Computational modeling of threat learning reveals links with anxiety and neuroanatomy in humans
- National Institute of Mental Health, United States
- Brown University, United States
- University of Miami, United States
- University of California, Riverside, United States
- University of Haifa, Israel
Abstract
Influential theories implicate variations in the mechanisms supporting threat learning in the severity of anxiety symptoms. We use computational models of associative learning in conjunction with structural imaging to explicate links among the mechanisms underlying threat learning, their neuroanatomical substrates, and anxiety severity in humans. We recorded skin-conductance data during a threat-learning task from individuals with and without anxiety disorders (N=251; 8-50 years; 116 females). Reinforcement-learning model variants quantified processes hypothesized to relate to anxiety: threat conditioning, threat generalization, safety learning, and threat extinction. We identified the best-fitting models for these processes and tested associations among latent learning parameters, whole-brain anatomy, and anxiety severity. Results indicate that greater anxiety severity related specifically to slower safety learning and slower extinction of response to safe stimuli. Nucleus accumbens gray-matter volume moderated learning-anxiety associations. Using a modeling approach, we identify computational mechanisms linking threat learning and anxiety severity and their neuroanatomical substrates.
Data availability
We cannot share the full dataset due to the NIH IRB requirements, which require participants to explicitly consent to their data being shared publicly. An important element in that is to protect patients who agree to participate in studies that relate to their psychopathology. Such consent was not acquired from most participants; as such, we cannot upload our complete dataset in its raw or deidentified form, or derivatives of the data, since we will be violating IRB protocols. Still, a subset of participants did consent to data sharing and we have uploaded their data as noted in the revised manuscript (https://github.com/rany-abend/threat_learning_eLife). Researchers interested in potentially acquiring access to the data could contact Dr. Daniel Pine (pined@mail.nih.gov), Chief of the Emotion and Development Branch at NIH, with a research proposal; as per IRB rules, the IRB may approve adding such researchers as Associate Investigators if a formal collaboration is initiated. No commercial use of the data is a lowed. The modeling and imaging analyses have now been uploaded in full as source code files.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
National Institutes of Health (ZIAMH002781-15)
- Daniel S Pine
National Institutes of Health (R00MH091183)
- Jennifer C Britton
Brain and Behavior Research Foundation (28239)
- Rany Abend
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Reviewing Editor
- Alexander Shackman, University of Maryland, United States
Ethics
Human subjects: Human Subjects: Yes Ethics Statement: Written informed consent was obtained from adult (greater than or equal to 18 years) participants as we l as parents, and written assent was obtained from youth. Procedures were approved by the NIMH Institutional Review Board (protocol 01-M-0192).
Version history
- Received: December 31, 2020
- Accepted: April 25, 2022
- Accepted Manuscript published: April 27, 2022 (version 1)
- Version of Record published: June 14, 2022 (version 2)
Copyright
This is an open-access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication.
Metrics
-
- 1,992
- views
-
- 368
- downloads
-
- 5
- citations
Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.
Download links
A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.
Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)
Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)
Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)
Computational modeling of threat learning reveals links with anxiety and neuroanatomy in humans
eLife 11:e66169.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.66169
Further reading
-
- Computational and Systems Biology
- Evolutionary Biology
A comprehensive census of McrBC systems, among the most common forms of prokaryotic Type IV restriction systems, followed by phylogenetic analysis, reveals their enormous abundance in diverse prokaryotes and a plethora of genomic associations. We focus on a previously uncharacterized branch, which we denote coiled-coil nuclease tandems (CoCoNuTs) for their salient features: the presence of extensive coiled-coil structures and tandem nucleases. The CoCoNuTs alone show extraordinary variety, with three distinct types and multiple subtypes. All CoCoNuTs contain domains predicted to interact with translation system components, such as OB-folds resembling the SmpB protein that binds bacterial transfer-messenger RNA (tmRNA), YTH-like domains that might recognize methylated tmRNA, tRNA, or rRNA, and RNA-binding Hsp70 chaperone homologs, along with RNases, such as HEPN domains, all suggesting that the CoCoNuTs target RNA. Many CoCoNuTs might additionally target DNA, via McrC nuclease homologs. Additional restriction systems, such as Type I RM, BREX, and Druantia Type III, are frequently encoded in the same predicted superoperons. In many of these superoperons, CoCoNuTs are likely regulated by cyclic nucleotides, possibly, RNA fragments with cyclic termini, that bind associated CARF (CRISPR-Associated Rossmann Fold) domains. We hypothesize that the CoCoNuTs, together with the ancillary restriction factors, employ an echeloned defense strategy analogous to that of Type III CRISPR-Cas systems, in which an immune response eliminating virus DNA and/or RNA is launched first, but then, if it fails, an abortive infection response leading to PCD/dormancy via host RNA cleavage takes over.
-
- Computational and Systems Biology
Imputing data is a critical issue for machine learning practitioners, including in the life sciences domain, where missing clinical data is a typical situation and the reliability of the imputation is of great importance. Currently, there is no canonical approach for imputation of clinical data and widely used algorithms introduce variance in the downstream classification. Here we propose novel imputation methods based on determinantal point processes (DPP) that enhance popular techniques such as the multivariate imputation by chained equations and MissForest. Their advantages are twofold: improving the quality of the imputed data demonstrated by increased accuracy of the downstream classification and providing deterministic and reliable imputations that remove the variance from the classification results. We experimentally demonstrate the advantages of our methods by performing extensive imputations on synthetic and real clinical data. We also perform quantum hardware experiments by applying the quantum circuits for DPP sampling since such quantum algorithms provide a computational advantage with respect to classical ones. We demonstrate competitive results with up to 10 qubits for small-scale imputation tasks on a state-of-the-art IBM quantum processor. Our classical and quantum methods improve the effectiveness and robustness of clinical data prediction modeling by providing better and more reliable data imputations. These improvements can add significant value in settings demanding high precision, such as in pharmaceutical drug trials where our approach can provide higher confidence in the predictions made.
