Citation

Yancey JR, Vaidyanathan U, Patrick CJ. Int. J. Psychophysiol. 2014; 98(2P2): 262-269.

Affiliation

Florida State University.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2014.10.014

PMID

25448265

Abstract

Enhanced startle during exposure to unpleasant cues (aversive startle potentiation; ASP) appears in the RDoC matrix as a physiological index of acute threat response. Increased ASP has been linked to focal fear disorders and to scale measures of dispositional fearfulness (i.e., threat sensitivity; THT+). However, some studies have reported reduced ASP for fear pathology accompanied by major depressive disorder (MDD) or pervasive distress. The current study evaluated whether (a) THT+as indexed by reported dispositional fearfulness mediates the relationship between fear disorders (when unaccompanied by depression) and ASP, and (b) depression moderates relations of THT+and fear disorders with ASP. Fear disorder participants without MDD showed enhanced ASP whereas those with MDD (or other distress conditions) showed evidence of reduced ASP. Continuous THT+scores also predicted ASP, and this association: (a) was likewise moderated by depression/distress, and (b) accounted for the relationship between ASP and fear pathology without MDD. These findings point to a role for the RDoC construct of acute threat, operationalized dispositionally, in enhanced ASP shown by individuals with fear pathology unaccompanied by distress pathology.

Language: en