焦虑对经典决策偏向的影响及其脑机制

The emotional status significantly affects decision processing in human beings. Previous researches have indicated that anxiety can influence decision tendency. However, the associated empirical studies focused mainly on economical experiments. Recently, some studies have found that the influence of anxiety on decision tendency changes along with the specific context. Considering that these few studies provided limited evidences and only on behavioral level, this project selects normal subjects with high-anxiety and patients of anxiety disorder as experimental participants. We employ and emerge functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), event-related potential (ERP) and cognitive behavioral techniques to investigate the influence of anxiety on classical decision bias (i.e., intolerance of uncertainty, anchoring effect, and availability heuristic) and its associated neural mechanism. This project aims to deepen the understanding of the cognitive function and neural basis of anxiety and help neuroscientific and psychiatric researchers more emotion-related information on human decision. The applicant has a multidisciplinary background (psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and clinical psychiatry) and has published more than 100 scientific papers on emotion and cognition. The applicant has hosted China National Funds for Distinguished Scientists and the key project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China. All of the projects were finished.All requirements of implementing the current project have already been met.

情绪会对人类的决策过程造成深远影响，已有研究表明焦虑情绪与决策倾向之间存在密切的关系，但目前对于焦虑影响决策行为的研究主要集中于经济领域。近年一些研究表明，焦虑对决策倾向的影响随具体情境的改变而变化，但相应研究还很少，且主要停留在行为层面。本项目选择高焦虑群体和焦虑症患者作为研究对象，使用ERP、fMRI与认知行为结合的技术全面考察焦虑情绪对经典决策偏向（非随机性错觉，锚定效应和易得性直觉）的影响及神经机制。研究焦虑对决策行为的影响模式，有助于学术界和医学界理解焦虑情绪的认知成分和神经基础，同时增进对人类决策心理的了解，具有较为重要的临床和理论意义。本项目组具有心理学、认知神经科学、临床精神病学等多学科背景，近年发表情绪与认知的研究论文上百篇，申请人曾经负责基金委"杰青"和重点项目均已结题，已具备实施本项目的软硬条件。

情绪会对人类的决策过程造成深远影响，已有研究表明焦虑情绪与决策倾向之间存在密切的关系，但目前对于焦虑影响决策行为的研究主要集中于经济领域。近年一些研究表明，焦虑对决策倾向的影响随具体情境的改变而变化，但相应研究还很少，且主要停留在行为层面。本项目选择高焦虑群体和焦虑症患者作为研究对象，使用ERP、fMRI 与认知行为结合的技术全面考察焦虑情绪对经典决策偏向的影响及神经机制。通过研究，我们揭示了焦虑情绪如何影响经典决策偏向，弥补经典决策研究中较少考虑情绪因素的遗憾，并且从不同于经济决策的新的观察角度审视焦虑与人类决策行为的关系(如Gu et al., 2017;Xia et al., 2017)；揭示决策相关的脑机制，定位其涉及的脑区及精确的时间范围(如Feng et al., 2015, 2018)等，在国内外核心期刊发表论文30余篇，包括SCI/SSCI论文24篇（含顶级期刊一篇，影响因子5以上的论文5篇）；设计出一套包含焦虑障碍康复指标的决策任务方案，并已在科研中使用，即将在临床范围推广。研究焦虑对决策行为的影响模式，有助于学术界和医学界理解焦虑情绪的认知成分和神经基础，同时增进对人类决策心理的了解，具有较为重要的临床和理论意义。