Dataset Information

Hippocampal Representation of Threat Features and Behavior in a Human Approach-Avoidance Conflict Anxiety Task.

ABSTRACT: Decisions under threat are crucial to survival and require integration of distinct situational features, such as threat probability and magnitude. Recent evidence from human lesion and neuroimaging studies implicated anterior hippocampus (aHC) and amygdala in approach-avoidance decisions under threat, and linked their integrity to cautious behavior. Here we sought to elucidate how threat dimensions and behavior are represented in these structures. Twenty human participants (11 female) completed an approach-avoidance conflict task during high-resolution fMRI. Participants could gather tokens under threat of capture by a virtual predator, which would lead to token loss. Threat probability (predator wake-up rate) and magnitude (amount of token loss) varied on each trial. To disentangle effects of threat features, and ensuing behavior, we performed a multifold parametric analysis. We found that high threat probability and magnitude related to BOLD signal in left aHC/entorhinal cortex. However, BOLD signal in this region was better explained by avoidance behavior than by these threat features. A priori ROI analysis confirmed the relation of aHC BOLD response with avoidance. Exploratory subfield analysis revealed that this relation was specific to anterior CA2/3 but not CA1. Left lateral amygdala responded to low and high, but not intermediate, threat probability. Our results suggest that aHC BOLD signal is better explained by avoidance behavior than by threat features in approach-avoidance conflict. Rather than representing threat features in a monotonic manner, it appears that aHC may compute approach-avoidance decisions based on integration of situational threat features represented in other neural structures.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT An effective threat anticipation system is crucial to survival across species. Natural threats, however, are diverse and have distinct features. To be able to adapt to different modes of danger, the brain needs to recognize these features, integrate them, and use them to modify behavior. Our results disclose the human anterior hippocampus as a likely arbiter of approach-avoidance decisions harnessing compound environmental information while partially replicating previous findings and blending into recent efforts to illuminate the neural basis of approach-avoidance conflict in humans.

SUBMITTER: Abivardi A

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7455211 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Hippocampal Representation of Threat Features and Behavior in a Human Approach-Avoidance Conflict Anxiety Task.

Abivardi Aslan A Khemka Saurabh S Bach Dominik R DR

The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience 20200721 35

Decisions under threat are crucial to survival and require integration of distinct situational features, such as threat probability and magnitude. Recent evidence from human lesion and neuroimaging studies implicated anterior hippocampus (aHC) and amygdala in approach-avoidance decisions under threat, and linked their integrity to cautious behavior. Here we sought to elucidate how threat dimensions and behavior are represented in these structures. Twenty human participants (11 female) completed ...[more]

PMID: 32719163

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Project description:BackgroundDecision-making under approach-avoidance conflict (AAC; e.g., sacrificing quality of life to avoid feared outcomes) may be affected in multiple psychiatric disorders. Recently, we used a computational (active inference) model to characterize information processing differences during AAC in individuals with depression, anxiety and/or substance use disorders. Individuals with psychiatric disorders exhibited increased decision uncertainty (DU) and reduced sensitivity to unpleasant stimuli. This preregistered study aimed to determine the replicability of this processing dysfunction.MethodsA new sample of participants completed the AAC task. Individual-level computational parameter estimates, reflecting decision uncertainty and sensitivity to unpleasant stimuli ("emotion conflict"; EC), were obtained and compared between groups. Subsequent analyses combining the prior and current samples allowed assessment of narrower disorder categories.ResultsThe sample in the present study included 480 participants: 97 healthy controls, 175 individuals with substance use disorders and 208 individuals with depression and/or anxiety disorders. Individuals with substance use disorders showed higher DU and lower EC values than healthy controls. The EC values were lower in females, but not males, with depression and/or anxiety disorders than in healthy controls. However, the previously observed difference in DU between participants with depression and/or anxiety disorders and healthy controls did not replicate. Analyses of specific disorders in the combined samples indicated that effects were common across different substance use disorders and affective disorders.LimitationsThere were differences, although with small effect size, in age and baseline intellectual functioning between the previous and current sample, which may have affected replication of DU differences in participants with depression and/or anxiety disorders.ConclusionThe now robust evidence base for these clinical group differences motivates specific questions that should be addressed in future research: can DU and EC become behavioural treatment targets, and can we identify neural substrates of DU and EC that could be used to measure severity of dysfunction or as neuromodulatory treatment targets?

Dataset Information

Hippocampal Representation of Threat Features and Behavior in a Human Approach-Avoidance Conflict Anxiety Task.

Publications

Hippocampal Representation of Threat Features and Behavior in a Human Approach-Avoidance Conflict Anxiety Task.

Similar Datasets

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