Anxiety can cause people to make choices without carefully thinking them through, according to a new study that examines how the emotion affects the brain's decision-making process.
Since most people will experience anxiety at some points throughout their day or week, scientists at the University of Pittsburgh wanted to examine how the emotion can affect people on a molecular level with the hopes of potentially improving current treatment options for people with anxiety disorders.
The team, headed by Bita Moghaddam of the Department of Neuroscience within the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, conducted an experiment on two groups of mice. The first group received a placebo injection, while the second group was given an anxiety-inducing drug. Both groups were placed in a situation that required them to make decisions that would affect how they can be rewarded. The mice's brain activity was monitored throughout the decision-making process.
On an observational level, the researchers noticed that although mice from both groups were able to make a decision, the anxious mice were more likely to make more mistakes than the mice from the placebo group. The anxious mice also got distracted more often than the other group of mice.
When the researchers compared the brain activity between the two groups, they found that anxiety appeared to disengage the prefrontal cortex (PFC), which is the region of the brain that is in charge of decision-making and regulating social behaviors.
"A brain locus of vulnerability for these anxiety-induced mistakes was a group of cells in the PFC that specifically coded for choice. Anxiety weakened the coding power of these neurons," Moghaddam said. "We have had a simplistic approach to studying and treating anxiety. We have equated it with fear and have mostly assumed that it over-engages entire brain circuits. But this study shows that anxiety disengages brain cells in a highly specialized manner."
Moghaddam added that in the future, researchers might be able to learn more about how anxiety manifests in the brain. Anxiety disorders are the most commonly diagnosed mental health condition. The Anxiety and Depression Association of America has reported that this group of disorders affects 40 million adults, or 18 percent of the population in America.
The study was published in the March 16 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.
