Examining Threat Expectancy and Physiological Arousal in Trauma Exposure: Insights from a Virtual Reality Study

Trauma exposure can alter cognition and arousal. We examined threat expectancy and electrodermal activity in trauma-exposed (TE) and trauma-naïve (TN) individuals using a virtual reality threat-conditioning paradigm. TE individuals exhibited heightened threat expectancy but reduced phasic physiological arousal compared to TN individuals, suggesting a dissociation between cognitive and physiological responses.