A Preliminary Study On The Relationship Between Anxiety And Uncertainty

BackgroundAnxiety is the most common emotional state,and most people suffer from anxiety at some point in their lives;therefore,anxiety-related research has been receiving a lot of attention.In recent years,uncertainty has gradually become the focus of research in the field of anxiety,and a growing number of researchers have identified intolerance of uncertainty as an important referral factor for anxiety disorders and their related psychiatric disorders.When in a state of anxiety,people show excessive uneasiness and worry about uncertain events,with attentional bias(early attentional bias)and persistent attention(continuous processing of negative information).ObjectivesTo explore the neuro-electrophysiological mechanisms between anxiety and uncertainty in the hope of providing more scientific evidence on the development of anxiety.Methods1.Collected the scores of IUS-12(Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale-12,short form)and STAI-T(State-Trait Anxiety Inventory-trait version)in 372 college students of Xinxiang Medical University.The top 30%of the collected scale scores were taken as high scores,and the average scores were divided into low scores.And we obtained 46 students with high trait anxiety(HTA,TA≥50,IU≤26),56 patients with high intolerable uncertainty(HIU,IU≥30,TA≤46)and 64 controls(CG,IU≤26,TA≤46).The resting EEG data of all subjects were collected,and the microstate analysis method was used to analyze the duration,contribution rate,occurrence rate and transition probability of microstate indexes.The resting EEG data were extracted and analyzed by the matrix laboratory(Matrix Laboratory,MATLAB)2013b platform,SPSS 23.0 was used for correlation analysis of behavioral data,and one-way analysis of variance(ANOVA)was performed for micro-state indicators of the three groups of people.2.Using learning-test paradigm combined with cue-expectation paradigm and event-related potential(ERP)technique,47 college students in Xinxiang Medical College were selected as the research object.The scores of STAI(State-trait anxiety scale)were collected and the behavioral data and EEG data were recorded.MATLAB was used to extract and analyze the ERP components N1(100-160ms)and P2(200-300ms)of the test stage,SPSS23.0 was used to analyze the signal detection index d’andβof the behavior data,and repeated measurement ANOVA and correlation analysis were carried out on the EEG data.Results1.There was no significant correlation between TA scores and IU scores in 372 subjects(r=0.095,P>0.05).The IU scores,TA scores were positively correlated with BAI score(r=0.135,P=0.009;r=0.298,P<0.001).The results of microstate analysis showed that in the HIU group,the contribution rate(P=0.006)and duration of the microstate class A(P=0.005),and the transition probability between microstate class A and microstate class C were significantly higher than those in the control group(P<0.05).In the HTA group,the occurrence rate(P=0.021)and contribution rate(P=0.025)of the microstate class B,and the transition probability between microstate class B and microstate class C were significantly lower than those in the control group(P<0.05).2.The main effect ofβvalue was significant(F(2,123)=27.00,P<0.001,η~2_p=0.305),the correlation analysis results showed thatβvalue was Positively correlated with trait anxiety scores under certain threatening condition(r=0.253,P<0.05);The interaction between regions and conditions is significant for N1(100-160 ms)(F(12,35)=3.064,P<0.005,η~2_p=0.512),The interaction between regions and conditions is significant for P2(200-300 ms)(F(12,35)=3.32,P<0.005,η~2_p=0.532),and the results of the correlation analysis showed that under the uncertain condition,the peak of N1 was positively correlated with the state anxiety score in the FC region(r=0.333,P=0.044).ConclusionTA and IU are two relatively independent personality traits related to anxiety.HIU individuals take language network as the core,including the changes of anterior-default mode network and dorsal attention network,while the neural basis of HTA individuals are mainly visual network and anterior-default mode network.The impact of uncertain situations on anxiety individuals mainly occurs in the very early stage,and we should pay more attention to the sensory coding processing of anxious individuals in the face of uncertain situations,such as sensory gating.