Conditioned Subjective Responses to Socially Relevant Stimuli in Social Anxiety Disorder and Subclinical Social Anxiety.
Although enhanced fear conditioning has been implicated in the origins of social anxiety disorder (SAD), laboratory evidence in support of this association is limited. Using a paradigm employing socially relevant unconditioned stimuli, we conducted two separate studies to asses fear conditioning in individuals with SAD and non-clinical individuals with high social anxiety (subclinical social anxiety [SSA]). They were compared with age-matched and gender-matched individuals with another anxiety disorder (panic disorder with agoraphobia) and healthy controls (Study 1) and with individuals with low social anxiety (Study 2). Contrary to our expectations, in both studies, self-report measures (ratings of anxiety, unpleasantness and arousal to the conditioned stimuli) of fear conditioning failed to discriminate between SAD or SSA and the other participant groups. Our results suggest that enhanced fear conditioning does not play a major role in pathological social anxiety.


CONCLUSIONS
We used a social conditioning paradigm to study fear conditioning in clinical and subclinical social anxiety. We found no evidence of enhanced fear conditioning in social anxiety individuals. Enhanced fear conditioning may not be a hallmark of pathological social anxiety.
Department of Psychiatry and Forensic Medicine, Institute of Neurosciences, School of Medicine, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain.
Daniella
D
Tinoco-González
Department of Psychiatry and Forensic Medicine, Institute of Neurosciences, School of Medicine, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain.|Anxiety Unit, Institute of Neuropsychiatry and Addiction (INAD), Hospital del Mar, Parc de Salut MAR, Barcelona, Spain.|Department of Psychological Medicine, King's College Institute of Psychiatry, London, UK.
Miquel Angel
MA
Fullana
Department of Psychiatry and Forensic Medicine, Institute of Neurosciences, School of Medicine, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain.
David
D
Torrents-Rodas
Department of Psychobiology and Methodology of Health Sciences, School of Psychology, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain.
Albert
A
Bonillo
University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
Bram
B
Vervliet
Anxiety Unit, Institute of Neuropsychiatry and Addiction (INAD), Hospital del Mar, Parc de Salut MAR, Barcelona, Spain.
Guillem
G
Pailhez
Human Pharmacology and Clinical Neurosciences Research Group, Neuroscience Research Program, Hospital del Mar Research Institute (IMIM), Parc de Salut MAR, Barcelona, Spain.
Magí
M
Farré
Department of Psychiatry, Vall d'Hebron University Hospital, Barcelona, Spain.|Vall d'Hebron Research Institute (VHIR), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
Oscar
O
Andión
Department of Psychiatry and Forensic Medicine, Institute of Neurosciences, School of Medicine, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain.|Anxiety Unit, Institute of Neuropsychiatry and Addiction (INAD), Hospital del Mar, Parc de Salut MAR, Barcelona, Spain.|Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Salud Mental (CIBERSAM), Madrid, Spain.
Víctor
V
Perez
Department of Psychiatry and Forensic Medicine, Institute of Neurosciences, School of Medicine, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain.
Rafael
R
Torrubia
D000328:Adult; D000379:Agoraphobia / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology; D001143:Arousal; D003214:Conditioning, Classical; D004576:Electromyography; D005108:Extinction, Psychological; D005149:Facial Expression; D005239:Fear / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D016584:Panic Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D010698:Phobic Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology*; D012016:Reference Values; D013216:Reflex, Startle
Anxiety Disorders; Fear Conditioning; Fear-Potentiated Startle; Panic Disorder; Social Anxiety Disorder