Neural Correlates of Suspiciousness in Anxiety and Depression During Emotional Processing

Suspiciousness is an overlooked symptom in the study of mood and anxiety disorders, even though it is present in both clinical and subclinical populations with these symptoms. Moreover, it is possible that it may moderate or mediate relationships between mood and anxiety symptoms and regional brain activity. For this study, participants with high scores on anxious apprehension, anxious arousal and anhedonic depression were recruited. Three hypotheses were investigated: (1) Suspiciousness will have a relationship to processing deficits beyond that of anxiety and depression; (2) Specific combinations of suspiciousness and anxiety symptoms will be associated with lateralized patterns of ERP responses (i.e., strategies) to negative information; and (3) Suspiciousness will be associated with a pattern of lateralization similar to anxiety, rather than one similar to depression. In addition, left-hemisphere activity associated with suspiciousness may be associated with emotion regulatory processes and/or positive affect. During the lab session, measures of suspiciousness, affect and emotion regulation were administered and participants performed an emotional Stroop task while EEG was recorded. Analyses addressed the three hypotheses and the following relationships were observed. (1) Suspiciousness was uniquely associated with enhanced activity over the right temporal region, which may be related to an overactive right-hemisphere threat-response system. In addition, it appeared that suspiciousness was more related to anxious apprehension than to anxious arousal, but shared aspects of both. (2) These two anxiety dimensions and suspiciousness were also associated with an avoidance strategy characterized by specific patterns of ERPs. This strategy was associated with questionnaire measures of emotion regulation, providing evidence that this avoidance process generalizes to external situations. (3) Lastly, suspiciousness and depression were associated with opposite patterns of frontotemporal activity, suggesting that any similarities between suspiciousness and depression are due to an indirect or more complex relationship than that of suspiciousness and anxiety. In combination, these findings suggest that suspiciousness resembles a combination of anxious apprehension and anxious arousal and is specifically associated with increased activity of the vigilance network over right temporal regions.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Fisher, Joscelyn Elizabeth

Contributors dc:contributor

• Miller, Gregory A.

• Biology, Neuroscience

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

(MiAaPQ)AAI3250241

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/82120