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Attention bias toward threatening faces in women with PTSD: eye tracking correlates by symptom cluster.

ABSTRACT: Maladaptive patterns of attention to emotional stimuli are a common feature of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), with growing evidence supporting sustained attention to threatening stimuli across trauma samples. However, it remains unclear how different PTSD symptom clusters are associated with attentional bias patterns, particularly in urban civilian settings with high rates of trauma exposure and PTSD. The present study examined associations among these variables in 70 traumatized primarily African American women. PTSD was measured using the Clinician Administered PTSD Scale, and eye tracking was used to measure patterns of attention as participants engaged in an attention bias (dot probe) task to emotional faces; average initial fixation (1 s) and dwell duration (overall time spent looking at emotional face versus neutral face across the 5 s task) were used to assess attention bias patterns toward emotional faces. Women with PTSD showed significantly longer dwell duration toward angry faces than women without PTSD (F = 5.16, p < .05). Bivariate correlation analyses with the PTSD symptom clusters showed a significant association between average initial fixation toward angry faces and higher levels of avoidance symptoms (r = 0.29, p < .05) as well as sustained attention to angry faces and higher levels of re-experiencing symptoms (r = 0.24, p < .05). Using separate linear regression models based on initial significant correlations, we found that PTSD avoidance symptoms were significantly related to average initial fixation toward angry faces (R ² ∆ = 0.09, p < .05) and PTSD re-experiencing symptoms were significantly related to dwell duration toward angry faces (R ² ∆ = 0.06, p < .05). These findings contribute to evidence that PTSD is related to both initial vigilance and sustained attention to threat and that certain symptom clusters may either drive or be more impacted by attentional biases, highlighting the benefits of addressing attentional biases within treatment.

SUBMITTER: Powers A

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6374933 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:IntroductionA substantial amount of research from the last two decades suggests that infants' attention to the eyes and mouth regions of talking faces could be a supporting mechanism by which they acquire their native(s) language(s). Importantly, attentional strategies seem to be sensitive to three types of constraints: the properties of the stimulus, the infants' attentional control skills (which improve with age and brain maturation) and their previous linguistic and non-linguistic knowledge. The goal of the present paper is to present a probabilistic model to simulate infants' visual attention control to talking faces as a function of their language learning environment (monolingual vs. bilingual), attention maturation (i.e., age) and their increasing knowledge concerning the task at stake (detecting and learning to anticipate information displayed in the eyes or the mouth region of the speaker).MethodsTo test the model, we first considered experimental eye-tracking data from monolingual and bilingual infants (aged between 12 and 18 months; in part already published) exploring a face speaking in their native language. In each of these conditions, we compared the proportion of total looking time on each of the two areas of interest (eyes vs. mouth of the speaker).ResultsIn line with previous studies, our experimental results show a strong bias for the mouth (over the eyes) region of the speaker, regardless of age. Furthermore, monolingual and bilingual infants appear to have different developmental trajectories, which is consistent with and extends previous results observed in the first year. Comparison of model simulations with experimental data shows that the model successfully captures patterns of visuo-attentional orientation through the three parameters that effectively modulate the simulated visuo-attentional behavior.DiscussionWe interpret parameter values, and find that they adequately reflect evolution of strength and speed of anticipatory learning; we further discuss their descriptive and explanatory power.

Project description:BackgroundAltered amygdala activation in response to the emotional matching faces (EMF) task, a task thought to reflect implicit emotion detection and reactivity, has been found in some patients with internalizing disorders; mixed findings from the EMF suggest individual differences (within and/or across diagnoses) that may be important to consider. Attention Bias Modification (ABM), a mechanistic attention-targeting intervention, has demonstrated efficacy in treatment of internalizing disorders. Individual differences in neural activation to a relatively attention-independent task, such as the EMF, could reveal novel neural substrates relevant in ABM's transdiagnostic effects, such as the brain's generalized threat reactivity capacity.MethodsIn a sample of clinically anxious patients randomized to ABM (n = 43) or sham training (n = 18), we measured fMRI activation patterns during the EMF and related them to measures of transdiagnostic internalizing symptoms (i.e., anxious arousal, general distress, anhedonic depression, and general depressive symptoms).ResultsLower baseline right amygdala activation to negative (fearful/angry) faces, relative to shapes, predicted greater pre-to-post reduction in general depression symptoms in ABM-randomized patients. Greater increases in bilateral amygdalae activation from pre-to-post ABM were associated with greater reductions in general distress, anhedonic depression, and general depression symptoms.ConclusionsABM may lead to greater improvement in depressive symptoms in individuals exhibiting blunted baseline amygdalar responses to the EMF task, potentially by enhancing neural-level discrimination between negative and unambiguously neutral stimuli. Convergently, longitudinal increases in amygdala reactivity from pre-to-post-ABM may be associated with greater improvement in depression, possibly secondary to improved neural discrimination of threat and/or decreased neurophysiological threat avoidance in these specific patients.

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Attention bias toward threatening faces in women with PTSD: eye tracking correlates by symptom cluster.

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