Stable or in Flux? How Anxiety Can Botch Decisions

"Our findings help explain why anxious individuals may find decision-making under uncertainty hard as they struggle to pick up on clues as to whether they are in a stable or changing situation," says Sonia Bishop. Dominic Alves, CC BY

When things get unpredictable, people prone to high anxiety may have a harder time reading the environmental cues that could help them avoid a bad outcome.

A new study hints at a glitch in the brain’s higher-order decision-making circuitry that could eventually be a target in the treatment of anxiety disorders, which affect some 40 million American adults.

The challenge for a person prone to anxiety is assessing the situation in context of what else has happened recently and responding appropriately.