Contraceptives and conditioning: Different profiles of fear and expectancy ratings during fear conditioning and extinction according to menstrual cycle phase and hormonal contraceptive use.

Hormonal contraceptives (HC) such as the oral contraceptive pill (OC) and the hormonal intrauterine device (IUD) have been associated with depressed mood, but research on their role in anxiety is scarce and inconsistent. In a fear acquisition and extinction paradigm, self-report fear, expectancy, and skin conductance responses (SCR) were assessed, along with sex hormone levels. Naturally cycling (NC) participants were measured during the mid-follicular and mid-luteal phases (within subjects, n = 26) and compared with OC (n = 36) and IUD (n = 25) users.

Fear generalization in individuals with subclinical symptoms of panic disorder.

Panic disorder (PD) is a debilitating mental health condition, characterized by a preoccupation with the occurrence of panic attacks. Previous research has found that PD patients display increased fear generalization, which entails inflated fear responses to ambiguous stimuli (e.g.

The prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder symptomatology and diagnosis in burn survivors: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Great disparity is observed among studies investigating the prevalence of PTSD after burns. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to explore the pooled prevalence of PTSD in adult burn survivors over the first two years post-burn. Five electronic databases were searched for observational studies assessing the prevalence of PTSD symptoms after burns.

The generalization of threat beliefs to novel safety stimuli induced by safety behaviors.

Safety behaviors are responses that can reduce or even prevent an expected threat. Moreover, empirical studies have shown that using safety behaviors to a learnt safety stimulus can induce threat beliefs to it. No research so far has examined whether threat beliefs induced this way generalize to other novel stimuli related to the safety stimulus.

Positive mood induction does not reduce return of fear: A virtual reality exposure study for public speaking anxiety.

Previous laboratory work has shown that induction of positive mood prior to fear extinction decreases the negative valence of the conditional stimulus (CS) and reduces reinstatement of fear. Before translating these insights to clinical practice, it is important to test this strategy in anxious individuals. Students with a high fear of public speaking (N = 62) were randomized to either a positive mood induction, a negative mood induction, or no induction control group.

The effectiveness of two novel approaches to prevent intrusions: A pilot study comparing Tetris_dualtask and imagery rescripting to control.

Background And Objectives: Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a global health problem. Although effective treatments for it exist, early interventions that prevent PTSD from developing are lacking. The aim of this pilot analogue trauma study was to compare the effects of two potential early intervention strategies, namely Tetris_dualtask and imagery rescripting (IR) to a no-intervention control group on intrusion frequency and the vividness and emotionality of aversive film memory.

Mental threat rehearsal increases fear generalization.

Background And Objectives: Fear generalization to harmless stimuli characterizes anxiety-related disorders, but much remains unknown about its determinants. Based on studies showing that mental imagery of threat can increase conditioned fear responding, we tested whether it also facilitates fear generalization, and whether threat inflation moderates this effect.

Methods: In a fear conditioning study, 120 participants first completed an acquisition phase, in which one of two pictures was followed by an aversive sound (human scream).

The degree of safety behaviors to a safety stimulus predicts development of threat beliefs.

Safety behaviors are behavioral responses that aim to prevent or minimize an imminent threat when confronting a feared stimulus. Despite its adaptive purpose, preliminary evidence suggests that unnecessary safety behaviors to a safety stimulus induce threat beliefs to it. By allowing participants to engage in safety behaviors dimensionally, this study tested whether the degree of safety behaviors to a safety stimulus predicts the subsequent level of threat expectancies to it.

Context reexposure to bolster contextual dependency of emotional episodic memory.

Contextual overgeneralization of emotional memory is a core aspect of anxiety disorders. Identifying methods to enhance contextual dependency of emotional memory is therefore of significant clinical interest. Animal research points to a promising approach: reexposure to the context in which fear is acquired reduces generalization to other contexts.

Positive future thinking without task-relevance increases anxiety and frontal stress regulation.

Negative anticipatory biases can affect the way we interpret and subjectively experience events. Through its role in emotion regulation, positive future thinking may provide an accessible way to attenuate these biases. However, it is unclear whether positive future thinking works ubiquitously, independent of contextual relevance.

Managing Fear During Pandemics: Risks and Opportunities.

Fear is an emotion triggered by the perception of danger and motivates safety behaviors. Within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, there were ample danger cues (e.g.

Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy or supportive counseling prior to exposure therapy in patients with panic disorder: study protocol for a multicenter randomized controlled trial (IMPROVE).

Background: Exposure-based therapy is the treatment of choice for anxiety disorders, but many patients do not benefit sufficiently from it. Distressing images of threat related to the future or past may maintain the anxiety symptomatology or impede exposure therapy. An intervention that targets threat-related imagery is eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy.

The effect of imagery rescripting on prospective mental imagery of a feared social situation.

Background And Objectives: Negative mental imagery appears to play a role in anxiety disorders and can involve aversive memories or anticipated future threats. Modulating aversive memories through imagery rescripting generally reduces negative memory appraisals and associated anxiety. This pre-registered two-day analog study investigated whether imagery rescripting of aversive memories also reduces negative imagery of future threats.

Safety behaviors toward innocuous stimuli can maintain or increase threat beliefs.

Safety behaviors can prevent or minimize a feared outcome. However, in relatively safe situations, they may be less adaptive, presumably because people will misattribute safety to these behaviors. This research aimed to investigate whether safety behaviors in safe situations can lead to increased threat beliefs.

Stable Anxiety and Depression Trajectories in Late Adolescence for Oral Contraceptive Users.

Background: The use of oral contraceptives (OCs) has been associated with increased incidences of anxiety and depression, for which adolescents seem to be particularly vulnerable. Rather than looking at singular outcomes, we examined whether OC use is associated with depressive and anxiety symptom trajectories from early adolescence into early adulthood.

Materials And Methods: Data from 178 girls were drawn from the Research on Adolescent Development and Relationships (RADAR-Y) younger cohort study.

Future-oriented imagery rescripting facilitates conducting behavioral experiments in social anxiety.

Distressing mental images are common in anxiety disorders and can make it difficult for patients to confront feared situations. This study examined whether imagery rescripting focused on a feared social situation prepares participants to engage in a feared situation. Sixty healthy individuals were asked to formulate a behavioral experiment to test negative beliefs about a social situation they feared.

The relationship between Intolerance of Uncertainty and conditioned fear acquisition: Evidence from a large sample.

Despite being considered a valid model for the etiology of anxiety disorders, the fear conditioning paradigm does not always show clear correlations with anxious personality traits that constitute risk factors for the development of anxiety disorders. This may in part due to error variance and the fact that fear conditioning studies are typically underpowered to investigate inter-individual differences. In the current study, we focus on the relationship between conditioned fear acquisition and Intolerance of Uncertainty (IU).

A meta-analysis of conditioned fear generalization in anxiety-related disorders.

Generalization of conditioned fear is adaptive in some situations but maladaptive when fear excessively generalizes to innocuous stimuli with incidental resemblance to a genuine threat cue. Recently, empirical interest in fear generalization as a transdiagnostic explanatory mechanism underlying anxiety-related disorders has accelerated. As there are now several studies of fear generalization across multiple types of anxiety-related disorders, the authors conducted a meta-analysis of studies reporting behavioral measures (subjective ratings and psychophysiological indices) of fear generalization in anxiety-related disorder vs.

Bio-Psychological Predictors of Acute and Protracted Fatigue After Burns: A Longitudinal Study.

Objective: Fatigue after burns is often attributed to the hyperinflammatory and hypermetabolic response, while it may be best understood from a bio-psychological perspective, also involving the neuro-endocrine system. This longitudinal multi-center study examined the course of fatigue up to 18 months postburn. The contribution of bio-psychological factors, including burn severity, pain, and acute PTSD symptoms, to the course and persistence of fatigue was studied in a multifactorial model.

Future-Oriented Positive Mental Imagery Reduces Anxiety for Exposure to Public Speaking.

Exposure therapy is the recommended treatment for anxiety disorders, but many anxious individuals are unwilling to expose themselves to feared situations. Episodic simulation of future situations contributes to adaptive emotion regulation and motivates behavior. This study investigated whether future-oriented positive mental imagery reduces anticipatory anxiety and distress during exposure, and increases exposure willingness and duration.

The effectiveness of dual-task interventions for modulating emotional memories in the laboratory: A meta-analysis.

Dual-tasks (e.g., making horizontal eye-movements) while recollecting a memory are often used both in the lab and the clinic (such as in EMDR therapy) to attenuate emotional memories and intrusive mental images.