Neurotransmitters and Electrophysiological Changes Might Work as Biomarkers for Diagnosing Affective Disorders

Affective disorders are the leading causes of human disability worldwide; however, the diagnosis is still hard to define, because emotion is the least study subjects in psychology. Recent emotional studies suggest that human emotions are developed from basic emotions, which are evolved for fundamental human lives. Even though most psychologists agree upon the idea that there are some basic emotions, there is little agreement on how many emotions are basic, which emotions are basic, and why they are basic. In our previous papers, we suggested that there are three basic emotions: joy, fear, and disgust. These basic emotions depend on the peptides and monoamines: dopamine-joy (peptides-reward), norepinephrine-fear (anger), and serotonin-disgust (sadness). Further tests with event-related potentials (ERP) found that joy, fear, and disgust showed the fastest response compared with other emotions, suggesting that they are fast automatic responses, which confirmed that these three emotions are prototypical emotions. Other basic emotions, anger and sadness, are due to object induced behaviors instead of sensation of object, so they developed secondary to prototypical emotions. Thus, we concluded that only joy, fear, and disgust are prototypical emotions, which can mix into other emotions, like the primary colors. In all, the neural substrates for all emotions, including the affections, are possibly monoamine neuromodulators: joy-dopamine (peptides), fear (anger)–norepinephrine, and disgust-serotonin. We hope these basic emotional studies will offer some neural mechanisms for emotional processing and shed lights on the diagnosis of affective disorders.

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An Investigation of a Frontal Negative Slow Wave in a Virtual Hedonic Purchase Task

Frontiers in Human Neuroscience ◽

10.3389/fnhum.2021.674312 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 15 ◽

Author(s):

Yupeng Mei ◽

Kunpeng Jing ◽

Lele Chen ◽

Rui Shi ◽

Zhijie Song

Keyword(s):

Slow Wave ◽

Event Related Potentials ◽

Neural Substrates ◽

Sales Promotion ◽

Price Promotion ◽

Hedonic Consumption ◽

Charitable Donation ◽

Related Potentials

There is a connection between the frontal negative slow wave (FNSW) and the arousal inhibition in the hedonic purchase context. To calculate the FNSW (400–800 ms), event-related potentials (ERPs) method was applied to depict the neural substrates on prudent and impulsive consumers’ behaviors within various states of promotion. Promotion types include the pure price promotion and the mixed promotion (a mixture of a charitable donation and a discount). Behaviorally, consumers response more quickly in the pure price promotion condition and they express a preference for the mixed promotion. More importantly, a larger FNSW emerged in the impulsive consumers than the prudent, suggesting that the former might tend to control their eagerness to consume hedonic items. Compared with the price promotion as the worse option, the mixed promotion as the better option caused more perceptual conflict, leading to an increase in N2 amplitude. It suggests that consumers incline to reject the worse offers. These results also reveal that people primarily have to search negative promotion information by their insight and subsequently impulsive consumers inhibit the responses to the promotion information. The method of ERPs and FNSW should be helpful for marketing researchers and professionals on hedonic consumption and sales promotion.

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The dysfunction of affective picture processing in pituitary patients: an ERPs study

10.21203/rs.3.rs-20708/v1 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Chenglong Cao ◽

Jian Song ◽

Binbin Liu ◽

Jianren Yue ◽

Yuzhao Lu ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Pituitary Adenoma ◽

Patient Group ◽

Electric Potential ◽

Emotional Processing ◽

Right Hemisphere ◽

Event Related Potentials ◽

Emotional Stimuli ◽

Affective Stimuli ◽

Related Potentials ◽

The Right

Abstract Background: Cognitive impairments have been reported in patients with pituitary adenoma; however, there is a lack of knowledge of investigating the emotional stimuli processing in pituitary patients. Thus, we aimed to investigate whether there is emotional processing dysfunction in pituitary patients by recording and analyzing the late positive potential (LPP) elicited by affective stimuli.Methods: Evaluation of emotional stimuli processing by LPP Event related potentials (ERPs) was carried out through central- parietal electrode sites (C3, Cz, C4, P3, Pz, P4) on the head of the patients and healthy controls (HCs).Results: In the negative stimuli, the amplitude of LPP was 2.435 ± 0.419μV for HCs and 0.656 ± 0.427μV for patient group respectively ( p = 0.005). In the positive stimuli, the elicited electric potential 1.450 ± 0.316μV for HCs and 0.495 ± 0.322μV for patient group respectively ( p = 0.040). Moreover, the most obvious difference of LPP amplitude between the two groups existed in the right parietal region. On the right hemisphere (at the P4 site), the elicited electric potential was 1.993 ± 0.299μV for HCs and 0.269 ± 0.305μV for patient group respectively( p = 0.001).Conclusion: There are functional dysfunction of emotional stimuli processing in pituitary adenoma patients. Our research provides the electrophysiological evidence for the presence of cognitive dysfunction which need to be intervened in the pituitary adenoma patients.

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Duration Estimation of Angry and Neutral Faces: Behavioral and Electrophysiological Correlates

Timing & Time Perception ◽

10.1163/22134468-bja10020 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 8 (3-4) ◽

pp. 254-278

Author(s):

Lisa V. Eberhardt ◽

Ferdinand Pittino ◽

Anna Scheins ◽

Anke Huckauf ◽

Markus Kiefer ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Emotional Processing ◽

Event Related Potentials ◽

Stimulus Onset ◽

Emotional Stimuli ◽

Information Processing Model ◽

Emotional Faces ◽

Early Posterior Negativity ◽

Related Potentials ◽

Stimulus Offset ◽

Duration Estimation

Abstract Emotional stimuli like emotional faces have been frequently shown to be temporally overestimated compared to neutral ones. This effect has been commonly explained by induced arousal caused by emotional processing leading to the acceleration of an inner-clock-like pacemaker. However, there are some studies reporting contradictory effects and others point to relevant moderating variables. Given this controversy, we aimed at investigating the processes underlying the temporal overestimation of emotional faces by combining behavioral and electrophysiological correlates in a temporal bisection task. We assessed duration estimation of angry and neutral faces using anchor durations of 400 ms and 1600 ms while recording event-related potentials. Subjective ratings and the early posterior negativity confirmed encoding and processing of stimuli’s emotionality. However, temporal ratings did not differ between angry and neutral faces. In line with this behavioral result, the Contingent Negative Variation (CNV), an electrophysiological index of temporal accumulation, was not modulated by the faces’ emotionality. Duration estimates, i.e., short or long responses toward stimuli of ambiguous durations of 1000 ms, were nevertheless associated with a differential CNV amplitude. Interestingly, CNV modulation was already observed at 600–700 ms after stimulus onset, i.e., long before stimulus offset. The results are discussed in light of the information-processing model of time perception as well as regarding possible factors of the experimental setup moderating temporal overestimation of emotional stimuli. In sum, combining behavioral and electrophysiological measures seems promising to more clearly understand the complex processes leading to the illusion of temporal lengthening of emotional faces.

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