The cortisol response to social stress in social anxiety disorder

2015 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 57-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oriana Vaccarino ◽  
Robert Levitan ◽  
Arun Ravindran
Keyword(s):  
Anxiety Disorder ◽  
Social Anxiety ◽  
Social Anxiety Disorder ◽  
Social Stress ◽  
Cortisol Response

scholarly journals Coping with negative mental images in social anxiety disorder: Investigating the potential benefits of image morphing

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 204380871881375 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vanja Vidovic ◽  
Mia Romano ◽  
David A. Moscovitch
Keyword(s):  
Anxiety Disorder ◽  
Social Anxiety ◽  
Positive Affect ◽  
Social Anxiety Disorder ◽  
Social Stress ◽  
Daily Practice ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Image Morphing ◽  
Healthy Control ◽  
Potential Benefits

Negative mental imagery contributes to symptom maintenance in social anxiety disorder (SAD). Here, we investigated the effects of image morphing, a brief mental strategy designed to facilitate access to positive images. Participants with SAD and healthy control (HC) participants were randomly assigned to receive either image morphing or supportive counseling. Although initial training and 1-week daily practice were successful in equipping morphing participants across groups with the required skill, those assigned to morphing failed to demonstrate differential improvements in positive affect, negative affect, or self-perception relative to control participants during a subsequent social stress task. Ancillary analyses revealed that the number of positive details contained in retrieved or morphed images prior to the task significantly predicted the level of positive affect reported after the task, but this effect was observed only for HC participants. We discuss the need for future research to refine innovative imagery-based psychotherapeutic strategies for social anxiety.

scholarly journals Altered cortical-amygdala coupling in social anxiety disorder during the anticipation of giving a public speech

2014 ◽  
Vol 45 (7) ◽  
pp. 1521-1529 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. R. Cremers ◽  
I. M. Veer ◽  
P. Spinhoven ◽  
S. A. R. B. Rombouts ◽  
T. Yarkoni ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Emotion Regulation ◽  
Anxiety Disorder ◽  
Social Anxiety ◽  
Social Anxiety Disorder ◽  
Social Stress ◽  
Functional Integration ◽  
Resting State Fmri ◽  
Connectivity Pattern ◽  
Public Speech ◽  
Fmri Session

BackgroundSevere stress in social situations is a core symptom of social anxiety disorder (SAD). Connectivity between the amygdala and cortical regions is thought to be important for emotion regulation, a function that is compromised in SAD. However, it has never been tested if and how this connectivity pattern changes under conditions of stress-inducing social evaluative threat. Here we investigate changes in cortical-amygdala coupling in SAD during the anticipation of giving a public speech.MethodTwenty individuals with SAD and age-, gender- and education-matched controls (n = 20) participated in this study. During the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) session, participants underwent three ‘resting-state’ fMRI scans: one before, one during, and one after the anticipation of giving a public speech. Functional connectivity between cortical emotion regulation regions and the amygdala was investigated.ResultsCompared to controls, SAD participants showed reduced functional integration between cortical emotion regulation regions and the amygdala during the public speech anticipation. Moreover, in SAD participants cortical-amygdala connectivity changes correlated with social anxiety symptom severity.ConclusionsThe distinctive pattern of cortical-amygdala connectivity suggests less effective cortical-subcortical communication during social stress-provoking situations in SAD.

Effects of social and non-social stress on social behavior in health and social anxiety disorder

2017 ◽  
Vol 83 ◽  
pp. 71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernadette von Dawans ◽  
Amalie Trüg ◽  
Clemens Kirschbaum ◽  
Isabel Dziobek ◽  
Urs Fischbacher ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Anxiety Disorder ◽  
Social Behavior ◽  
Social Anxiety ◽  
Social Anxiety Disorder ◽  
Social Stress

Effects of CBT Versus MBSR Treatment on Social Stress Reactions in Social Anxiety Disorder

Mindfulness ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 514-526 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacinthe Faucher ◽  
Diana Koszycki ◽  
Jacques Bradwejn ◽  
Zul Merali ◽  
Catherine Bielajew
Keyword(s):  
Anxiety Disorder ◽  
Social Anxiety ◽  
Social Anxiety Disorder ◽  
Social Stress ◽  
Stress Reactions

scholarly journals Psychophysiological mechanisms underlying the failure to speak: a comparison between children with selective mutism and social anxiety disorder on autonomic arousal

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Felix Vogel ◽  
Christina Schwenck
Keyword(s):  
Stress Response ◽  
Anxiety Disorder ◽  
Social Anxiety ◽  
Social Anxiety Disorder ◽  
Social Stress ◽  
Selective Mutism ◽  
Verbal Task ◽  
Compensatory Mechanism ◽  
Fear Response ◽  
Social Situations

Abstract Background Selective mutism (SM) has been conceptualized as an extreme variant of social anxiety disorder (SAD), in which the failure to speak functions as an avoidance mechanism leading to a reduction of intense fear arousal. However, psychophysiological studies in children with SM are scarce and physiological mechanisms underlying the failure to speak are largely unknown. In contrast, children with SAD are characterized by a combination of a chronically elevated physiological arousal and a blunted physiological fear response to social stress. Due to the large overlap between SM and SAD, similar mechanisms might apply to both disorders, while differences might explain why children with SM fail to speak. The aim of our study is to investigate psychophysiological mechanisms of the failure to speak in children with SM. Methods We assessed in a total of N = 96 children [8–12 years, SM: n = 31, SAD: n = 32, typical development (TD): n = 33] resting baseline arousal in absence of social threat and the course of physiological fear response in two social stress paradigms, differing in terms of whether the children are expected to speak (verbal task) or not (nonverbal task). Results Children with SM were characterized by increased tonic arousal compared to the other two groups, and by a more inflexible stress response in the nonverbal but not in the verbal task compared to TD-children. Further analyses revealed that children with SM who did not speak during the verbal task already demonstrated reduced arousal in anticipation of the verbal task. Conclusion The increased tonic arousal generalized to non-social situations in SM could indicate a long-term alteration of the autonomic nervous system. Furthermore, the differential physiological stress response may indicate that silence acts as a maladaptive compensatory mechanism reducing stress in verbal social situations, which does not function in nonverbal situations. Our findings support the idea that the failure to speak might function as an avoidance mechanism, which is already active in anticipation of a verbal situation. Treatment of SM should take into account that children with SM may suffer from chronically elevated stress levels and that different mechanisms might operate in verbal and nonverbal social situations.

scholarly journals Initial Maintenance of Attention to Threat in Children with Social Anxiety Disorder? Findings from an Eye-Tracking Experiment

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steffen Schmidtendorf ◽  
Arvid Herwig ◽  
Susanne Wiedau ◽  
Julia Asbrand ◽  
Brunna Tuschen-Caffier ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Anxiety Disorder ◽  
Social Anxiety ◽  
Social Anxiety Disorder ◽  
Social Stress ◽  
Child Anxiety ◽  
Emotional Valence ◽  
Attention Allocation ◽  
Social Nature ◽  
Healthy Control ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Background Attentional biases are assumed to be a core feature in the etiology and maintenance of clinical anxiety. The present study focuses on initial maintenance of attention to threat, one of three attentional components investigated the least, particularly in child anxiety. Methods Angry and neutral facial expressions were presented in a free-viewing task, while eye-movements were recorded. Participants were N = 96 school-aged children, with n = 50 children with a clinical social anxiety disorder (SAD) and n = 46 healthy control children (HC). Prior to the task, social stress was induced in half of participating children to investigate the impact of increased levels of distress on initial attention allocation. Results The length of first fixation to angry faces in children with SAD neither differed from the length of first fixation to neutral faces nor the length of first fixation to angry faces in HC children. Furthermore, this variable was not affected by a stress induction procedure. However, children with SAD initially fixated longer on faces than HC children. Conclusion Our findings provide evidence for difficulties disengaging attention from faces. This may indicate that attention allocation is determined by the social nature of the stimuli rather than by the specific emotional valence.

scholarly journals A Modified Trier Social Stress Test to Investigate Social Anxiety using Videoconferencing Software: A Proof-of-Concept study

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan Huneke ◽  
Hannah Rowlatt ◽  
Joshua Hyde ◽  
Louise Maryan ◽  
David Baldwin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Anxiety Disorder ◽  
Social Anxiety ◽  
Social Anxiety Disorder ◽  
Social Stress ◽  
Stress Test ◽  
Anxiety Symptoms ◽  
Trier Social Stress Test ◽  
Experimental Medicine ◽  
Interaction Task

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is one of the most common mental disorders and can be significantly disabling. New treatments are needed as the remission rate for SAD is the lowest of all the anxiety disorders. Experimental medicine models, in which features resembling a clinical disorder are experimentally induced, can be a cost-effective and timely approach to explore potential novel treatments for psychiatric disorders. One such model is the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST), which induces social-evaluative threat and subsequent stress responses in participants. However, following the emergence of SARS-CoV-2, there is a need to develop protocols that can be carried out remotely. We developed a novel modified TSST to investigate SAD that can be carried out entirely online (the Internet-based Trier Stress test for Social Anxiety Disorder; iTSSAD). Our protocol involves a naturalistic social interaction task to explore social anxiety symptoms. The observing panel was also artificial which allows the entire protocol to be carried out by a single investigator, reducing costs and improving internal reliability. The iTSSAD induced significant subjective anxiety and reduced positive affect (F’s > 4.41, p’s < 0.02). Further, social anxiety symptoms correlated with anxiety during the social interaction task (r = 0.65, p = 0.0032). This protocol needs further validation with physiological measures. The iTSSAD is a new tool for researchers to investigate mechanisms underlying social anxiety disorder.

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