Neural Control of Autonomic Arousal During Threat Anticipation Revealed by High-Resolution Cardiac Contractility

Figures

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  Figure 1.. The Active Escape Task. a) In this threat-of-shock paradigm, participants tracked an 18s countdown to Mild or Unpleasant shock, which was manipulated orthogonally in relation to threat controllability (Controllable vs. Uncontrollable). In Controllable trials, shocks could be avoided by making a successful motor response, whereas shocks were administered regardless of performance in Uncontrollable trials. The motor response required using a joystick to make a time-sensitive (940ms), precise movement of a cursor to a target circle which was placed randomly in one of the four corners of the screen. At the start of each trial, participants saw a cue that informed them of the trial type (Controllable-Unpleasant, Controllable-Mild, Uncontrollable-Unpleasant, or Uncontrollable-Mild). Following each trial, participants reported the intensity of their emotions experienced during the countdown. b) Diagram of the TREV four-strip electrode placement on the forearm (adapted from Stump et al., 2024). c) The average timeseries of high-resolution cardiac contractility, measured via TREV, is plotted for the four experimental conditions.

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  Figure 2.. Physiological and Behavioral Modulation During Active Escape. The anticipation of Unpleasant relative to Mild shocks produced larger a) cardiac contractility and b) skin conductance responses, regardless of threat controllability. c) Participants reported experiencing greater emotional intensity during Unpleasant threat anticipation, particularly when anticipating Controllable (vs. Uncontrollable) Unpleasant threat. d) Participants were quicker to make successful motor responses when anticipating Unpleasant (vs. Mild) threat, particularly following Uncontrollable trials. Error bars denote the within-subjects 95% confidence interval for each condition, computed using Morey’s method (Morey, 2008). *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001.

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  Figure 3.. Convergent validity: TREV as a reliable technique for measuring sympathetic drive. TREV-derived cardiac contractility was positively correlated with SCRs, an association that was not modulated by task condition.

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  Figure 4.. Sympathetic activity tracks self-reported emotional experience. a) Participants’ TREV-derived cardiac contractility during the countdown to potential shock administration was positively associated with subjective ratings of emotional intensity provided at the end of each trial. b) Participants’ skin conductance responses during the countdown were likewise positively associated with subjective ratings of emotional intensity. c) A simultaneous mixed-effects model revealed that TREV and SCRs accounted for unique variance in subjective emotional experience.

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  Figure 5.. Neural correlates of TREV-derived sympathetic drive during threat anticipation. Greater contractility-related BOLD activation during the anticipation of Unpleasant (vs. Mild) shocks was found in the caudal dorsomedial frontal cortex and posterior parietal cortex, as well as in cerebellar lobule VI, Crus I and Crus II. In the posterior parietal cortex, TREV- and subjective emotional intensity-modulated betas overlapped (shown in yellow). Whole-brain cluster-level corrected for multiple comparisons at Z > 2.3, p < 0.05.

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  Figure 6.. TREV-modulated cerebellar activation facilitates motor responding under threat. Participants with greater contractility-related modulation of activation in cerebellar Crus I (left) and Crus II (right) during Unpleasant (vs. Mild) threat anticipation showed faster subsequent motor responses following threat.