Article
Psychology, Biological
Maren Klingelhoefer, Jayne Morriss, Tina B. Lonsdorf
Summary: Research has found that individuals' intolerance of uncertainty (IU) affects their subjective and physiological responses during fear conditioning procedures. People with high IU show higher fear ratings during fear acquisition and delayed extinction training. However, IU and STAI-T are not significantly related to skin conductance and auditory startle blink.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Neurosciences
Jayne Morriss, Nicolo Biagi, Tina B. Lonsdorf, Marta Andreatta
Summary: The study found that individuals with high intolerance of uncertainty did not show a relationship with conditioned reward extinction in a Pavlovian reward conditioning task. Further research is needed to confirm whether IU is associated with deficits in reward extinction.
EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Psychology, Clinical
Shannon Wake, Jayne Morriss, Tom Johnstone, Carien M. van Reekum, Helen Dodd
Summary: The research indicates that compromised threat extinction is more likely related to high levels of Intolerance of Uncertainty (IU) rather than social anxiety. High IU may be associated with impaired extinction learning and retention processes.
BEHAVIOUR RESEARCH AND THERAPY
(2021)
Article
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Gabrielle Marcotte-Beaumier, Bailee L. Malivoire, Naomi Koerner
Summary: The study found a relationship between avoidance of negative emotional contrasts and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). This relationship can be explained by a greater fear of emotional reactions and a lower tolerance for uncertainty. However, when considering fear of specific emotions, this relationship no longer exists.
CURRENT PSYCHOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Shannon Wake, Helen Dodd, Jayne Morriss
Summary: Individuals with high intolerance of uncertainty (IU) show reduced threat extinction. Replacing threat associations with novel associations can promote threat extinction retention in individuals with high IU. The novelty facilitated extinction (NFE) effect may be driven more by novelty than reliability.
BRITISH JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Naomi Carpentier, Dirk Hermans, Sara Scheveneels
Summary: Intolerance of uncertainty is not significantly associated with the course and outcome of exposure intervention in spider-fearful participants, despite its link to difficulties in safety learning for anxiety disorders. Additional research is needed to replicate these findings.
COLLABRA-PSYCHOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Psychology, Biological
Asimina Aslanidou, Marta Andreatta, Alex H. K. Wong, Matthias J. Wieser
Summary: This study investigates the influence of threat uncertainty on fear generalization. Manipulating different levels of threat uncertainty, the study finds that threat uncertainty does not modulate fear generalization. However, the strength of generalization for threat expectancy ratings is positively correlated with dispositional intolerance of uncertainty.
Article
Psychology, Biological
Julia Wendt, Jayne Morriss
Summary: Individuals with high scores in self-reported Intolerance of Uncertainty (IU) may struggle with uncertainty. Providing these individuals with contingency instructions about threat and safety contingencies may help them update threat associations to safety associations more effectively.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Sebastian Schmidt, Christoph Benke, Christiane A. Pane-Farre
Summary: The study found that higher levels of perceived threat of COVID-19 were associated with a decrease in purchasing frequency and an increase in purchasing quantity. Additionally, higher levels of intolerance of uncertainty and greater media exposure were positively correlated with perceived threat of COVID-19 and an increase in purchasing quantity.
Article
Pharmacology & Pharmacy
Patrick Vizeli, Isabelle Straumann, Urs Duthaler, Nimmy Varghese, Anne Eckert, Martin P. Paulus, Victoria Risbrough, Matthias E. Liechti
Summary: This study aims to explore the potential of MDMA as a treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and its mechanism of action. The results show that MDMA treatment can enhance fear extinction learning and recall, but this effect may be limited to certain forms of learned fear responses. Additionally, MDMA does not influence fear reactions to conditioned cues.
FRONTIERS IN PHARMACOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Biology
Marcus Wicken, Rebecca Keogh, Joel Pearson
Summary: The study suggests that individuals with aphantasia lack a physiological response when imagining frightening scenarios, likely due to their inability to visualize, rather than general emotional or physiological dampening. This provides evidence for the emotional amplification theory of visual imagery.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2021)
Article
Clinical Neurology
Gaetan Mertens, Paul Lodder, Tom Smeets, Stefanie Duijndam
Summary: This study examines the development of fear during the COVID-19 pandemic and identifies predictors of chronic fear. The findings show a steady decrease in fear since April 2020. Region, anxious traits, gender, risks for loved ones, general health, and media use were all predictors of increased fear.
JOURNAL OF AFFECTIVE DISORDERS
(2023)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Ping Hu, Miraj Ahmed Bhuiyan, Muhammad Khalilur Rahman, Mohammad Mainul Hossain, Shaharin Akter
Summary: This study examined the impact of fear of the COVID-19 pandemic on consumer behavioral intention to purchase green products. The results revealed that this fear significantly influences health concerns, social media information, intolerance of uncertainty, and personal relevance, which in turn affect the intention to purchase green products. The findings highlight the importance of understanding the fluctuation in green product purchase behavior due to the ongoing uncertainty of the COVID-19 crisis.
Article
Psychology, Biological
Jacklynn M. Fitzgerald, E. Kate Webb, Susan Sangha
Summary: Discrimination between danger cues and safety cues in the environment is crucial for survival, and extends to the discrimination of reward as well, which remains understudied in human research. This study translated a rodent task for fear, reward, and neutral discrimination (FRND) into a human task. Results showed that participants rated reward cues the highest, fear cues the lowest, and neutral cues in between, while skin conductance response (SCR) amplitude was largest for fear and reward cues, and lowest for neutral cues. The FRND is a useful paradigm for assessing psychological and physiological discrimination of fear and reward.
Article
Psychology, Biological
T. Jovanovic, C. N. Wiltshire, M. H. Reda, J. France, C. P. Wanna, S. T. Minton, W. Davie, L. R. Grasser, S. Winters, H. Schacter, H. A. Marusak, A. F. Stenson
Summary: Intolerance of uncertainty is a risk factor for fear-related disorders and anxiety in children and adolescents. This study found that awareness of trauma in children was not associated with PTSD symptoms, while unawareness was strongly associated. Uncertainty interacted with anxiety in that unaware and highly anxious children showed higher fear responses to safety cues and failed to discriminate between threat and safety.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Neurosciences
Xiang-Zhen Kong, Clyde Francks
Summary: The problem of poor reproducibility of scientific findings has been a topic of concern in recent years. A recent multisite collaborative study investigated the reproducibility of brain anatomical left-right asymmetries in regional measures of surface area and cortical thickness. The study found an average reproducibility rate of 63.2%, with larger effects and larger datasets having higher reproducibility.
HUMAN BRAIN MAPPING
(2022)
Article
Psychology, Biological
Julia Wendt, Jayne Morriss
Summary: Individuals with high scores in self-reported Intolerance of Uncertainty (IU) may struggle with uncertainty. Providing these individuals with contingency instructions about threat and safety contingencies may help them update threat associations to safety associations more effectively.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Psychology, Clinical
Daniel Zuj, Simon Dymond, Stuart B. Murray, Shaima Thomas, Jayne Morriss
Summary: Intolerance of uncertainty (IU) is a significant risk factor for psychiatric disorders and plays a crucial role in fear and threat learning. This study found that individuals with higher IU showed larger effects in fear reinstatement. However, these effects were small and did not survive follow-up tests.
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOPATHOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Psychology, Biological
Shannon Wake, Alberto Dalla Verde, Nicolo Biagi, Carien M. van Reekum, Jayne Morriss
Summary: This study examined the impact of individual differences in self-reported anxiety and obsessive-compulsive features on subjective, behavioral, and physiological indices during a visual discrimination and checking task. The results showed that higher self-reported anxiety and obsessive-compulsive features were associated with higher unpleasantness ratings and the urge to check during the task. In addition, higher levels of anxiety and obsessive-compulsive features related to general negative affect, uncertainty, and perfectionism were associated with greater checking frequency. Lastly, stronger obsessional beliefs about perfectionism and the need for certainty predicted poorer task accuracy, slower reaction times, and higher engagement of the corrugator supercilii.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY
(2022)
Editorial Material
Psychology, Biological
Jayne Morriss, Rany Abend, Ondrej Zika, Daniel E. Bradford, Gaetan Mertens
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY
(2023)
Review
Anesthesiology
Greig R. R. Adams, Wiebke Gandhi, Richard Harrison, Carien M. M. van Reekum, Desmond Wood-Anderson, Ian Gilron, Tim V. V. Salomons
Summary: Central sensitization (CS) refers to increased pain responsiveness due to sensitization of neurons in the central nervous system. This review aimed to investigate whether self-report questionnaires linked with CS are associated with enhanced nociceptive responses or measure sensitivity in a broader sense (i.e., emotional responses).
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Dominik R. Bach, Juliana Sporrer, Rany Abend, Tom Beckers, Joseph E. Dunsmoor, Miquel A. Fullana, Matthias Gamer, Dylan G. Gee, Alfons Hamm, Catherine A. Hartley, Ryan J. Herringa, Tanja Jovanovic, Raffael Kalisch, David C. Knight, Shmuel Lissek, Tina B. Lonsdorf, Christian J. Merz, Mohammed Milad, Jayne Morriss, Elizabeth A. Phelps, Daniel S. Pine, Andreas Olsson, Carien M. van Reekum, Daniela Schiller
Summary: This article introduces a laboratory model called fear conditioning, which is widely used to investigate learning, memory, and psychopathology. Quantification of learning in this model is diverse in humans, and establishing psychometric properties of different quantification methods can be challenging. To address this issue, the researchers propose a calibration procedure in which well-defined values are generated to serve as a validity criterion for ranking methods. They develop a specific calibration protocol for fear conditioning in humans and suggest 25 design variables for measurement calibration. The general calibration process outlined in this study can be used as a blueprint for refining measurements in other subfields of behavioral neuroscience.
NEUROSCIENCE AND BIOBEHAVIORAL REVIEWS
(2023)
Article
Psychiatry
Jayne Morriss, Kimberly Goh, Colette R. Hirsch, Helen F. Dodd
Summary: Individuals high in self-reported Intolerance of Uncertainty (IU) tend to view uncertainty as unbearable and stressful. Recent research suggests that IU may have relevance for a broader range of emotional states beyond fear and anxiety. An online survey revealed that higher levels of IU are associated with negative emotional states evoked by uncertainty and less likely to evoke positive emotional states. IU also intensified existing negative emotional states and dampened existing positive emotional states. These findings have implications for transdiagnostic models and treatment plans for emotional disorders.
FRONTIERS IN PSYCHIATRY
(2023)
Article
Neurosciences
Emma Tupitsa, Ifeoma Egbuniwe, William K. Lloyd, Marta Puertollano, Birthe Macdonald, Karin Joanknecht, Michiko Sakaki, Carien M. van Reekum
Summary: The Neurovisceral Integration Model suggests that shared neural networks are involved in regulating emotions and heart rate, with heart rate variability (HRV) serving as an objective measurement of prefrontal inhibitory control. Previous studies have mainly focused on HRV and associated neural functional connectivity at rest, rather than during active emotion regulation. This study aimed to extend these findings by examining task-related HRV and amygdala functional connectivity during a cognitive reappraisal task. The results showed that younger adults had an inverse association between HRV and amygdala-medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) functional connectivity, while older adults displayed a slight positive correlation. These findings underscore the importance of assessing HRV and neural functional connectivity during active regulatory contexts to better understand the neural correlates of HRV and adaptive emotion regulation.
Article
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Claudia Rodriguez-Sobstel, Shannon Wake, Helen Dodd, Eugene McSorley, Carien M. van Reekum, Jayne Morriss
Summary: Previous research found that individuals with high levels of Intolerance of Uncertainty (IU) have difficulty associating threats with safety. This study used eye-tracking metrics to analyze gaze behaviors during different stages of conditioning, and found patterns of threat and safety learning. However, the specific association between IU and disrupted safety learning was not clear, and the association between IU and shorter fixation durations to threat cues in extinction retention was not significant after controlling for trait anxiety.
COLLABRA-PSYCHOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
David Johnson, Wingman Ho, Beggum Uddin, Samuel Tetteh-Quarshie, Jayne Morriss
Summary: This study investigated the effect of partial and continuous threat reinforcement on threat/safety discrimination learning. The results showed increased skin conductance response (SCR) in the continuous reinforcement condition, but limited evidence of enhanced discrimination learning. The study also found that low intolerance of uncertainty and high prospective intolerance of uncertainty were associated with diminished and heightened threat discrimination, respectively.
COLLABRA-PSYCHOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Neurosciences
Richard Harrison, Wiebke Gandhi, Carien M. van Reekum, Tim Salomons
Summary: This study investigated the association between whole-brain connectivity of the periaqueductal grey (PAG), a core modulatory region, and conditioned pain modulation (CPM) and endogenous pain modulation. The findings showed that CPM was associated with heightened connectivity between the PAG and key regions involved in pain processing and inhibition. These results may serve as brain-based biomarkers for vulnerability or resilience to pain.
Article
Psychology
Nicholas M. M. Thompson, Carien M. M. van Reekum, Bhismadev Chakrabarti
Summary: These studies examined the relationship between empathy and emotion regulation, finding that cognitive empathy was associated with improved emotion regulation abilities, while affective empathy was associated with increased difficulties with emotion regulation.
Review
Psychology, Biological
Robert W. Levenson
Summary: This article describes the development of paradigms for studying dyadic interaction in the laboratory, methods, and analytics for dealing with dyadic data. It provides research findings from the author and others, with a particular focus on dyadic measures of linkage or synchrony in physiology, expressive behavior, and subjective affective experience.
BIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY
(2024)
Article
Psychology, Biological
Thomas M. Olino, Matthew Mattoni
Summary: This study examined brain function in offspring of mothers with and without depression using monetary and social reward tasks. The results showed no significant differences in task activation and functional connectivity between the two groups. The study discussed the possibility of developmental timing in finding differences.
BIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY
(2024)