ArticleCognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience2022
Intolerance of uncertainty is associated with heightened responding in the prefrontal cortex during cue-signalled uncertainty of threat.
Article in Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 27 citations in OpenAlex.
- Neural correlates of uncertainty processing: meta-analysis of fMRI studies.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2025Pooled it
- Neural Correlates of Uncertainty Processing During Decision-Making in Individuals with Different Levels of Worry Proneness.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- The role of dorsal anterior cingulate cortex in dynamic attitude changes in naturalistic settings.Communications biology · 2026Article
- Individual differences in intolerance of uncertainty is primarily linked to the structure of inferior frontal regions.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2025Article
- The brain on expert medical performance: a systematic review and activation likelihood estimation functional magentic resonance imaging meta-analysis.Psychoradiology · 2025Review
- Dispositional factors in the explanation of symptoms of depression, anxiety, health anxiety and COVID-19 Phobia.PloS one · 2024Article
- Understanding anxiety symptoms as aberrant defensive responding along the threat imminence continuum.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2023Review
- Intolerance of uncertainty heightens negative emotional states and dampens positive emotional states.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2023Article
- Intolerance of uncertainty and functional connectivity of the anterior insula during anticipation of unpredictable reward.International journal of psychophysiology : official journal of the International Organization of Psychophysiology · 2023Article
- COVID-19 information overload: Intolerance of uncertainty moderates the relationship between frequency of internet searching and fear of COVID-19.Acta psychologica · 2022Article
- Threat imminence reveals links among unfolding of anticipatory physiological response, cortical-subcortical intrinsic functional connectivity, and anxiety.Neurobiology of stress · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Heightened responding to uncertain threat is considered a hallmark of anxiety disorder pathology. We sought to determine whether individual differences in self-reported intolerance of uncertainty (IU), a key transdiagnostic dimension in anxiety-related pathology, underlies differential recruitment of neural circuitry during cue-signalled uncertainty of threat (n = 42). In an instructed threat of shock task, cues signalled uncertain threat of shock (50%) or certain safety from shock. Ratings of arousal and valence, skin conductance response (SCR), and functional magnetic resonance imaging were acquired. Overall, participants displayed greater ratings of arousal and negative valence, SCR, and amygdala activation to uncertain threat versus safe cues. IU was not associated with greater arousal ratings, SCR, or amygdala activation to uncertain threat versus safe cues. However, we found that high IU was associated with greater ratings of negative valence and greater activity in the medial prefrontal cortex and dorsomedial rostral prefrontal cortex to uncertain threat versus safe cues. These findings suggest that during cue-signalled uncertainty of threat, individuals high in IU rate uncertain threat as aversive and engage prefrontal cortical regions known to be involved in safety-signalling and conscious threat appraisal. Taken together, these findings highlight the potential of IU in modulating safety-signalling and conscious appraisal mechanisms in situations with cue-signalled uncertainty of threat, which may be relevant to models of anxiety-related pathology.
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