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Published Online: 1 June 2010

Life-Threatening Danger and Suppression of Attention Bias to Threat

Yair Bar-Haim, Ph.D., Yael Holoshitz, B.S., Sharon Eldar, M.A., Tahl I. Frenkel, M.A., David Muller, M.D., Dennis S. Charney, M.D., Daniel S. Pine, M.D., Nathan A. Fox, Ph.D., and Ilan Wald, M.A.Authors Info & Affiliations
Publication: American Journal of Psychiatry
Volume 167, Number 6
https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.2009.09070956
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Abstract

Objective

Life-threatening danger is assumed to produce, in tandem, increases in both vigilance toward threat and stress-related symptoms, but no data test the validity of this assumption. The authors examined associations, in real time, among imminent life-threatening danger, stress-related symptoms, and vigilance.

Method

Symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety were measured in a civilian population (N=131) as a function of war-related stress, operationalized as the time available for seeking cover from rocket attack. A computerized measure of threat-related vigilance using a classic dot-probe attention task was also collected.

Results

PTSD symptoms, depression, and anxiety increased as a function of war-related threat. Acute proximal threat was associated with avoidance of, rather than vigilance toward, negative valence information. For participants within rocket range, the magnitude of threat bias varied with the magnitude of distress symptoms, such that as bias away from threat increased, distress symptoms increased.

Conclusions

These data challenge current thinking about the role of attention in stress responding. Attentional threat avoidance may reduce the acute impact of imminent threat, but this may come at a price in terms of an elevated risk for psychopathology.

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Information & Authors

Information

Published In

Go to American Journal of Psychiatry
Go to American Journal of Psychiatry
American Journal of Psychiatry
Volume 167 • Number 6 • June 2010
Pages: 694 - 698
PubMed: 20395400

History

Received: 9 July 2009
Accepted: 16 October 2009
Published online: 1 June 2010
Published in print: June 2010

Authors

Details

Dennis S. Charney, M.D.
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Notes

Received July 9, 2009; revision received Oct. 1, 2009; accepted Oct. 16, 2009. From the Department of Psychology, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel; the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York; the Mood and Anxiety Disorders Program, National Institute of Mental Health-National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Md.; and the Department of Human Development, University of Maryland, College Park, Md. Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. Bar-Haim, Department of Psychology, Tel Aviv University, Tel-Aviv 69978, Israel; [email protected] (e-mail).

Competing Interests

The authors report no financial relationships with commercial interests.

Funding Information

Supported by the Israeli Science Foundation (grant no. 964/08 [Dr. Bar-Haim]).

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