Sensory Perception of Threat in Anxiety

焦虑中对威胁的感官知觉

• 批准号: 8293586
• 负责人: Wen Li
• 金额: $ 37.22万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2012-03-15 至 2017-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8293586
• 关键词: Accounting; Acute; Affective; Amygdaloid structure; Anxiety; Anxiety Disorders; Attention; Behavioral; Biological; Brain; Categories; Characteristics; Clinical; Clinical Treatment; Code; Cognitive; Development; Emotional; Emotions; Etiology; Evaluation; Event-Related Potentials; Fright; Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Functional disorder; Goals; Imaging Techniques; Individual; Investigation; Judgment; Knowledge; Laboratories; Life; Light; Link; Literature; Memory; Mental Depression; Modality; Modeling; Odors; Pathway interactions; Patients; Perception; Peripheral; Physiology; Preventive Intervention; Process; Psychophysics; Reflex action; Research; Running; Schizophrenia; Sensory; Sensory Physiology; Sensory Process; Signal Transduction; Simulate; Smell Perception; Social Distance; Specific qualifier value; Stimulus; Stream; Stress; Symptoms; System; Techniques; Testing; Update; Vision; Visual; Visual Pathways; affective neuroscience; base; classical conditioning; density; experience; falls; hedonic; improved; information processing; innovation; insight; multisensory; novel; operation; programs; relating to nervous system; research study; response; selective attention; sensory cortex; sensory mechanism; sensory system; social; social cognition; theories; visual search; visual stimulus

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Anxiety is characterized by heightened response to threat. However, the precise etiologic basis of anxiety disorders remains obscure. Differing from prevailing amygdala-centric views of threat processing and anxiety pathophysiology, this application proposes a neurosensory account, highlighting a sensory pathway to anxiety. Based on accruing new evidence from our laboratory and other groups, we posit that the biological significance of a stimulus can be stored in the sensory system such that the affective value is decoded as soon as the input registers with the sensory brain, paralleling and often preceding limbic- based threat evaluation. As one of the first operations in the cognitive stream, biased sensory perception of threat can then influence downstream processes, directly or indirectly contributing to a variety of cognitive and emotional anomalies observed in anxiety. Representing one of the first lines of research on basic sensory processing of threat in anxiety, this program would provide new insights into basic threat analysis and anxiety genesis, and thus help to innovate clinical treatment for anxiety disorders. Towards that end, this proposal will employ a cognitive-affective neuroscience approach to firstly define sensory encoding of threat in anxiety with two conceptual emphases: 1) to accentuate highly specialized sensory representations of individual threat subtypes, which could inform the neural basis for distinct and sometimes contradictory responses and reflexes to different threats, and account for the heterogeneous symptomology of anxiety disorders (Specific Aim 1); and 2) to evaluate threat perception of multi- and cross-modal (vs. unimodal) sensory input, which, by optimally simulating real-life sensory experience, holds great promise for revealing novel multifaceted and modality-specific sensory biases of threat in anxiety (Specific Aim 2). Secondly, the planned research will mechanistically specify the impact of initial perceptual bias to threat on subsequent emotional and cognitive processes, giving rise to various anxiety symptoms (in particular, negative interpretation, excessive social avoidance and selective attention to threat; Specific Aim 3). In six independent experiments, we will employ a unique and fully developed constellation of expertise and techniques (functional magnetic resonance imaging, fMRI; brain event- related potentials, ERPs; autonomic physiology; psychophysics; and anxiety assessment and provocation) to determine the neural underpinnings of sensory perception of threat and its behavioral consequences, varying as a function of anxiety. The project findings will create a body of knowledge that is likely to challenge the dominant limbic-centered conceptualization of anxiety, promoting a shift to a multi-system, multi-path theorization. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Anxiety disorders are the most common psychiatric illness, causing a great deal of devastation and suffering for the patients. However, the etiology of anxiety remains obscure. Traditional accounts for anxiety genesis typically implicate exaggerated amygdala reactivity as the primary mechanism, but the proposal here points to a novel alternative-a neurosensory model of anxiety. The proposed investigation will elucidate aberrant sensory representation of threat in the sensory brain and consequent threat perception bias in anxiety, which intensifies and perpetuates anxiety symptoms directly or indirectly via its impact on downstream information processing. As such, this research program will generate significant new insights into anxiety etiology and greatly contribute to clinical prevention and intervention of this illness.

描述（由申请人提供）：焦虑的特点是对威胁的反应增强。然而，焦虑症的确切病因学基础仍然不清楚。与流行的以杏仁核为中心的威胁处理和焦虑病理生理学观点不同，该应用提出了一种神经感觉解释，强调了焦虑的感觉途径。基于我们实验室和其他小组积累的新证据，我们假设刺激的生物学意义可以存储在感觉系统中，这样一旦输入与感觉大脑注册在一起，情感值就会被解码，并行且通常先于感觉大脑。基于边缘系统的威胁评估。作为认知流中的首要操作之一，对威胁的偏见感官知觉可以影响下游过程，直接或间接导致焦虑中观察到的各种认知和情绪异常。该项目代表了焦虑中威胁的基本感觉处理的第一线研究之一，将为基本威胁分析和焦虑起源提供新的见解，从而有助于创新焦虑症的临床治疗。为此，该提案将采用认知情感神经科学方法，首先定义焦虑中威胁的感觉编码，有两个概念重点：1）强调个体威胁亚型的高度专业化的感觉表征，这可以为不同和不同的威胁的神经基础提供信息。有时对不同威胁的反应和反射是矛盾的，并解释了焦虑症的异质症状（具体目标 1）； 2）评估多模态和跨模态（与单模态）感官输入的威胁感知，通过最佳模拟现实生活中的感官体验，有望揭示焦虑中威胁的新颖的多方面和特定模态的感知偏差（具体目标 2）。其次，计划的研究将机械地具体说明最初对威胁的感知偏差对随后的情绪和认知过程的影响，从而引起各种焦虑症状（特别是消极解释、过度社交回避和对威胁的选择性关注；具体目标3）。在六个独立实验中，我们将采用独特且成熟的专业知识和技术组合（功能磁共振成像，fMRI；大脑事件相关电位，ERP；自主生理学；心理物理学；以及焦虑评估和激发）来确定神经基础对威胁的感官知觉及其行为后果，随着焦虑的变化而变化。该项目的研究结果将创建一个知识体系，可能会挑战以边缘系统为中心的焦虑概念化，促进向多系统、多路径理论的转变。 公共卫生相关性：焦虑症是最常见的精神疾病，给患者带来巨大的破坏和痛苦。然而，焦虑的病因仍不清楚。对焦虑发生的传统解释通常认为夸张的杏仁核反应性是主要机制，但这里的提议指出了一种新的替代方案——焦虑的神经感觉模型。拟议的调查将阐明感觉脑中威胁的异常感觉表征以及随之而来的焦虑中的威胁感知偏差，这通过对下游信息处理的影响直接或间接地加剧和延续焦虑症状。因此，该研究项目将对焦虑病因学产生重要的新见解，并为该疾病的临床预防和干预做出巨大贡献。