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Neural evidence for cognitive reappraisal as a strategy to alleviate the effects of math anxiety.

ABSTRACT: Math anxiety (MA) describes feelings of tension, apprehension and fear that interfere with math performance. High MA (HMA) is correlated with negative consequences, including lower math grades, and ultimately an avoidance of quantitative careers. Given these adverse consequences, it is essential to explore effective intervention strategies to reduce MA. In the present functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we investigated the efficacy of cognitive reappraisal as a strategy to alleviate the effects of MA. Cognitive reappraisal, an emotion regulation strategy, has been shown to decrease negative affect and amygdala responsivity to stimuli that elicit negative emotion. We compared a reappraisal strategy to participants' natural strategy for solving math problems and analogies. We found that HMA individuals showed an increase in accuracy and a decrease in negative affect during the reappraisal condition as compared to the control condition. During math reappraise trials, increased activity in a network of regions associated with arithmetic correlated with improved performance for HMA individuals. These results suggest that increased engagement of arithmetic regions underlies the performance increases we identify in HMA students when they use reappraisal to augment their math performance. Overall, cognitive reappraisal is a promising strategy for enhancing math performance and reducing anxiety in math anxious individuals.

SUBMITTER: Pizzie RG

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7759208 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Neural evidence for cognitive reappraisal as a strategy to alleviate the effects of math anxiety.

Pizzie Rachel G RG McDermott Cassidy L CL Salem Tyler G TG Kraemer David J M DJM

Social cognitive and affective neuroscience 20201201 12

Math anxiety (MA) describes feelings of tension, apprehension and fear that interfere with math performance. High MA (HMA) is correlated with negative consequences, including lower math grades, and ultimately an avoidance of quantitative careers. Given these adverse consequences, it is essential to explore effective intervention strategies to reduce MA. In the present functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we investigated the efficacy of cognitive reappraisal as a strategy to allevi ...[more]

PMID: 33258958

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Project description:ImportanceCognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for social anxiety disorder (SAD) is thought to enhance cognitive reappraisal in patients with SAD. Such improvements should be evident in cognitive reappraisal-related prefrontal cortex responses.ObjectiveTo determine whether CBT for SAD modifies cognitive reappraisal-related prefrontal cortex neural signal magnitude and timing when implementing cognitive reappraisal with negative self-beliefs. DESIGN Randomized clinical trial of CBT for SAD vs wait-list control group during a study that enrolled patients from 2007 to 2010.SettingUniversity psychology department.ParticipantsSeventy-five patients with generalized SAD randomly assigned to CBT or wait list.InterventionSixteen sessions of individual CBT for SAD.Main outcome measuresNegative emotion ratings and functional magnetic resonance imaging blood oxygen-level dependent signal when reacting to and cognitively reappraising negative self-beliefs embedded in autobiographical social anxiety situations. RESULTS During reactivity trials, compared with wait list, CBT produced (1) greater reduction in negative emotion ratings and (2) greater blood oxygen-level dependent signal magnitude in the medial prefrontal cortex. During cognitive reappraisal trials, compared with wait list, CBT produced (3) greater reduction in negative emotion ratings, (4) greater blood oxygen level-dependent signal magnitude in the dorsolateral and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, (5) earlier temporal onset of dorsomedial prefrontal cortex activity, and (6) greater dorsomedial prefrontal cortex-amygdala inverse functional connectivity.Conclusions and relevanceModulation of cognitive reappraisal-related brain responses, timing, and functional connectivity may be important brain changes that contribute to the effectiveness of CBT for social anxiety. This study demonstrates that clinically applied neuroscience investigations can elucidate neurobiological mechanisms of change in psychiatric conditions.Trial registrationclinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT00380731.

Dataset Information

Neural evidence for cognitive reappraisal as a strategy to alleviate the effects of math anxiety.

Publications

Neural evidence for cognitive reappraisal as a strategy to alleviate the effects of math anxiety.

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