scholarly journals Preprint: Altered decision-making under uncertainty in unmedicated mood and anxiety disorders

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver Joe Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Anxiety Disorders ◽  
Anxiety Symptoms ◽  
Slot Machines ◽  
Decision Making Under Uncertainty ◽  
Mathematical Framework ◽  
Negative Outcomes ◽  
Mood And Anxiety Disorders ◽  
Uncertain Outcomes ◽  
Pathological Group

In daily life we are constantly faced with decisions that have uncertain outcomes. This uncertainty can lead to feelings of anxiety. However, the reciprocal role that anxiety plays in altering the decisions made under uncertainty is not fully understood. This is important, because psychological treatments for anxiety disorders attempt to alter anxiety-related decision-making. In this study we therefore probed the computational basis of decision-making under uncertainty in individuals with high levels of mood and anxiety symptoms. Specifically, healthy individuals (N=88) and individuals with mood and anxiety disorders (N=44) were asked to choose between four competing slot machines (‘four armed bandit’) with fluctuating, uncertain, outcomes (i.e. rewards and/or punishments, or neither). Decisions were made during periods of safety and environmental stress (threat of unpredictable shock). We predicted that anxious individuals under stress would learn faster about punishments, and exhibit choices that were more affected by them. We formalized these hypotheses in terms of parameter values – punishment learning rate and punishment sensitivity respectively - in reinforcement learning accounts of behaviour. We found no evidence for an effect on punishment choice sensitivity in the pathological group, even under elevated stress. However individuals with high anxiety symptoms did have higher learning rates for punishment across all conditions. The behaviour of the pathological group was also apparently more random, with a greater influence of a lapse parameter in the model across conditions. Overall, these data suggest that anxious individuals do not weigh negative outcomes more heavily; rather they are quicker to update their behaviour in response to negative (but not positive) outcomes. This suggests that, when treating anxiety, we should not seek to blunt responses to negative outcomes, but instead encourage anxious individuals to integrate information over longer horizons when bad things happen. As such, these findings provide a formal mathematical framework for developing psychological treatment strategies for mood and anxiety disorders.

scholarly journals The impact of stress on financial decision-making varies as a function of depression and anxiety symptoms

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver J Robinson ◽  
Rebecca Bond ◽  
Jonathan P Roiser
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Anxiety Disorders ◽  
Trait Anxiety ◽  
Anxiety Symptoms ◽  
Financial Decision Making ◽  
Individual Vulnerability ◽  
Mood And Anxiety Disorders ◽  
Financial Decision ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Selection Of

Stress can precipitate the onset of mood and anxiety disorders. This may occur, at least in part, via a modulatory effect of stress on decision-making. Some individuals are, however, more resilient to the effects of stress than others. The mechanisms underlying such vulnerability differences are nevertheless unknown. In this study we attempted to begin quantifying individual differences in vulnerability by exploring the effect of experimentally induced stress on decision-making. Threat of unpredictable shock was used to induce stress in healthy volunteers (N=47) using a within-subjects, within-session design, and its impact on a financial decision-making task (the Iowa Gambling Task) was assessed alongside anxious and depressive symptomatology. As expected, participants learned to select advantageous decks and avoid disadvantageous decks. Importantly, we found that stress provoked a pattern of harm-avoidant behaviour (decreased selection of disadvantageous decks) in individuals with low levels of trait anxiety. By contrast, individuals with high trait anxiety demonstrated the opposite pattern: stress-induced risk-seeking (increased selection of disadvantageous decks). These contrasting influences of stress depending on mood and anxiety symptoms might provide insight into vulnerability to common mental illness. In particular, we speculate that those who adopt a more harm-avoidant strategy may be better able to regulate their exposure to further environmental stress, reducing their susceptibility to mood and anxiety disorders. The threat of shock paradigm we employed might therefore hold promise as a ‘stress-test’ for determining individual vulnerability to mood and anxiety disorders.

scholarly journals The impact of stress on financial decision-making varies as a function of depression and anxiety symptoms

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver J Robinson ◽  
Rebecca Bond ◽  
Jonathan P Roiser
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Anxiety Disorders ◽  
Trait Anxiety ◽  
Anxiety Symptoms ◽  
Financial Decision Making ◽  
Individual Vulnerability ◽  
Mood And Anxiety Disorders ◽  
Financial Decision ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Selection Of

Stress can precipitate the onset of mood and anxiety disorders. This may occur, at least in part, via a modulatory effect of stress on decision-making. Some individuals are, however, more resilient to the effects of stress than others. The mechanisms underlying such vulnerability differences are nevertheless unknown. In this study we attempted to begin quantifying individual differences in vulnerability by exploring the effect of experimentally induced stress on decision-making. Threat of unpredictable shock was used to induce stress in healthy volunteers (N=47) using a within-subjects, within-session design, and its impact on a financial decision-making task (the Iowa Gambling Task) was assessed alongside anxious and depressive symptomatology. As expected, participants learned to select advantageous decks and avoid disadvantageous decks. Importantly, we found that stress provoked a pattern of harm-avoidant behaviour (decreased selection of disadvantageous decks) in individuals with low levels of trait anxiety. By contrast, individuals with high trait anxiety demonstrated the opposite pattern: stress-induced risk-seeking (increased selection of disadvantageous decks). These contrasting influences of stress depending on mood and anxiety symptoms might provide insight into vulnerability to common mental illness. In particular, we speculate that those who adopt a more harm-avoidant strategy may be better able to regulate their exposure to further environmental stress, reducing their susceptibility to mood and anxiety disorders. The threat of shock paradigm we employed might therefore hold promise as a ‘stress-test’ for determining individual vulnerability to mood and anxiety disorders.

scholarly journals Back-translating a rodent measure of negative bias into humans: the impact of induced anxiety and unmedicated mood and anxiety disorders

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Aylward ◽  
Claire Hales ◽  
Emma Robinson ◽  
Oliver J Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Reaction Time ◽  
Anxiety Disorders ◽  
Computational Model ◽  
Treatment Options ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Current Treatment ◽  
Anxiety Symptoms ◽  
Mood And Anxiety Disorders ◽  
Affective Bias ◽  
The Impact

AbstractBackgroundMood and anxiety disorders are ubiquitous but current treatment options are ineffective for large numbers of sufferers. Moreover, recent years have seen a number of promising pre-clinical interventions fail to translate into clinical efficacy in humans. Improved treatments are unlikely without better animal-human translational pipelines. Here, we directly adapt–i.e. back-translate - a rodent measure of negative affective bias into humans, and explore its relationship with a)pathological mood and anxiety symptoms (study one) and b)transient induced anxiety (study two).MethodParticipants who met criteria for mood or anxiety disorder symptomatology according to a face-to-face neuropsychiatric interview were included in the symptomatic group. N = 77(47 asymptomatic; Female = 21; 30 symptomatic; Female = 25) participants completed study one and N = 47 asymptomatic participants (25 female) completed study two. Outcome measures were choice ratios, reaction times and parameters recovered from a computational model of reaction time; the drift diffusion model (DDM).ResultsSymptomatic individuals demonstrated increased negative affective bias relative to asymptomatic individuals (proportion high reward = 0.42(SD = 0.14), and 0.53(SD = 0.17), respectively) as well as reduced DDM drift rate (p = 0.004). No significant effects were observed for the within-subjects anxiety-induction in study 2.ConclusionHumans with pathological anxiety symptoms directly mimic rodents undergoing anxiogenic manipulation. The lack of sensitivity to transient anxiety suggests the paradigm may, moreover, be primarily sensitive to clinically relevant symptoms. Our results establish a direct translational pipeline (and candidate therapeutics screen) from negative affective bias in rodents to pathological mood and anxiety symptoms in humans, and link it to a computational model of reaction time.

scholarly journals Translating a rodent measure of negative bias into humans: the impact of induced anxiety and unmedicated mood and anxiety disorders

2019 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-246 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Aylward ◽  
Claire Hales ◽  
Emma Robinson ◽  
Oliver J. Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Anxiety Disorders ◽  
Treatment Options ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Current Treatment ◽  
Anxiety Symptoms ◽  
Mood And Anxiety Disorders ◽  
Affective Bias ◽  
Asymptomatic Individuals ◽  
Anxiety Induction ◽  
The Impact

AbstractBackgroundMood and anxiety disorders are ubiquitous but current treatment options are ineffective for many sufferers. Moreover, a number of promising pre-clinical interventions have failed to translate into clinical efficacy in humans. Improved treatments are unlikely without better animal–human translational pipelines. Here, we translate a rodent measure of negative affective bias into humans, exploring its relationship with (1) pathological mood and anxiety symptoms and (2) transient induced anxiety.MethodsAdult participants (age = 29 ± 11) who met criteria for mood or anxiety disorder symptomatology according to a face-to-face neuropsychiatric interview were included in the symptomatic group. Study 1 included N = 77 (47 = asymptomatic [female = 21]; 30 = symptomatic [female = 25]), study 2 included N = 47 asymptomatic participants (25 = female). Outcome measures were choice ratios, reaction times and parameters recovered from a computational model of reaction time – the drift diffusion model (DDM) – from a two-alternative-forced-choice task in which ambiguous and unambiguous auditory stimuli were paired with high and low rewards.ResultsBoth groups showed over 93% accuracy on unambiguous tones indicating intact discrimination, but symptomatic individuals demonstrated increased negative affective bias on ambiguous tones [proportion high reward = 0.42 (s.d. = 0.14)] relative to asymptomatic individuals [0.53 (s.d. = 0.17)] as well as a significantly reduced DDM drift rate. No significant effects were observed for the within-subjects anxiety-induction.ConclusionsHumans with pathological anxiety symptoms directly mimic rodents undergoing anxiogenic manipulation. The lack of sensitivity to transient anxiety suggests the paradigm might be more sensitive to clinically relevant symptoms. Our results establish a direct translational pipeline (and candidate therapeutics screen) from negative affective bias in rodents to pathological mood and anxiety symptoms in humans.

LPCD framework: Analytical tool or psychological model?

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Danks
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Analytical Tool ◽  
Mathematical Framework ◽  
Bayesian Decision ◽  
Perceptual Decision Making ◽  
Psychological Model ◽  
Psychological Reality ◽  
Psychological Theories ◽  
Target Article ◽  
Bayesian Decision Making

AbstractThe target article uses a mathematical framework derived from Bayesian decision making to demonstrate suboptimal decision making but then attributes psychological reality to the framework components. Rahnev & Denison's (R&D) positive proposal thus risks ignoring plausible psychological theories that could implement complex perceptual decision making. We must be careful not to slide from success with an analytical tool to the reality of the tool components.

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