Anxiety is often associated with impaired cognitive control that gets manifest because basal ganglia-prefrontal circuits are compromised, especially in anxiety disorders. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of anxiety-related personality traits, such as anxiety sensitivity and trait anxiety, on event-related potentials of response inhibition in a standard Go/Nogo-paradigm that reflect processes of basal ganglia prefrontal circuits. We focused on the Nogo-N2 and Nogo-P3 components, which probably represent different sub-processes of response inhibition. The Nogo-N2 was mainly influenced by trait anxiety, while it was slightly affected by anxiety sensitivity. In contrast, the Nogo-P3 was significantly associated with anxiety sensitivity, but was less affected by trait anxiety. Thus, anxious subjects seem to maintain a higher level of cognitive control to prepare and to monitor the outcome of their actions, which is differentially reflected in Nogo-N2 and Nogo-P3 potentials. Our results show that anxiety-related personality traits modulate electrophysiological responses related to cognitive control processes and should be taken into consideration in studies investigating response inhibition. The results show that different types of anxiety seem to differentially modulate basal ganglia-prefrontal circuits.

Sehlmeyer, C., Konrad, C., Zwitserlood, P., Arolt, V., Falkenstein, M. and Beste, C., ERP indices for response inhibition are related to anxiety-related personality traits, Neuropsychologia, 2010, 48: 2488-2495.