Age Differences in Distress Following Intrusive Thoughts

描述：侵扰性的想法是不愉快但熟悉的头脑访客。这在老年人中很常见，但关于侵扰性思维的经历和后果如何随着年龄的变化而变化，我们知之甚少。研究老年人的侵入性思维很重要，因为不受欢迎的精神活动无处不在，而且因为侵扰性思维是情绪失调的核心，会产生焦虑、抑郁和健康问题，这些问题与发病率和死亡率有关。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理解情绪、身体和心理健康保持的保护因素，以及可以帮助我们学习如何干预那些正在与情绪困难作斗争的老年人的风险因素。在这项建议中，我们设计了一个模型来理解与年龄相关的差异在侵扰性思维和随之而来的痛苦的复发方面的差异。我们将使用思维抑制范式对年长和年轻的成年人进行一系列研究，参与者将试图抑制他们的侵入性想法。这一范式可靠地引发了侵入性思维，这将使我们能够评估年龄差异在反复发作和试图控制这些思维方面的差异，赋予这些思维的意义，以及这些思维引发痛苦的程度。接下来，计划进行一系列的操作，以检验侵入性思维中年龄差异的潜在机制，例如操纵分配给思维的含义，改变可用的工作记忆容量。我们将检查与年龄相关的保护性因素和风险因素，以管理侵入性想法，以确定它们何时导致情绪失调，以及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，以确定训练这些成年人为他们的侵入性想法赋予较不具威胁性的含义是否可以减少他们的痛苦。我们还将评估侵扰性思维和随之而来的痛苦对老年人日常功能的影响，检查关键领域，如决策。最终，通过研究侵扰性思维和痛苦之间的联系，我们可以更好地理解情绪和认知之间的相互作用，以及它们与衰老的相互作用。 公共卫生相关性：确定老年人如何应对侵入性想法，并教授焦虑的老年人更具适应性的反应，对于促进成功老龄化和公共健康至关重要。侵入性思维与皮质醇升高、自尊低下、多种形式的精神病理和严重的情绪失调有关，这些因素反过来又被证明可以预测发病率和死亡率，例如心脏病风险的增加。因此，拟议的研究将为开发工具以防止老年人对侵入性想法的不健康反应提供基础，从而有助于防止情绪失调和由此导致的健康问题。

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.