Gender differences in salivary alpha-amylase and attentional bias towards negative facial expressions following acute stress induction

Abstract

This study investigated gender differences in two key processes involved in anxiety, arousal and attentional bias towards threat. Arousal was assessed using salivary alpha-amylase (sAA), a biomarker of noradrenergic arousal and attention bias using a dot-probe task. Twenty-nine women and 27 men completed the dot-probe task and provided saliva samples before and after a stress induction [cold pressor stress (CPS) test]. Women displayed a significant increase in arousal (sAA) following the stressor compared to men, who displayed a significant reduction in arousal. Reaction time data revealed a significant avoidance of threat in women at baseline, but a significant change to an attention bias towards threat following the stressor. Men did not significantly respond to the stressor in terms of attentional bias. These findings suggest that women are more reactive to a stressor than men, and display an initial avoidance response to threat, but an attentional bias towards threat following stress.

Keywords:

• Attention bias
• Dot probe
• Arousal
• Salivary alpha-amylase
• Noradrenaline
• Gender differences

Acknowledgement

Thank you to Professor Mark Dadds for use of the UNSW Facial Emotion Task, and to Dr Caroline Moul for assistance with statistical analyses.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.