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Generalized anxiety disorder patients' cognitive control in affective contexts
Yuqi Shen1, Shasha Zhu2,3, Shiqi Liao2
1Huzhou Third Municipal Hospital, the Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Huzhou, China.
Frontiers in Psychiatry
|June 9, 2025
Summary
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) patients show impaired affective control, struggling with emotion regulation and shifting focus. This impacts their ability to process emotional information compared to healthy individuals.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Psychology
Background:
- Cognitive control deficits are linked to anxiety.
- Affective control research in Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) is limited.
- Understanding affective control in GAD is crucial.
Purpose of the Study:
- Investigate cognitive control within affective contexts in GAD patients.
- Examine affective inhibition and shifting capabilities in GAD.
- Compare affective control between GAD patients and healthy controls.
Main Methods:
- Employed an affective flanker task for inhibition and an affective flexibility task for shifting.
- Recruited 50 patients with GAD and 50 healthy controls.
- Measured proactive and reactive control during affective tasks.
Main Results:
- GAD patients showed impaired affective inhibition (reduced proactive, enhanced reactive control).
- GAD patients exhibited significant deficits in affective shifting.
- Shifting costs were higher in GAD patients across non-affective and affective tasks.
Conclusions:
- GAD patients demonstrate poorer emotion recognition and overall affective control deficits.
- Findings highlight distinct components of affective control.
- Delineating affective control is important for understanding GAD.
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