Objectives: Cognitive affective bias (CAB) refers to the influence of emotions on cognitive processes. While most healthy individuals exhibit a neutral or slightly positive CAB, some display a negative CAB which is associated with elevated risk for developing affective disorders. Critically, despite its prevalence in the population, the relationship between anxiety and CAB remains largely unexplored. To address this gap, we explored associations between CAB and cognitive and somatic symptoms of anxiety while investigating potential underlying neural correlates of CAB using MRI. 

Methods: Twenty-four healthy individuals (12 female;17-25yrs) participated. To assess CAB, auditory and visual perceptual discrimination tasks were used which measured participants’ tendency to process ambiguous information in a positive or negative manner. The State-Trait Inventory for Cognitive and Somatic Anxiety was then administered followed by a multimodal MRI session. 

Findings: CAB is related to trait but not state anxiety. Notably, trait-somatic anxiety is related to the proportion of negative CAB responses, however, an association with reaction time of those negative CAB responses was not observed. In contrast, trait-cognitive anxiety is unrelated to the proportion of negative CAB responses, however, it is related to faster endorsements of negative CAB responses. Analysis exploring the relationship between CAB and structural MRI data is underway. 

Conclusion: Our data suggests that the relationship between CAB and anxiety varies as a function of anxiety dimension, which can assist with identification and management of anxiety symptomatology. In conjunction with our MRI data, this research could contribute to improving diagnosis, treatment and prevention of affective disorders.