Grant: Master's Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) is an anxiety disorder characterized by high levels of worry. People with this disorder experience problems in their personal, social, and work lives as a result of their chronic worrying. People with GAD experience difficulty with concentration, problem solving, memory and attention. The difficulties may be due to the inability to disengage from worrying. Getting caught in a "worry loop" may prevent people from focusing on the task at hand and may make it difficult for people to focus on how they can solve problems they are encountering. This idea will be tested by measuring the memory, problem solving, and attention abilities of people with GAD who are actively worrying compared to those who are not. It is expected that people who are worrying will show worse performance on memory, problem solving, and attention tests. This study will help improve the understanding of why people with GAD experience the difficulties that they do. Understanding this will help researchers develop more effective treatments for this persistent and disabling condition.