Dataset Information

How do you perceive threat? It's all in your pattern of brain activity.

ABSTRACT: Whether subtle differences in the emotional context during threat perception can be detected by multi-voxel pattern analysis (MVPA) remains a topic of debate. To investigate this question, we compared the ability of pattern recognition analysis to discriminate between patterns of brain activity to a threatening versus a physically paired neutral stimulus in two different emotional contexts (the stimulus being directed towards or away from the viewer). The directionality of the stimuli is known to be an important factor in activating different defensive responses. Using multiple kernel learning (MKL) classification models, we accurately discriminated patterns of brain activation to threat versus neutral stimuli in the directed towards context but not during the directed away context. Furthermore, we investigated whether it was possible to decode an individual's subjective threat perception from patterns of whole-brain activity to threatening stimuli in the different emotional contexts using MKL regression models. Interestingly, we were able to accurately predict the subjective threat perception index from the pattern of brain activation to threat only during the directed away context. These results show that subtle differences in the emotional context during threat perception can be detected by MVPA. In the directed towards context, the threat perception was more intense, potentially producing more homogeneous patterns of brain activation across individuals. In the directed away context, the threat perception was relatively less intense and more variable across individuals, enabling the regression model to successfully capture the individual differences and predict the subjective threat perception.

SUBMITTER: Fernandes O

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7648008 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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How do you perceive threat? It's all in your pattern of brain activity.

Fernandes Orlando O Portugal Liana Catrina Lima LCL Alves Rita de Cássia S RCS Arruda-Sanchez Tiago T Volchan Eliane E Pereira Mirtes Garcia MG Mourão-Miranda Janaina J Oliveira Letícia L

Brain imaging and behavior 20201201 6

Whether subtle differences in the emotional context during threat perception can be detected by multi-voxel pattern analysis (MVPA) remains a topic of debate. To investigate this question, we compared the ability of pattern recognition analysis to discriminate between patterns of brain activity to a threatening versus a physically paired neutral stimulus in two different emotional contexts (the stimulus being directed towards or away from the viewer). The directionality of the stimuli is known t ...[more]

PMID: 31446554

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Project description:It has long been established that individuals with anxiety disorders tend to overgeneralize attributes of fearful stimuli to nonfearful stimuli, but there is little mechanistic understanding of the neural system that supports overgeneralization. To address this gap in our knowledge, this study examined effect of experimentally induced anxiety in humans on generalization using the behavioral pattern separation (BPS) paradigm. Healthy subjects of both sexes encoded and retrieved novel objects during periods of safety and threat of unpredictable shocks while we recorded brain activity with fMRI. During retrieval, subjects were instructed to differentiate among new, old, and altered images. We hypothesized that the hippocampus and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) would play a key role in the effect of anxiety on BPS. The dlPFC, but not the hippocampus, showed increased activity for altered images compared with old images when retrieval occurred during periods of threat compared with safety. In addition, accuracy for altered items retrieved during threat was correlated with dlPFC activity. Together, these results suggest that overgeneralization in anxiety patients may be mediated by an inability to recruit the dlPFC, which mediates the cognitive control needed to overcome anxiety and differentiate between old and altered items during periods of threat.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Anxiety and posttraumatic stress disorder patients generalize fear to nonfearful fear stimuli, making it difficult to regulate anxiety. Understanding how anxiety affects generalization is key to understanding the overgeneralization experienced by these patients. We examined this relationship in healthy subjects by studying how threat of shock affects neural responses to previously encountered stimuli. Although previous studies point to hippocampal involvement, we found that threat affected activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), rather than the hippocampus, when subjects encountered slightly altered versions of the previously encountered items. Importantly, this dlPFC activity predicted performance for these items. Together, these results suggest that the dlPFC is important for discrimination during elevated anxiety and that overgeneralization may reflect a deficit in dlPFC-mediated cognitive control.

Project description:ObjectiveTo compare cognitive testing scores in neurosurgeons and aerospace engineers to help settle the age old argument of which phrase-"It's not brain surgery" or "It's not rocket science"-is most deserved.DesignInternational prospective comparative study.SettingUnited Kingdom, Europe, the United States, and Canada.Participants748 people (600 aerospace engineers and 148 neurosurgeons). After data cleaning, 401 complete datasets were included in the final analysis (329 aerospace engineers and 72 neurosurgeons).Main outcome measuresValidated online test (Cognitron's Great British Intelligence Test) measuring distinct aspects of cognition, spanning planning and reasoning, working memory, attention, and emotion processing abilities.ResultsThe neurosurgeons showed significantly higher scores than the aerospace engineers in semantic problem solving (difference 0.33, 95% confidence interval 0.13 to 0.52). Aerospace engineers showed significantly higher scores in mental manipulation and attention (-0.29, -0.48 to -0.09). No difference was found between groups in domain scores for memory (-0.18, -0.40 to 0.03), spatial problem solving (-0.19, -0.39 to 0.01), problem solving speed (0.03, -0.20 to 0.25), and memory recall speed (0.12, -0.10 to 0.35). When each group's scores for the six domains were compared with those in the general population, only two differences were significant: the neurosurgeons' problem solving speed was quicker (mean z score 0.24, 95% confidence interval 0.07 to 0.41) and their memory recall speed was slower (-0.19, -0.34 to -0.04).ConclusionsIn situations that do not require rapid problem solving, it might be more correct to use the phrase "It's not brain surgery." It is possible that both neurosurgeons and aerospace engineers are unnecessarily placed on a pedestal and that "It's a walk in the park" or another phrase unrelated to careers might be more appropriate. Other specialties might deserve to be on that pedestal, and future work should aim to determine the most deserving profession.

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Dataset Information

How do you perceive threat? It's all in your pattern of brain activity.

Publications

How do you perceive threat? It's all in your pattern of brain activity.

Similar Datasets

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