Trait Anxiety Attenuates Response Inhibition: Evidence From an ERP Study Using the Go/NoGo Task

Lisheng Xia,Weifeng Zhang,Licheng Mo,Dandan Zhang,Jian Wang

doi:10.3389/fnbeh.2020.00028

Abstract

Neuropsychology and cognitive neuroscience have shown that anxious individuals have deficits in response inhibition. However, existing knowledge about the influence of trait anxiety on response inhibition is still inconsistent. The aim of this study was to investigate response inhibition between groups with high trait anxiety (HTA) and low trait anxiety (LTA). Here, we used event-related potential (ERP) indexes as biomarkers to examine the effect of trait anxiety on response inhibition using the Go/NoGo task. Behavioral results indicated that the HTA group made significantly lower accuracy than did the LTA group in the NoGo condition but not the Go condition. Meanwhile, the HTA group needed significantly longer overall response time (RT) than the LTA group did. ERP analyses revealed that the HTA group had smaller and later frontal NoGo-N2 as well as larger and later parietal NoGo-P3 compared to the LTA group. The two response inhibition-related ERP components are distinct neurophysiological indexes that, first, the NoGo-N2 is a component involved in the motor plan prior to the motor execution inhibitory process. Second, the NoGo-P3 reflects later monitoring and evaluation of the inhibition process. Accordingly, the current ERP findings suggest that HTA individuals’ response inhibition deficits are the consequence of abnormal premotor inhibition control and inefficient evaluation and monitoring. In addition, we also found that the peak amplitude of NoGo-N2 and NoGo-P3 were significantly correlated with the State–Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) scores after correction for multiple comparisons. To sum up, these results support the notion that trait anxious individuals have response inhibition deficits in the Go/NoGo task.

Highlights

According to Eysenck’s attentional control theory (Eysenck et al, 2007), anxiety might be associated with dysfunction of inhibitory control
Neuropsychology and cognitive neuroscience studies have revealed that the medial prefrontal regions [including the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC)] are crucial substrates of the human anxiety circuitry (Sehlmeyer et al, 2009) and that deficits in these areas are associated with impaired inhibition control (Sehlmeyer et al, 2010)
Simple effect analysis indicated that the ACC in the NoGo trials was lower in the high trait anxiety (HTA) group (76.05 ± 2.96%) compared with that in the low trait anxiety (LTA) group (86.75 ± 2.96%; F(1,54) = 6.525, p = 0.013)

Summary

Introduction

According to Eysenck’s attentional control theory (Eysenck et al, 2007), anxiety might be associated with dysfunction of inhibitory control. Recent studies have demonstrated that trait anxiety interrupts top-down goal-driven processes such as response inhibition, resulting in failures in the inhibition function that enable executive control over prepotent motor responses (Pacheco-Unguetti et al, 2012; Su-Hao et al, 2014). This abnormal inhibitory function may alter the level of cognitive control as well as cognitive performance in anxious population (Sehlmeyer et al, 2010) and appear to be a promising predictive marker of trait anxiety (Grillon et al, 2017). It is important to investigate the influence of trait anxiety on response inhibition and its associated neural mechanism, which can broaden our understanding of the inhibitory control of anxious individuals and further unravel the psychological and etiological mechanisms of anxiety

Objectives

Methods

Results