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Associations between aversive learning processes and transdiagnostic psychiatric symptoms in a general population sample

Wise, T; Dolan, RJ; (2020) Associations between aversive learning processes and transdiagnostic psychiatric symptoms in a general population sample. Nature Communications , 11 , Article 4179. 10.1038/s41467-020-17977-w. Green open access

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Abstract

Symptom expression in psychiatric conditions is often linked to altered threat perception, however how computational mechanisms that support aversive learning relate to specific psychiatric symptoms remains undetermined. We answer this question using an online game-based aversive learning task together with measures of common psychiatric symptoms in 400 subjects. We show that physiological symptoms of anxiety and a transdiagnostic compulsivity-related factor are associated with enhanced safety learning, as measured using a probabilistic computational model, while trait cognitive anxiety symptoms are associated with enhanced learning from danger. We use data-driven partial least squares regression to identify two separable components across behavioural and questionnaire data: one linking enhanced safety learning and lower estimated uncertainty to physiological anxiety, compulsivity, and impulsivity; the other linking enhanced threat learning and heightened uncertainty estimation to symptoms of depression and social anxiety. Our findings implicate aversive learning processes in the expression of psychiatric symptoms that transcend diagnostic boundaries.

Type: Article
Title: Associations between aversive learning processes and transdiagnostic psychiatric symptoms in a general population sample
Location: England
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-17977-w
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-17977-w
Language: English
Additional information: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology > Imaging Neuroscience
URI: https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10108549
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