The Effect of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy on Event-Related Potential Markers of Attentional Bias in Anxiety
Gupta, Resh Singh
0000-0003-2337-5473
:
2021-07-15
Abstract
Anxiety disorders are associated with threat-related attentional bias, defined as the preferential tendency to allocate attention toward or away from threatening stimuli. Attentional bias may prolong anxiety states by placing inordinate priority on potential threats in the environment, thus intensifying anxious mood states. Event-related potentials (ERPs) have been used to investigate the neural correlates and timing related to the processing of threat-related stimuli in attentional bias studies utilizing the dot-probe task. In the task, two cues (one emotional or threatening and the other neutral) are presented followed by a probe which appears in the location of one of the cues. Modulations of ERPs time-locked to cues and probes may reflect attentional biases occurring at early and later stages of information processing, respectively. However, ERP components selected for examination and analysis in dot-probe studies vary widely and remain inconsistent. The first study used temporospatial principal component analysis to systematically identify ERP components elicited to face pair cues and probes in a dot-probe task in anxious adults. Results highlight three promising neurophysiological markers for future attentional bias research, including the P1 ERP. Prior research indicates that individuals with anxiety disorders display enhanced P1 amplitudes to angry–neutral versus happy–neutral face pair cues, suggesting hypervigilance to angry faces at early stages of processing, and decreased P1 amplitudes to probes replacing emotional (angry and happy) versus neutral faces, suggesting reduced visual processing of emotionally salient locations at later stages of information processing—potentially a manifestation of attentional avoidance. Meditation training may improve attentional control by enhancing efficiency of engagement and disengagement processes, thereby reducing attentional bias. The second study sought to determine whether an 8-week Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) intervention could modify P1 threat-related attentional bias markers in anxious participants and investigate the relationship between P1 threat-related attentional bias markers and treatment response. Results suggest that MBCT increases the efficiency of processing and responding to probes (but, unexpectedly, not responses to emotional faces) and reduces symptoms of anxiety and depression.