Neuroscientists from Sessex’s Sackler Centre and Brighton and Sussex Medical School have identified the regions of the brain associated with performance anxiety.
The inferior parietal cortex (IPC) and the posterior superior temporal sulculus (pSTS) work together to form what is referred to as the action–observation network (AON) which helps us to anticipate what another person might be thinking by viewing their facial expressions.
The study demonstrated that deactivation of the IPC with performance anxiety was combined with increased activation of the pSTS, indicating that these brain regions are sensitive to information about the intentions and emotions of others, like smiling or frowning. Researchers focused on self-consciousness and how it is linked to brain areas involved with self-control and the integration of performance and feedback.
The scientists studied the grip response of twenty-one individuals, with a median age of 25, approximately half men and half women, who were given the impression that their performance was being evaluated. Participants viewed videos that showed researchers in white coats viewing performance data, either theirs or someone else’s.
Hugo Chritchley, one of the study authors, told HCB News “the observers did not display any overt emotional expressions (i.e. no laughing or frowning) though they did appear to be focusing closely on the participant's performance and to be discussing the performance of the participants and pointing toward the screen.”
Participants were asked to consistently apply pressure to an air-filled bottle with one finger and thumb. Study results showed that when they anticipated a negative evaluation, they unconsciously gripped the object harder.
Neuroscientists believe that the action-observation network helps us understand another person’s reaction by developing an internal model which, when negative, may be expressed as increased muscle tension that impairs performance.
The IPC integrates information from the body with knowledge about the self while simultaneously influencing brain regions that control muscle tension and movement. Chritchley says that this perception-action mechanism is “increasingly being better understood as a basis for the development of empathy and the shaping of social behavior.”
Certain brain stimulation techniques, like transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) are being investigated for addressing performance anxiety and TMS is already an established treatment for depression.
