Journal article
Trait anxiety is associated with hidden state inference during aversive reversal learning
- Abstract:
- Updating beliefs in changing environments can be driven by gradually adapting expectations or by relying on inferred hidden states (i.e. contexts), and changes therein. Previous work suggests that increased reliance on context could underly fear relapse phenomena that hinder clinical treatment of anxiety disorders. We test whether trait anxiety variations in a healthy population influence how much individuals rely on hidden-state inference. In a Pavlovian learning task, participants observed cues that predicted an upcoming electrical shock with repeatedly changing probability, and were asked to provide expectancy ratings on every trial. We show that trait anxiety is associated with steeper expectation switches after contingency reversals and reduced oddball learning. Furthermore, trait anxiety is related to better fit of a state inference, compared to a gradual learning, model when contingency changes are large. Our findings support previous work suggesting hidden-state inference as a mechanism behind anxiety-related to fear relapse phenomena.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 3.9MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1038/s41467-023-39825-3
Authors
- Publisher:
- Springer Nature
- Journal:
- Nature Communications More from this journal
- Volume:
- 14
- Issue:
- 1
- Article number:
- 4203
- Place of publication:
- England
- Publication date:
- 2023-07-14
- Acceptance date:
- 2023-06-29
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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2041-1723
- Pmid:
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37452030
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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1493946
- Local pid:
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pubs:1493946
- Deposit date:
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2024-02-19
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Zika et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2023
- Rights statement:
- © The Author(s) 2023. Open Access. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.
- Notes:
- This research was funded in whole, or in part, by the Wellcome Trust (Grant number 203139/Z/16/Z). For the purpose of Open Access, the author has applied a CC BY public copyright licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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