Age Differences in Distress Following Intrusive Thoughts

描述：侵入性思想是令人不快但熟悉的心灵访客。它们在老年人中很常见，但人们对侵入性想法的经历和后果如何随着年龄的变化知之甚少。研究老年人的侵入性思维很重要，因为不必要的心理活动无处不在，而且侵入性思维是情绪失调的核心，产生焦虑，抑郁和与发病率和死亡率相关的健康问题。我们建议研究健康和焦虑的老年人对侵入性想法的反应的年龄差异，以确定可以帮助我们了解情感，身体和心理健康的保护因素，以及可以帮助我们学习如何干预那些正在与情感困难作斗争的老年人的风险因素。 在这个建议中，我们提出了一个模型来理解与年龄有关的侵入性想法和随之而来的痛苦的复发差异。我们将对老年人和年轻人进行一系列研究，使用思想抑制范式，参与者将试图抑制他们的侵入性思想。这种范式可靠地排除了侵入性思想，这将使我们能够评估年龄差异的复发和试图控制这些思想，赋予思想的意义，以及思想引发痛苦的程度。接下来，一系列的操纵计划，以检查侵入性思维的年龄差异的机制，如操纵分配给思想的意义和改变可用的工作记忆容量。我们将研究与年龄相关的保护和风险因素，以管理侵入性思维，以确定它们何时有助于情绪失调，何时有助于成功衰老。最后，我们将测试该模型的翻译潜力，包括对焦虑的老年人进行简短的干预研究，以确定是否训练这些成年人为他们的侵入性想法分配较少的威胁性含义可以减少他们的痛苦。我们还将评估侵入性想法和随之而来的痛苦对老年人日常功能的影响，检查决策等关键领域。最终，通过研究侵入性想法和痛苦之间的联系，我们可以提高对情绪和认知之间的相互作用及其与衰老的相互作用的理解。 公共卫生相关性：确定老年人如何应对侵入性想法，并向焦虑的老年人教授更多的适应性反应，对于促进成功的老龄化和公共卫生至关重要。侵入性想法与皮质醇升高、自尊心降低、多种形式的精神病理学和严重的情绪失调有关，而这些又被证明可以预测发病率和死亡率，例如心脏病风险增加。因此，拟议的研究将为开发工具提供基础，以防止老年人对侵入性想法的不健康反应，从而有助于预防情绪失调和由此产生的健康问题。

DESCRIPTION: Intrusive thoughts are unpleasant but familiar visitors to the mind. They are a common occurrence for older adults, but little is known about how the experience and consequences of intrusive thoughts change with age. Studying intrusive thoughts in older adults is important because unwanted mental activity is so ubiquitous, and because intrusive thoughts are central to emotion dysregulation, producing anxiety, depression and health problems that are tied to morbidity and mortality. We propose to study age differences in response to intrusive thoughts among healthy and anxious older adults to determine both the protective factors that can help us understand preservation of emotional, physical and mental health, and the risk factors that can help us learn how to intervene with those older adults who are struggling with emotional difficulties. In this proposal, we lay out a model to understand age-related differences in the recurrence of intrusive thoughts and ensuing distress. We will conduct a series of studies with older and younger adults using a thought suppression paradigm where participants will attempt to suppress their intrusive thoughts. This paradigm reliably elicits intrusive thoughts, which will allow us to evaluate age differences in the recurrence and attempts made to control these thoughts, meanings assigned to the thoughts, and the degree to which the thoughts provoke distress. Next, a series of manipulations are planned to examine the mechanisms underlying age differences in intrusive thoughts, such as manipulating the meaning assigned to thoughts and altering available working memory capacity. We will examine both age-related protective and risk factors for managing intrusive thoughts to determine when they contribute to emotion dysregulation versus when they contribute to successful aging. Finally, we will test the translational potential of the model, including brief intervention studies with anxious older adults to determine whether training these adults to assign less threatening meanings to their intrusive thoughts can reduce their distress. We will also evaluate the impact of intrusive thoughts and consequent distress on daily functioning in older adults, examining critical domains such as decision making. Ultimately, by examining the link between intrusive thoughts and distress, we can improve understanding of the interplay between emotion and cognition and their interaction with aging. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Establishing how older adults respond to intrusive thoughts, and teaching more adaptive responses to anxious older adults, is critical to promoting successful aging and public health. Intrusive thoughts have been linked to elevated cortisol, low self esteem, multiple forms of psychopathology and severe emotion dysregulation, which have in turn been shown to predict morbidity and mortality, such as increased risk of heart disease. Thus, the proposed studies will provide the basis for developing tools to prevent unhealthy responses to intrusive thoughts in older adults, and thereby help prevent emotion dysregulation and the resulting health problems.