When Math Hurts: Math Anxiety Predicts Pain Network Activation in Anticipation of Doing Math

Citation: Lyons IM, Beilock SL (2012) When Math Hurts: Math Anxiety Predicts Pain Network Activation in Anticipation of Doing Math. PLoS ONE 7(10): e48076. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0048076

Intro/background

High Levels of Math Anxiety:

• feeling of tension, apprehension, fear of math
• associated with math avoidance, in coursework and careers

Previous research has shown a connection b/w anxiety and pain.

Hyptheses:

Rating of math anxiety will be positively correlated with areas of the brain associated with pain while anticipating an upcoming math task

Method

Sample: 14 low HMA and 14 high HMA

Measures:

• SMARS - Short Math Anxiety Rating-Scale
• Trait Anxiety
• Working Memory

Procedure

• fMRI before and during Math and Word Tasks of varying difficulty
• b/w group behavioral differences were only found on math tasks
• participants were cued to whether a math task or a reading task is coming next
• fMRI measurements were taken during cue and task periods
• Random Effects models were run
  • Dependent: brain region activation measure by voxels
  • Independent: math cue, word, cue, hard and easy for both blocks

Results

Math cue and was found in the regions associated with pain specifically the dorsal insula and mid-cingulate cortex
Math activity was not associated with pain regions of the brain

Discussion

The discussion centered around the problem of knowing that activation in brain regions previously associated with was related to pain itself. To address this, the authors used Bayes Rule of inverse probability (p(A|B) = (p(B|A)P(A))/p(B)) to calculate the probability that the area is activities during a specific state using prior research.

I tried to follow this logic, but feel that the authors did not provide enough information about this process.

Refelection

One major problem I have with this study and type of research, in general, is that it tried to assume that we can work from neuroimaging data back to mind and experience. I think there are a lot of unsubstantiated assumptions in the process. For Example, there is an implicit assumption that a reagin only has one function (in this case pain) or that no other functions could be associated with this stimuli. I don't know enough about neurological research but from the little I do not, these assumptions seem untenable. I would have liked the researcher to spend a bit more time triangulating pain through other methods of measurement.