Poster No:
705
Submission Type:
Abstract Submission
Authors:
Shu-Hui Lee1, Tai-Li Chou2
Institutions:
1Center for General Education, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan, 2Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
First Author:
Shu-Hui Lee
Center for General Education, National Tsing Hua University
Hsinchu, Taiwan
Co-Author:
Tai-Li Chou
Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University
Taipei, Taiwan
Introduction:
The COVID-19 pandemic had adversely affected individuals' mental health, yet it is unknown how and to what extent the psychological outcomes of this stressful event are influenced by individual traits in a long-term basis. Factors such as anxiety traits and attentional bias toward unpleasant stimuli has been suggested as crucial pathogenetic indicators in individual variations in susceptibility to stress (Cannito et al., 2020; Somma et al., 2021). However, the neurocognitive mechanism of this reactivity toward pandemic-related information under prolonged uncertainty remains unclear in anxious individuals during the pandemic. Thus, this functional magnetic resonance imaging study aimed to determine the relationship between attentional bias toward pandemic-related stimuli and perceived stress in anxious adults across two visits during COVID-19.
Methods:
The sample consisted of 31 high trait anxious (HTA, 16 men, 15 women) participants and 31 low trait anxious (LTA, 17 men, 14 women) participants. They were followed up with a one-year interval. Participants were asked to perform a counting Stroop task preceded by pandemic-related or neutral pictures during scans before and after the pandemic. Attentional bias was indexed using the contrast of pandemic-related Stroop versus neutral Stroop. We conducted two series of analyses. First, we employed a 2 group (HTA, LTA) by 2 visit (time 1, time 2) ANOVA. Second, simple regression analyses were used to determine whether brain activity of emotional Stroop task at time 1 (T1) was predictive of time 2 (T2) minus time 1 (T1) perceived stress for each group.
Results:
First, a group-by-visit interaction indicated that the magnitude of T2-T1 time difference was greater for LTA than HTA participants in the precuneus, caudate, and rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC), reflecting greater difficulties for HTA participants to resolve emotional interference. Second, in response to the epidemic versus neutral stimuli, caudate activation was predictive of changes in perceived stress for HTA, but not for LTA participants. In contrast, precuneus activation was predictive of changes in perceived stress for LTA, but not for HTA participants. However, no significant results were found for regression analyses using the rACC as the predictor.
Conclusions:
Regarding that parieto-striatal regions are responsible for the emotional modulation, abnormalities in these regions may indicate poor attentional allocation to unpleasant signals related to COVID-19 information for HTA individuals. Overall, the sustained attention of threatening information makes individuals with higher level of anxiety more vulnerable to increased exposure of stress during the pandemic. Our longitudinal findings provide further understanding of the relationships between stress and anxious traits.
Emotion, Motivation and Social Neuroscience:
Emotion and Motivation Other 1
Higher Cognitive Functions:
Executive Function, Cognitive Control and Decision Making 2
Modeling and Analysis Methods:
Activation (eg. BOLD task-fMRI)
Keywords:
Anxiety
Cognition
Emotions
FUNCTIONAL MRI
1|2Indicates the priority used for review
Provide references using author date format
Cannito, L., Di Crosta, A., Palumbo, R., Ceccato, I., Anzani, S., La Malva, P., ... & Di Domenico, A. (2020). Health anxiety and attentional bias toward virus-related stimuli during the COVID-19 pandemic. Scientific Reports, 10(1), 16476.
Somma, F., Bartolomeo, P., Vallone, F., Argiuolo, A., Cerrato, A., Miglino, O., ... & Gigliotta, O. (2021). Further to the left: Stress-induced increase of spatial pseudoneglect during the COVID-19 lockdown. Frontiers in psychology, 12, 573846.