Evaluating psychological interventions in a novel experimental human model of anxiety
Open accessAbstract
Inhalation of 7.5% carbon dioxide increases anxiety and autonomic arousal and provides a novel experimental model of anxiety with which to evaluate pharmacological and psychological treatments for anxiety. To date several psychotropic drugs including benzodiazepines, SSRIs and SNRIs have been evaluated using the 7.5% CO2 model; however, it has yet to be used to evaluate psychological interventions. We compared the effects of two core psychological components of mindfulness-meditation (open monitoring and focused attention) against general relaxation, on subjective, autonomic and neuropsychological outcomes in the 7.5% CO2 experimental model. 32 healthy screened adults were randomized to complete 10 min of guided open monitoring, focused attention or relaxation, immediately before inhaling 7.5% CO2 for 20 min. During CO2-challenge participants completed an eye-tracking measure of attention control and selective attention. Measures of subjective anxiety, blood pressure and heart rate were taken at baseline and immediately following intervention and CO2-challenge. OM and FA practice reduced subjective feelings of anxiety during 20-min inhalation of 7.5% CO2 compared to relaxation control. OM practice produced a strong anxiolytic effect, whereas the effect of FA was more modest. Anxiolytic OM and FA effects occurred in the absence of group differences in autonomic arousal and eye-movement measures of attention. Our findings are consistent with neuropsychological models of mindfulness-meditation that propose OM and FA activate prefrontal mechanisms that support emotion regulation during periods of anxiety and physiological hyper-arousal. Our findings complement those from pharmacological treatment studies, further supporting the use of CO2 challenge to evaluate future therapeutic interventions for anxiety.
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Mindfulness exercises that target attention and open-monitoring can reduce experimentally induced anxiety.
“and reduce experimentally induced anxiety (e.g. subjective anxiety during carbon-dioxide challenge, Ainsworth et al., 2015).”
From Testing the differential effects of acceptance and attention-based psychological interventions on intrusive thoughts and worry (2017) · cites this paper as Ainsworth et al., 2015
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- Authors
- Ainsworth, B., Marshall, J. E., Meron, D., Baldwin, D. S., Chadwick, P., Munafò, M. R., & Garner, M.
- Affiliations
- University of Southampton (GB)
- King's College London (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Ainsworth, Ben
- Garner, Matthew
- Venue
- Journal of Psychiatric Research
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2015-04
- Volume
- 63
- Pages
- 117-122
- ISSN
- 0022-3956 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC4406751
- OpenAlex
- W2041546688
- Cited by
- 28
- References
- 41
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 1 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 6
- FWCI
- 4.14
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Locations
- Journal of Psychiatric Research (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Research Portal (King's College London) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- ePrints Soton (University of Southampton) (acceptedVersion)
- Explore Bristol Research (submittedVersion)
- Bristol Research (University of Bristol) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- British Heart Foundation
- Cancer Research UK
- National Institute for Health Research
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Mindfulness and Compassion Interventions
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Psychosomatic Disorders and Their Treatments
- Keywords
- anxiety, hypercapnia, mindfulness meditation, focused attention, relaxation, anxiolytic effects, autonomic arousal, heart rate, blood pressure, attentional control, selective attention, emotion regulation, prefrontal cortex
- MeSH terms
- Administration, Inhalation, Adult, Analysis of Variance, Anxiety, Blood Pressure, Carbon Dioxide, Female, Heart Rate, Humans, Male, Treatment Outcome, Meditation, Young Adult, Mindfulness
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