Project Details
Projekt
Dynamic belief updating under stress: context-dependency and temporal dynamics
Applicant
Professor Dr. Lars Schwabe
Subject Area
Biological Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience
Personality Psychology, Clinical and Medical Psychology, Methodology
Personality Psychology, Clinical and Medical Psychology, Methodology
Term
since 2023
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 461947532
Background: Stress is known to have a major impact on cognition, with critical implications for psychopathology. These stress effects are assumed to be context-dependent, i.e. stress appears to enhance the cognitive processing of information directly relevant to the ongoing stressor, while it impairs the processing of information irrelevant to the stressor. Although stress effects on learning and decision-making are well documented, how – and through which mechanisms – stress affects dynamic belief updating, as a fundamental process of statistical learning, is largely unknown. Aims: This project aims to determine (i) whether stress alters dynamic belief updating, (ii) whether such stress effects are context dependent, (iii) whether such stress effects are driven by noradrenergic arousal or cortisol, and (iv) which neural mechanisms are involved in putative stress effects on dynamic belief updating. Hypotheses: We predict that task-unrelated stress will impair dynamic belief updating, whereas there is an opposite, enhancing effect of stress that is directly linked to the belief updating task. We further predict that noradrenergic arousal plays a key role in these context-dependent stress effects, modulating a cortical network reset and promoting a shift towards a salience network that prioritizes the processing or stressor-relevant information. The delayed activity of cortisol is expected to impair the belief updating capacity. Planned methods: To test these hypotheses, we plan two complex experiments. In these experiments, participants will be exposed to a stress or control manipulation while they complete a dynamic belief updating task (Confetti-cannon task) in an MRI scanner. Critically, while the stressor will be task-unrelated in experiment 1, it will be directly linked to the belief updating task in experiment 2. Stress system activity and phasic arousal will be assessed via pupillometry, subjective, autonomic, and endocrine measurements. Expected impact: This project will yield novel insights into the modulation of dynamic belief updating by acute stress as well as the mechanisms involved herein. Understanding how stress alters dynamic belief updating may link arousal-related changes of belief updating in healthy participants to aberrant belief updating in stress-related psychopathology. In a next step, this project may aim to modulate the stress-induced changes in belief updating or to directly test their relevance in stress-related disorders, such as anxiety disorders or psychosis.
DFG Programme
Research Units
