Sensory Perception of Threat in Anxiety

描述（由申请人提供）：焦虑的特点是对威胁的反应增强。然而，焦虑症的确切病因学基础仍不清楚。不同于流行的杏仁核为中心的威胁处理和焦虑病理生理学的观点，本申请提出了一个神经感觉帐户，突出了焦虑的感觉通路。基于从我们的实验室和其他小组积累的新证据，我们认为刺激的生物学意义可以存储在感觉系统中，这样，一旦输入与感觉脑登记，情感值就被解码，与边缘系统的威胁评估平行，并且通常在边缘系统之前。作为认知流中的第一个操作之一，对威胁的有偏见的感官感知可以影响下游过程，直接或间接地导致在焦虑中观察到的各种认知和情绪异常。该项目代表了焦虑中威胁的基本感觉处理研究的第一线之一，将为基本威胁分析和焦虑成因提供新的见解，从而有助于创新焦虑症的临床治疗。为此，该提案将采用认知情感神经科学方法，首先定义焦虑中威胁的感觉编码，其中有两个概念重点：1）强调个体威胁亚型的高度专业化的感觉表征，这可以为不同的神经基础提供信息，有时甚至是对不同威胁的相互矛盾的反应和反射，并解释了焦虑症的异质性神经病学（具体目标1）;评估多模态和跨模态的威胁感知（与单峰）感觉输入，其中，通过最佳地模拟现实生活中的感官体验，具有很大的希望，揭示新的多方面和模态特定的感官偏见的威胁焦虑（具体目标2）。其次，计划中的研究将从机制上详细说明最初对威胁的感知偏见对随后的情绪和认知过程的影响，从而引起各种焦虑症状（特别是负面解读、过度社交回避和选择性关注威胁;具体目标3）。在六个独立的实验中，我们将采用一个独特的和全面发展的专业知识和技术（功能性磁共振成像，功能磁共振成像;脑事件相关电位，ERP;自主生理学;心理物理学;和焦虑评估和激发）的星座，以确定神经基础的感官知觉的威胁及其行为后果，作为焦虑的功能。该项目的研究结果将创建一个知识体系，可能会挑战主导的边缘为中心的焦虑概念化，促进向多系统，多路径理论化的转变。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Anxiety is characterized by heightened response to threat. However, the precise etiologic basis of anxiety disorders remains obscure. Differing from prevailing amygdala-centric views of threat processing and anxiety pathophysiology, this application proposes a neurosensory account, highlighting a sensory pathway to anxiety. Based on accruing new evidence from our laboratory and other groups, we posit that the biological significance of a stimulus can be stored in the sensory system such that the affective value is decoded as soon as the input registers with the sensory brain, paralleling and often preceding limbic- based threat evaluation. As one of the first operations in the cognitive stream, biased sensory perception of threat can then influence downstream processes, directly or indirectly contributing to a variety of cognitive and emotional anomalies observed in anxiety. Representing one of the first lines of research on basic sensory processing of threat in anxiety, this program would provide new insights into basic threat analysis and anxiety genesis, and thus help to innovate clinical treatment for anxiety disorders. Towards that end, this proposal will employ a cognitive-affective neuroscience approach to firstly define sensory encoding of threat in anxiety with two conceptual emphases: 1) to accentuate highly specialized sensory representations of individual threat subtypes, which could inform the neural basis for distinct and sometimes contradictory responses and reflexes to different threats, and account for the heterogeneous symptomology of anxiety disorders (Specific Aim 1); and 2) to evaluate threat perception of multi- and cross-modal (vs. unimodal) sensory input, which, by optimally simulating real-life sensory experience, holds great promise for revealing novel multifaceted and modality-specific sensory biases of threat in anxiety (Specific Aim 2). Secondly, the planned research will mechanistically specify the impact of initial perceptual bias to threat on subsequent emotional and cognitive processes, giving rise to various anxiety symptoms (in particular, negative interpretation, excessive social avoidance and selective attention to threat; Specific Aim 3). In six independent experiments, we will employ a unique and fully developed constellation of expertise and techniques (functional magnetic resonance imaging, fMRI; brain event- related potentials, ERPs; autonomic physiology; psychophysics; and anxiety assessment and provocation) to determine the neural underpinnings of sensory perception of threat and its behavioral consequences, varying as a function of anxiety. The project findings will create a body of knowledge that is likely to challenge the dominant limbic-centered conceptualization of anxiety, promoting a shift to a multi-system, multi-path theorization.