Large-scale remote fear conditioning: Demonstration of associations with anxiety using the FLARe smartphone app

Thomas McGregor; Kirstin L Purves; Elena Constantinou; Johanna M P Baas; Tom J Barry; Ewan Carr; Michelle G Craske; Kathryn J Lester; Elisavet Palaiologou; Gerome Breen; Katherine S Young; Thalia C Eley

doi:10.1002/da.23146

Large-scale remote fear conditioning: Demonstration of associations with anxiety using the FLARe smartphone app

Depress Anxiety. 2021 Mar 19. doi: 10.1002/da.23146. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Thomas McGregor¹, Kirstin L Purves¹, Elena Constantinou^{1

2}, Johanna M P Baas³, Tom J Barry⁴, Ewan Carr⁵, Michelle G Craske⁶, Kathryn J Lester⁷, Elisavet Palaiologou¹, Gerome Breen^{1

8}, Katherine S Young^{1

8}, Thalia C Eley^{1

8}

Affiliations

¹ Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King's College London, London, UK.
² Department of Psychology, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus.
³ Department of Experimental Psychology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
⁴ Experimental Psychopathology Lab, Department of Psychology, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
⁵ Department of Biostatistics and Health Informatics, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King's College London, London, UK.
⁶ Department of Psychology, Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, California, USA.
⁷ School of Psychology, University of Sussex, Brighton, Sussex, UK.
⁸ NIHR Biomedical Research Centre for Mental Health, South London and Maudsley NHS Trust, London, UK.

PMID: 33739564
DOI: 10.1002/da.23146

Abstract

Objectives: We aimed to examine differences in fear conditioning between anxious and nonanxious participants in a single large sample.

Materials and methods: We employed a remote fear conditioning task (FLARe) to collect data from participants from the Twins Early Development Study (n = 1,146; 41% anxious vs. 59% nonanxious). Differences between groups were estimated for their expectancy of an aversive outcome towards a reinforced conditional stimulus (CS+) and an unreinforced conditional stimulus (CS-) during acquisition and extinction phases.

Results: During acquisition, the anxious group (vs. nonanxious group) showed greater expectancy towards the CS-. During extinction, the anxious group (vs. nonanxious group) showed greater expectancy to both CSs. These comparisons yielded effect size estimates (d = 0.26-0.34) similar to those identified in previous meta-analyses.

Conclusion: The current study demonstrates that remote fear conditioning can be used to detect differences between groups of anxious and nonanxious individuals, which appear to be consistent with previous meta-analyses including in-person studies.

Keywords: anxiety disorders; differential conditioning; extinction; remote study; smartphones.

Abstract

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