Working Memory Load and Negative Picture Processing: Neural and Behavioral Associations With Panic, Social Anxiety, and Positive Affect.
BACKGROUND
Internalizing disorders such as anxiety may be characterized by an imbalance between bottom-up (stimulus-driven) and top-down (goal-directed) attention. The late positive potential (LPP) can be used to assess these processes when task-irrelevant negative and neutral pictures are presented within a working memory paradigm. Prior work using this paradigm has found that working memory load reduces the picture-elicited LPP across participants; however, anxious individuals showed a reduced effect of working memory load on the LPP, suggesting increased distractibility.


METHODS
The current study assessed transdiagnostic associations between specific symptom dimensions of anxiety, the LPP, and behavior in a clinically representative, heterogeneous group of 76 treatment-seeking patients with internalizing disorders, who performed a working memory task interspersed with negative and neutral pictures.


RESULTS
As expected, negative pictures enhanced the LPP, and working memory load reduced the LPP. Participants with higher social anxiety showed increased LPPs to negative stimuli during early and late portions of picture presentation. Panic symptoms were associated with reduced LPPs to negative pictures compared with neutral pictures as well as a reduced effect of working memory load on the LPP during the late time window. Reduced positive affect was associated with greater behavioral interference from negative pictures.


CONCLUSIONS
Hypervigilance for negative stimuli was uniquely explained by social anxiety symptoms, whereas panic symptoms were associated with the opposing effect-blunted processing/avoidance of these stimuli. Panic symptoms were uniquely associated with reduced top-down control. Results reveal distinct associations between neural reactivity and anxiety symptom dimensions that transcend traditional diagnostic boundaries.
['MacNamara|Annmarie|A|', 'Jackson|T Bryan|TB|', 'Fitzgerald|Jacklynn M|JM|', 'Hajcak|Greg|G|', 'Phan|K Luan|KL|']
D000293:Adolescent D000328:Adult D000339:Affect D000368:Aged D001007:Anxiety D001008:Anxiety Disorders D001921:Brain D003866:Depressive Disorder D004569:Electroencephalography D005071:Evoked Potentials D005260:Female D006801:Humans D008297:Male D008570:Memory, Short-Term D008875:Middle Aged D010200:Panic D010775:Photic Stimulation D014796:Visual Perception D055815:Young Adult
Panic Social anxiety Late positive potential LPP Transdiagnostic ERP