all negative moods are not equal raghunathan

Therefore, in order to understand how this dysregulation emerges in pathological anxiety, it is crucial to first understand the cognitive features associated with adaptive or ‘non-pathological’ anxiety, in other words anxiety levels that can vary within and between individuals but do not result in the development of clinical symptoms associated with anxiety disorders. Influential theories of pathological anxiety propose that clinical anxiety emerges through dysregulation of adaptive anxiety 4, 5. On the other hand, anxiety can also be an adaptive response to stress, stimulating individuals to engage in harm-avoidant behaviours. These findings provide insight into the complex interactions between trait anxiety, acute state anxiety and cognition, and may help understand the cognitive mechanisms underlying adaptive anxiety.Īnxiety disorders constitute a major global health burden 1, and are characterized by negative emotional processing biases, as well as disrupted working memory and decision-making 2, 3. By contrast, Bayesian analysis indicated that gambling decisions were better explained by models that did not include threat or treat anxiety, suggesting that: (i) higher-level executive functions are robust to these anxiety manipulations and (ii) decreased risk-taking may be specific to pathological anxiety. This suggests that threat boosts working memory for mood-congruent stimuli in vulnerable individuals, mirroring memory biases in clinical anxiety.

Relative to the safe condition, threat of shock improved recall of threat-congruent (fearful) face location, especially in highly trait anxious participants. Participants completed a gambling task, embedded within an emotional working memory task, with some blocks under unpredictable threat and others safe from shock. To investigate this question, we implemented a translational within-subjects anxiety induction, threat of shock, in healthy participants reporting a wide range of trait anxiety scores. However, how these processes affect cognition is largely unknown.

In healthy individuals, experimentally-induced state anxiety or high trait anxiety often results in the deployment of adaptive harm-avoidant behaviours. Pathological anxiety is associated with disrupted cognitive processing, including working memory and decision-making.

All negative moods are not equal raghunathan