{"id":42638,"date":"2025-04-23T02:07:08","date_gmt":"2025-04-23T02:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/42638\/"},"modified":"2025-04-23T02:07:08","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T02:07:08","slug":"temporary-anxiety-impairs-threat-recognition-and-learning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/42638\/","title":{"rendered":"Temporary Anxiety Impairs Threat Recognition and Learning"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Summary: <\/strong>A brief episode of anxiety can significantly impair a person\u2019s ability to distinguish between safe and dangerous environments, according to new research using a virtual reality flower-picking game. Participants who developed clear spatial memory of which areas contained \u201cstinging bees\u201d (simulated by mild shocks) exhibited lower anxiety, while those who couldn\u2019t differentiate the zones maintained high anxiety\u2014even in safe spaces.<\/p>\n<p>The study found that temporary anxiety had a stronger effect on learning than general anxiety traits. This suggests that heightened situational fear may interfere with threat recognition and spatial awareness, potentially contributing to anxiety disorders like PTSD.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Key Facts:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Temporary Anxiety Impact:<\/strong> Short-lived anxiety episodes had a stronger influence on learning safety cues than chronic anxiety levels.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Spatial Memory Link:<\/strong> Better spatial learning was associated with lower anxiety and accurate threat recognition.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Clinical Implications:<\/strong> Findings may explain mechanisms behind PTSD and other anxiety disorders, offering insight for future therapies.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong>University of Rochester<\/p>\n<p><strong>A brief episode of anxiety may have a bigger influence on a person\u2019s ability to learn what is safe and what is not. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The research recently published in\u00a0NPJ Science of Learning\u00a0used a\u00a0virtual reality game that involved picking flowers\u00a0with bees in some of the blossoms that would sting the participant\u2014simulated by a mild electrical stimulation on the hand.<\/p>\n<p>  <img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Anxiety-learning-threat-neuroscience.jpg\" alt=\"This shows a blurry face.\"  \/> Surprisingly, they discovered that temporary feelings of anxiety had the biggest impact on learning and not a person\u2019s general tendency to feel anxious. Credit: Neuroscience News<\/p>\n<p>Researchers worked with 70 neurotypical participants between the ages of 20 and 30. Claire Marino, a research assistant in the\u00a0ZVR Lab, and Pavel Rjabtsenkov, a Neuroscience graduate student at the\u00a0University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, were co-first authors of the study that found that the people who learned to distinguish between the safe and dangerous areas\u2014where the bees were and were not\u2014showed better spatial memory and had lower anxiety, while participants who did not learn the different areas had higher anxiety and heightened fear even in safe areas.<\/p>\n<p>Surprisingly, they discovered that temporary feelings of anxiety had the biggest impact on learning and not a person\u2019s general tendency to feel anxious.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese results help explain why some people struggle with anxiety-related disorders, such as PTSD, where they may have difficulty distinguishing safe situations from dangerous ones,\u201d said the senior author of this study,\u00a0Benjamin Suarez-Jimenez, PhD, associate professor of Neuroscience and Center for Visual Science at the\u00a0Del Monte Institute of Neuroscience at the University of Rochester.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe findings suggest that excessive anxiety disrupts spatial learning and threat recognition, which could contribute to chronic fear responses.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUnderstanding these mechanisms may help improve treatments for anxiety and stress-related disorders by targeting how people process environmental threats.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Suarez-Jimenez explains that it is now important to understand if individuals with psychopathologies of anxiety and stress have similar variations in spatial memory.<\/p>\n<p>Adding an attention-tracking measure, like eye-tracking, to future studies could help determine whether a focus on potential threats impacts broader environmental awareness.<\/p>\n<p>Additional authors include Caitlin Sharp, Zonia Ali, Evelyn Pineda, Shreya Bavdekar, Tanya Garg, Kendal Jordan, Mary Halvorsen, Carlos Aponte, and Julie Blue of the\u00a0University of Rochester Medical Center, and Xi Zhu, PhD, of Columbia University Irving Medical Center.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Funding: <\/strong>The research was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health, Wellcome Trust Fellowship, and the European Research Council Grant.<\/p>\n<p>About this anxiety and learning research news<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-background\" style=\"background-color:#ffffe8\"><strong>Author: <\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/neurosciencenews.com\/cdn-cgi\/l\/email-protection#753e1019061c102a26181c011d583d140c11001e35000718165b071a161d10060110075b101100\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Kelsie Smith Hayduk<\/a><br \/><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/urmc.rochester.edu\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">University of Rochester<\/a><br \/><strong>Contact: <\/strong>Kelsie Smith Hayduk \u2013 University of Rochester<br \/><strong>Image: <\/strong>The image is credited to Neuroscience News<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-background\" style=\"background-color:#ffffe8\"><strong>Original Research: <\/strong>Open access.<br \/>\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1038\/s41539-025-00305-6\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Using virtual reality to study spatial mapping and threat learning<\/a>\u201d by Claire Marino et al. npj Science of Learning<\/p>\n<p><strong>Abstract<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Using virtual reality to study spatial mapping and threat learning<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Using spatial mapping processes to discriminate between threat and safety is crucial for survival. Little is known why some fail to discriminate during contextual conditioning.<\/p>\n<p>We used a virtual reality (VR) contextual conditioning paradigm to elucidate the effects of state and trait anxiety on contextual threat learning.<\/p>\n<p>Participants (n\u2009=\u200970) \u201cpicked\u201d flowers in a VR environment. Dangerous zone flowers predicted an electric shock, while safe zone flowers did not.<\/p>\n<p>Between trials, participants completed a spatial memory task. Galvanic skin response (GSR) and State Trait Anxiety Inventory scores were recorded. Participants were considered learners for correctly identifying both zones.<\/p>\n<p>Non-learners, compared to learners, performed worse during the spatial memory task and demonstrated higher state anxiety scores and GSR.<\/p>\n<p>Learners showed higher skin conductance response (SCR) in the dangerous compared to the safe zone, while non-learners showed no SCR differences between zones.<\/p>\n<p>Results indicate state anxiety may impair spatial mapping, disrupting contextual threat learning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Summary: A brief episode of anxiety can significantly impair a person\u2019s ability to distinguish between safe and dangerous&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42639,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[2665,215,105,756,218,219,220,222,223,23887,16,15,23888],"class_list":{"0":"post-42638","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-anxiety","9":"tag-brain-research","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-learning","12":"tag-mental-health","13":"tag-neurobiology","14":"tag-neuroscience","15":"tag-psychology","16":"tag-ptsd","17":"tag-threat","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom","20":"tag-university-of-rochester"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114384840137232851","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}