Elsevier

Biological Psychiatry

Volume 56, Issue 8, 15 October 2004, Pages 607-610
Biological Psychiatry

Techniques and methods
Experience-dependent plasticity for attention to threat: Behavioral and neurophysiological evidence in humans

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2004.07.012Get rights and content

Biased attention to threat represents a key feature of anxiety disorders. This bias is altered by therapeutic or stressful experiences, suggesting that the bias is plastic. Charting on-line behavioral and neurophysiological changes in attention bias may generate insights on the nature of such plasticity. We used an attention-orientation task with threat cues to examine how healthy individuals alter their response over time to such cues. In Experiments 1 through 3, we established that healthy individuals demonstrate an increased attention bias away from threat over time. For Experiment 3, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to determine the neural bases for this phenomenon. Gradually increasing attention bias away from threat is associated with increased activation in the occipitotemporal cortex. Examination of plasticity of attention bias with individuals at risk for anxiety disorders may reveal how threatening stimuli come to be categorized differently in this population over time.

Section snippets

Methods and materials

Twenty-one adults participated in Experiment 1 (9 females; mean age = 29.57 years; SD = 3.09). Twenty-three adolescents participated in Experiment 2 (14 females; mean age = 12.87 years; SD = 2.14). This study included adolescents to evaluate the generalizability of the findings. Another sample of 12 adults participated in Experiment 3 (6 females; mean age = 30.58 years; SD = 3.53). All subjects provided written informed consent/assent for participation after being informed of the risks, as well

Results

For behavioral data, we performed a mixed-model repeated-measures analysis for reaction time. Time and the four levels of trial type (the angry face on the left or right and the probe on the left or right) served as factors. For Experiment 1, this analysis revealed a time-by-trial-type interaction, F(483, 357) = 1.47, p < .001. Figure 2 illustrates the attention bias over the first three runs and the last run of each of the three experiments. For Experiment 2, adolescents also showed a

Discussion

All three experiments demonstrate behavioral plasticity in the magnitude of bias away from masked angry faces. While fMRI data in Experiment 3 documented engagement of the amygdala, cingulate, and OFC, these activations did not change over time. Rather, behavioral plasticity was associated with a pattern of increasing right OT activation. There are multiple explanations to account for this neurophysiological-behavioral association. Regardless, the data show that learning is accompanied by

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