paired self (versus other) words with anxious arousal (versus calm) words. Analyses were then conducted in a sample of community adults (N = 67; M age 39.43, SD = 15.33, 61.2% female) to investigate the association between AS and ERP markers indicative of cognitive processing derived during the IAT. RESULTS: AS was not related to performance on the arousal-IAT and that ERP components did not differ by IAT condition. AS predicted overall late positive potential (LPP) amplitude, particularly in the me/anxiety condition. Elevated IAT scores (reflecting greater ease pairing self-words with anxiety-words) predicted greater P300 amplitude in the me/anxiety condition. LIMITATIONS: The sample was relatively small, and bottom-up processes were not assessed. CONCLUSIONS: These findings are inconsistent with the claim that AS is related to top-down cognitive processes driving self-arousal automatic associations. Instead, AS may relate to cognitive processes regulating emotional engagement with stimuli. Further investigations of cognitive processes underlying AS are needed to inform novel interventions targeting AS.

Correlates of Suicidal Ideation and Behaviors Among Former Military Personnel Not Enrolled in the Veterans Health Administration.

The current study sought to explore suicidal concomitants, both demographic and psychological, among former military personal. The sample included 645 veterans who are at increased risk for suicide but have not yet pursued Veterans Health Administration (VHA) services. Descriptive statistics revealed that these veterans are primarily young Caucasian males who served in the U.S. Army. In terms of psychological characteristics, the current sample reported clinically significant levels of depression, post-traumatic stress, and insomnia. Furthermore, respondents acknowledged use of various substances and high levels of perceived burdensomeness and thwarted belongingness. The demographic and psychological makeup of our sample was somewhat similar to that of VHA-connected veterans except that our sample was slightly more educated and reported less physical pain.

The Effect of Aging on the ERP Correlates of Feedback Processing in the Probabilistic Selection Task.

Feedback processing contributes to efficient learning, decision making, and social interaction. Studies using event-related brain potentials (ERPs) reveal that feedback processing is associated with transient ERP components over the medial frontal and posterior regions of the scalp that distinguish between positive and negative feedback. There is some evidence indicating that aging has differential effects on the ERP correlates of feedback processing in a gambling task, and the current study was designed to extend these findings to a reinforcement learning paradigm. Younger and older adults performed the probabilistic selection task while ERPs elicited by feedback cues indicating a correct or incorrect choice were recorded during the learning phase. The ERPs revealed that the amplitude of the feedback negativity and frontal P3 were attenuated in older adults relative to younger adults. The amplitude of a temporal positivity was also attenuated in older adults; in contrast, the amplitude of an occipital negativity was insensitive to the effects of aging. These findings indicate that aging may be associated with the disruption of both local activity and long-range connectivity between neural structures related to feedback processing.