AUTHOR=Visser Renée M. , Haver Pia , Zwitser Robert J. , Scholte H. Steven , Kindt Merel TITLE=First Steps in Using Multi-Voxel Pattern Analysis to Disentangle Neural Processes Underlying Generalization of Spider Fear JOURNAL=Frontiers in Human Neuroscience VOLUME=10 YEAR=2016 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/human-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2016.00222 DOI=10.3389/fnhum.2016.00222 ISSN=1662-5161 ABSTRACT=
A core symptom of anxiety disorders is the tendency to interpret ambiguous information as threatening. Using electroencephalography and blood oxygenation level dependent magnetic resonance imaging (BOLD-MRI), several studies have begun to elucidate brain processes involved in fear-related perceptual biases, but thus far mainly found evidence for general hypervigilance in high fearful individuals. Recently, multi-voxel pattern analysis (MVPA) has become popular for decoding cognitive states from distributed patterns of neural activation. Here, we used this technique to assess whether biased fear generalization, characteristic of clinical fear, is already present during the initial perception and categorization of a stimulus, or emerges during the subsequent interpretation of a stimulus. Individuals with low spider fear (