Cardiac Control of Fear in Brain: relationship to anxiety symptoms
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Cardiac Control of Fear in Brain: relationship to anxiety symptoms
IRAS ID
137589
Contact name
Hugo Critchley
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Sussex Partnership NHS Trust
Research summary
We have recently discovered that the way fear is processed in the brain is
determined by the timing of individual heartbeats. In exploring how bodily arousal influences emotions, we uncovered a specific mechanism whereby the brain’s processing of threatening / fear stimuli is ‘gated’ by the occurrence of individual heartbeats: Fear stimuli presented when the heart has just made a beat are processed more effectively than at other times, modulating their emotional impact. We term this effect the Cardiac Control of Fear in Brain (CCFIB). Although this effect is present in the vast majority of people, we hypothesise that CCFIB might be more evident in anxiety disorder (i.e. a greater proportion of anxiety patients express CCFIB than other patient groups and the magnitude of CCFIB is greater in anxiety patients), and that subgroups of anxiety patients (simple phobia, social anxiety, generalized anxiety disorder GAD and panic disorder will particularly show strong CCFIB in contrast to patients with obsessive compulsive disorder OCD or anxiety with depression. These groups represent important clinical groups within psychiatry who are the main target populations for anxiolytic intervention. To test this hypothesis, we aim to recruit individuals with an anxiety diagnosis from Sussex Partnership NHS Trust and assess their level of CCFIB using computer-based tests and heartbeat monitoring. As an extension of this patient survey we wish to undertake a small prospective study of initially medication-free patients to examine clinician and patient perceived success of psychological and SSRI interventions on anxiety symptoms as a function of individual differences in CCFIB, to establish in a clinical setting how well CCFIB predicts anxiety symptoms, tolerability and response to treatments and the effectiveness of standard cognitive behavioural therapy. The results will inform the development of new and better treatments for anxiety and better define who will respond to which treatment.REC name
London - Brighton & Sussex Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
13/LO/1866
Date of REC Opinion
22 Jan 2014
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion