Behavioral inhibition and cognitive control in an emotional Go/No-go task

Behavioral inhibition is a temperamental tendency associated with heightened risk for developing anxiety disorders. Individuals with behaviorally inhibited temperament tend to avoid or withdraw from novel situations, which may be associated with prefrontal cortical activation related to cognitive control. The purpose of this study is to investigate how behavioral inhibition influences cognitive control using an emotional Go/No-go task. Participants completed the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI-Y) which assesses feelings of anxiousness, and the Adult Measure of Behavioral Inhibition, which measures behaviorally inhibited temperament. Participants then completed an emotional Go/No-go task utilizing neutral and negative stimuli and asking participants to quickly respond (Go) to a designated target emotion while inhibiting their response (No-go) to another emotion. Brain activity of the prefrontal cortex was concurrently measured during the Go/No-go task using functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). The results show a relationship between affect (the emotion shown) and response accuracy. Further, we saw an interaction between response type and emotion, where participants showed higher response accuracy in No-go negative trials, compared to No-go neutral trials. Brain activity differences can also be seen when comparing participants who were low in behavioral inhibition with those who were high in behavioral inhibition: showing that participants who were high in behavioral inhibition showed greater brain activity specifically in the No-go condition.