A brief episode of anxiety may have a bigger influence on a person's ability to learn what is safe and what is not. The research recently published in NPJ Science of Learning used a virtual reality game that involved picking flowers with bees in some of the blossoms that would sting the participant—simulated by a mild electrical stimulation on the hand.
Researchers worked with 70 neurotypical participants between the ages of 20 and 30. Claire Marino, a research assistant in the ZVR Lab , and Pavel Rjabtsenkov, a Neuroscience graduate student at the University 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—where the bees were and were not—showed 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. Surprisingly, they discovered that temporary feelings of anxiety had the biggest impact on learning and not a person's general tendency to feel anxious.
"These 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," said the senior author of this study, Benjamin Suarez-Jimenez, PhD , associate professor of Neuroscience and Center for Visual Science at the Del Monte Institute of Neuroscience at the University of Rochester . "The findings suggest that excessive anxiety disrupts spatial learning and threat recognition, which could contribute to chronic fear responses. Understanding these mechanisms may help improve treatments for anxiety and stress-related disorders by targeting how people process environmental threats."
Suarez-Jimenez explains that it is now important to understand if individuals with psychopathologies of anxiety and stress have similar variations in spatial memory. Adding an attention-tracking measure, like eye-tracking, to future studies could help determine whether a focus on potential threats impacts broader environmental awareness.
Additional authors include Caitlin Sharp, Zonia Ali, Evelyn Pineda, Shreya Bavdekar, Tanya Garg, Kendal Jordan, Mary Halvorsen, Carlos Aponte, and Julie Blue of the University of Rochester Medical Center , and Xi Zhu, PhD, of Columbia University Irving Medical Center. The research was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health, Wellcome Trust Fellowship, and the European Research Council Grant.
