Psychophysiology: Recent Study Reveals Fresh Insights into the Complexities of Anxiety

Anxiety is something that arguably everyone goes through at least once in their life. If you were to categorise that as nerves, which might be similar, anxiety is more of a general term due to an unforeseen circumstance. Either way, it’s a very normal feeling that humans experience throughout their lives.

Recently, more people have come forward about these feelings becoming more frequent and a struggle. This has prompted scientists to understand the root cause. They aim to help us understand why this feeling occurs and if there are natural and scientific methods to soothe and heal these parts. 

While anxiety is a natural process our minds make us feel, without this feeling, we might not be able to appreciate others. Without sadness, how will you feel happiness? But it’s unfortunate that some individuals can be in a constant state of anxiety. That is why understanding, testing, and researching can help individuals soothe and experience these opposite feelings.

What Is Anxiety?

Anxiety, as mentioned before, is a popular feeling and something that we tend to feel when we are worried, afraid or tense about an unforeseen or unknown situation in the future. People could end up getting lost in their thoughts, going down a downward spiral of negative thoughts about outcomes, scenarios and much more. Anxiety can be experienced through thoughts, feelings and physical sensations.

My personal relationship with anxiety has been the same since I was younger. I was scared of everything known, including the simplest of activities, but only when I had to do it on my own. It got to the point where I was anxious to leave my home and walk to the shop around the corner because I was afraid of how I would handle situations on my own.

I don’t know what triggered this anxiety in social situations, but it was always triggered if I was left alone to go somewhere or do something new, even when walking into a new building. I was filled with unpleasant thoughts of all the potential things that could go wrong, but they were never that deep.

When I moved away from home, I was forced to put myself in these really uncomfortable situations and facing my anxieties head-on is what really helped. It showed me that I was worried about nothing that was actually that serious. This realization built a newfound sense of self. It also helped me not take this little moment too seriously.

I still get extremely anxious in more conflicting situations. Of course, I understand that these feelings are completely normal. Without anxiety, how would I know when I’m completely calm and relaxed?

Anxiety In The Media

I will go as far as to say that ‘anxiety’ has been a very popular buzzword that is used incorrectly around social media, to the extent that it’s popularising the use of this word. I appreciate and love the world becoming more open about their mental health. This is especially true for men, where there isn’t much representation of men being open about their struggles. 

However, it appears that anxiety, depression and other therapeutic terms such as gaslighting are slightly glamorised or used in situations where they’re not correct. This can create a lot of confusion for people who might be experiencing something similar but much different, like nervousness, which is very common among people, but the word anxiety gets thrown in instead. 

A better understanding across the mass media is a step forward in people getting familiar with their own complexities and solutions for those feelings. Education is a powerful tool that we can’t take for granted but those with platforms also need to be more accurate with their words and spend less time glamorising and contributing to trending the wrong one, such as when you are trying to find your cargo pants you got last week and you are missing the bottoms; saying “it’s giving my anxiety” is false and misused. Context and meanings are everything.

The Study

The relationship between anxiety and brain function is clarified by a new study that was published in Psychophysiology. The study focuses on the effects of anxiety on the brain’s cognitive control network. According to the research, significant anxiety problems may be linked to decreased activity in specific brain regions, which may operate as neural markers for anxiety symptoms.

The study employed a method known as functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to detect brain activity. This non-invasive technique provides an indirect assessment of cerebral activity by using light to track changes in blood oxygen levels in the brain. The participants engaged in a verbal fluency task (VFT), which is known to activate the brain regions related to cognitive control and involves word generation in response to cues.

So What Does That Mean?

As mentioned above, anxiety differs, as everybody’s experience of anxiety is unique. In addition to effects in other aspects of your life, you may encounter some of the mental and bodily repercussions. While mild and infrequent anxiety is good for helping you appreciate other feelings and encounters, some aren’t so lucky. Severe anxiety can lead to an anxiety disorder, which affects your ability to function daily and could lead to other things, such as depression. 

Developing effective treatments for anxiety disorders requires an understanding of the brain mechanisms underlying these disorders. Prior studies have demonstrated a connection between anxiety and alterations in brain activity, namely in the frontal cortex; however, the results have been mixed. While some studies have identified greater activity or alterations in the brain’s functional connectivity, others have observed decreased neural activity. In order to separate the effects of anxiety on brain function, this study focused on those who had anxiety but not depression in an effort to explain these differences.

What Was The Study?

The study included 366 participants between 2020 to 2023. All of these participants were screened using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) to ensure they had normal levels of depression.

All participants were categorised into three groups based on their anxiety levels: healthy controls, individuals with mild anxiety, and individuals with major anxiety. To measure brain activity, they used a technique called functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Participants were asked to perform a verbal fluency task that helped activate different regions of the cognitive control, which was later analysed.

The Studies Findings

Significant variations in brain activity were seen between the groups in the study. More specifically, there was a negative relationship between the intensity of anxiety and activation in the left frontal eye fields (lFEF) and the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (rDLPFC). Stated differently, during the VFT, there was less activity in these regions among people who reported feeling more anxious. 

Participants with major anxiety showed significantly lower activation in the rDLPFC compared to healthy controls. Similar results were found in the IFEF, with the major anxiety group showing a minus oxy-Hb concentration. 

These findings suggest that activity in these specific regions can be a neural marker for major anxiety disorders. Cognitive control is essential for regulating your thoughts and emotions and preventing you from sitting and dwelling on the unknown. Impaired function in this network could encourage anxiety-related feelings. It can also cause symptoms such as dwelling on unrealistic worries.

Conclusion 

The results of this study emphasise the significance of treating anxiety disorders by focusing on particular brain regions. By comprehending the brain processes that underlie anxiety, scientists can create interventions that work better. Future studies should employ more thorough measures of depression and anxiety to confirm these results. Measures such as the Beck Depression Inventory or the Hamilton Depression Scale can be used.

My personal opinion on the study at hand suggests a way of thinking that is useful. It can help those with severe cases who may struggle to get themselves, or with the help of others, out of the downward spiral that anxiety can lead to. Anxiety is a natural emotion that we all feel on the scale, and more realistic and adaptable methods of treating anxiety might also be extremely personal. While this study supports the notion that studying each individual’s brain is a gateway to helping people with their anxiety, it’s unlikely we are all going to get the opportunity to have a brain analysis.

From experience, I found that dealing with the mental conflicts head-on has been the route to helping with my anxiety. While I am not a scientist, I would always recommend that you just put yourself in these situations and teach yourself that life is too short, and some things you are working yourself up about haven’t happened yet.