Pizzie RG, et al. - This trial explored the emotional responsivity and anxious attention in math anxiety (MA). The yielded findings disclosed that even brief exposure to mathematics triggered a neural response, which was associated with threat avoidance in highly MA individuals.

Methods

• Math anxiety (MA) encompassed negative feelings towards mathematics, cauing avoidance of math classes and of careers that rely on mathematical skills.
• This study could miss key cognitive and affective processes that operate moment-to-moment, changing rapid reactions even when a student simply saw a math problem.
• MA affected rapid spontaneous emotional and attentional responses to mathematical stimuli upon brief presentation, observed via fMRI with an attentional deployment paradigm.
• The enrollees viewed but did not attempt to solve the problems, which suggested increased threat reactivity to even brief presentations of math problems.

Results

• Increased MA correlated with increased amygdala response during math viewing trials.
• Similar findings were obtained by functionally and anatomically defined amygdala ROIs, indicating robustness of the finding.
• Similar to the pattern of vigilance and avoidance noted in specific phobia, behavioral results of the attentional paradigm illustrated that MA was related to attentional disengagement for mathematical symbols.
• This attentional avoidance was specific to math stimuli; when viewing negatively-valenced images.
• A link was noted between MA and attentional engagement, similar to other forms of anxiety.