scholarly journals Event-Related Potentials in Women on the Pill: Neural Correlates of Positive and Erotic Stimulus Processing in Oral Contraceptive Users

2022 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norina M. Schmidt ◽  
Juergen Hennig ◽  
Aisha J. L. Munk

Background/Aims: Exposure toward positive emotional cues with – and without – reproductive significance plays a crucial role in daily life and regarding well-being as well as mental health. While possible adverse effects of oral contraceptive (OC) use on female mental and sexual health are widely discussed, neural processing of positive emotional stimuli has not been systematically investigated in association with OC use. Considering reported effects on mood, well-being and sexual function, and proposed associations with depression, it was hypothesized that OC users showed reduced neural reactivity toward positive and erotic emotional stimuli during early as well as later stages of emotional processing and also rated these stimuli as less pleasant and less arousing compared to naturally cycling (NC) women.Method: Sixty-two female subjects (29 NC and 33 OC) were assessed at three time points across the natural menstrual cycle and corresponding time points of the OC regimen. Early (early posterior negativity, EPN) and late (late positive potential, LPP) event-related potentials in reaction to positive, erotic and neutral stimuli were collected during an Emotional Picture Stroop Paradigm (EPSP). At each appointment, subjects provided saliva samples for analysis of gonadal steroid concentration. Valence and arousal ratings were collected at the last appointment.Results: Oral contraceptive users had significantly lower endogenous estradiol and progesterone concentrations compared to NC women. No significant group differences in either subjective stimulus evaluations or neural reactivity toward positive and erotic emotional stimuli were observed. For the OC group, LPP amplitudes in reaction to erotic vs. neutral pictures differed significantly between measurement times across the OC regimen.Discussion: In this study, no evidence regarding alterations of neural reactivity toward positive and erotic stimuli in OC users compared to NC was found. Possible confounding factors and lines for future research are elaborated and discussed.

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 254-278
Author(s):  
Lisa V. Eberhardt ◽  
Ferdinand Pittino ◽  
Anna Scheins ◽  
Anke Huckauf ◽  
Markus Kiefer ◽  
...  

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.


2021 ◽  
pp. 095679762199519
Author(s):  
Sebastian Schindler ◽  
Anne Höhner ◽  
Robert Moeck ◽  
Maximilian Bruchmann ◽  
Thomas Straube

Dyadic interactions are associated with the exchange of personality-related messages, which can be congruent or incongruent with one’s self-view. In the current preregistered study ( N = 52), we investigated event-related potentials (ERPs) toward real social evaluations in order to uncover the neural mechanisms underlying the processing of congruent and incongruent evaluative feedback. Participants interacted first, and then during an electroencephalogram (EEG) session, they received evaluations from their interaction partner that were either congruent or incongruent with their own ratings. Findings show potentiated processing of self-related incongruent negative evaluations at early time points (N1) followed by increased processing of both incongruent negative and positive evaluations at midlatency time windows (early posterior negativity) and a prioritized processing of self-related incongruent positive evaluations at late time points (feedback-related P3, late positive potential). These findings reveal that, after real social interactions, evaluative feedback about oneself that violates one’s self-view modulates all processing stages with an early negativity and a late positivity bias.


2012 ◽  
Vol 40 (8) ◽  
pp. 1285-1292 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guo-Ming Yu ◽  
Biao Li

Using the emotion-priming paradigm, we examined the neural mechanisms underlying the relationship between subjective well-being (SWB) and the processing of emotional stimuli by recording event-related potentials relevant to emotion probe words. The positive words were classified faster and more accurately by both low- and high-level SWB (very happy and not very happy) groups. Late positive potential (LPP) amplitudes elicited by emotional words were compared with words elicited in the neutral priming condition, and we found LPPs significantly reduced under the fear-inducing priming condition. This priming effect was more prominent in the group of participants who were not very happy, showing that, compared to the very happy group, these participants were more sensitive and subject to the influence of external stimuli (particularly negative emotional stimuli). The findings provide electrophysiological evidence for the relationship between SWB and emotion processing.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Huihui Yang ◽  
Qian Liu ◽  
Wanrong Peng ◽  
Zhaoxia Liu ◽  
Jun Chu ◽  
...  

AbstractThis study was aimed to investigate whether BPD patients showed impaired impulse inhibition of emotional and non-emotional stimuli and to explore relevant neuroelectrophysiological mechanisms. A total of 32 BPD patients and 32 matched healthy controls were recruited. Self-reported scales were used to measure psychiatric symptoms. The event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded when subjects were performing neutral and emotional Stop Signal Task (SST). Group differences in self-reported scores, behavioral variables and ERPs were compared. The BPD group scored significantly higher on impulsivity, severity of BPD symptoms, levels of depression and anxiety than the control group. In neutral SST, no significant group differences were detected in the amplitude and latency of ERPs components induced. In emotional SST, the P2 amplitude of negative emotion was significantly larger than that of neutral emotion in Go trials. In Stop trials, the P2 amplitude of BPD group was significantly smaller than that of control group, and the N2 amplitude of BPD group was significantly greater than that of control group. BPD patients showed impaired inhibition of emotional stimuli rather than non-emotional stimuli. The deficits of emotional impulse control mainly exhibit at the early attention, stimulus evaluation and conflict detection stages.


2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 138-152
Author(s):  
Bingren Zhang ◽  
Chu Wang ◽  
Chanchan Shen ◽  
Wei Wang

Background: Responses to external emotional-stimuli or their transitions might help to elucidate the scientific background and assist the clinical management of psychiatric problems, but pure emotional-materials and their utilization at different levels of neurophysiological processing are few. Objective: We aimed to describe the responses at central and peripheral levels in healthy volunteers and psychiatric patients when facing external emotions and their transitions. Methods: Using pictures and sounds with pure emotions of Disgust, Erotica, Fear, Happiness, Neutral, and Sadness or their transitions as stimuli, we have developed a series of non-invasive techniques, i.e., the event-related potentials, functional magnetic resonance imaging, excitatory and inhibitory brainstem reflexes, and polygraph, to assess different levels of neurophysiological responses in different populations. Results: Sample outcomes on various conditions were specific and distinguishable at cortical to peripheral levels in bipolar I and II disorder patients compared to healthy volunteers. Conclusions: Methodologically, designs with these pure emotions and their transitions are applicable, and results per se are specifically interpretable in patients with emotion-related problems.


2021 ◽  
pp. 095679762199666
Author(s):  
Sebastian Schindler ◽  
Maximilian Bruchmann ◽  
Claudia Krasowski ◽  
Robert Moeck ◽  
Thomas Straube

Our brains rapidly respond to human faces and can differentiate between many identities, retrieving rich semantic emotional-knowledge information. Studies provide a mixed picture of how such information affects event-related potentials (ERPs). We systematically examined the effect of feature-based attention on ERP modulations to briefly presented faces of individuals associated with a crime. The tasks required participants ( N = 40 adults) to discriminate the orientation of lines overlaid onto the face, the age of the face, or emotional information associated with the face. Negative faces amplified the N170 ERP component during all tasks, whereas the early posterior negativity (EPN) and late positive potential (LPP) components were increased only when the emotional information was attended to. These findings suggest that during early configural analyses (N170), evaluative information potentiates face processing regardless of feature-based attention. During intermediate, only partially resource-dependent, processing stages (EPN) and late stages of elaborate stimulus processing (LPP), attention to the acquired emotional information is necessary for amplified processing of negatively evaluated faces.


2003 ◽  
Vol 15 (8) ◽  
pp. 1135-1148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annett Schirmer ◽  
Sonja A. Kotz

The present study investigated the interaction of emotional prosody and word valence during emotional comprehension in men and women. In a prosody-word interference task, participants listened to positive, neutral, and negative words that were spoken with a happy, neutral, and angry prosody. Participants were asked to rate word valence while ignoring emotional prosody, or vice versa. Congruent stimuli were responded faster and more accurately as compared to incongruent emotional stimuli. This behavioral effect was more salient for the word valence task than for the prosodic task and was comparable between men and women. The event-related potentials (ERPs) revealed a smaller N400 amplitude for congruent as compared to emotionally incongruent stimuli. This ERP effect, however, was significant only for the word valence judgment and only for female listeners. The present data suggest that the word valence judgment was more difficult and more easily influenced by task-irrelevant emotional information than the prosodic task in both men and women. Furthermore, although emotional prosody and word valence may have a similar influence on an emotional judgment in both sexes, ERPs indicate sex differences in the underlying processing. Women, but not men, show an interaction between prosody and word valence during a semantic processing stage.


2009 ◽  
Vol 24 (S1) ◽  
pp. 1-1
Author(s):  
C. Silveira ◽  
F. Santos ◽  
F. Barbosa ◽  
A. Pedro ◽  
A. Palha ◽  
...  

Background/Objective:Despite the well established genetic basis of schizophrenia, the relationship between genes and the disorder itself is still elusive. Individual endophenotypes, which reduce the complexity of genetic analyses, allow statistical approaches with quantitative trait methodologies. P200 abnormalities of event-related potentials have been reported in schizophrenia with conflicting results. The present study aims to characterize the P200 in first-episode patients and to compare it with that of first-degree relatives and controls.Methods:ERPs were recorded at 19 sites with an auditory oddball for 21 first-episode patients with schizophrenia (mean age=25.14; SD=6.20), 41 of their first degree relatives (mean age=47.65; SD=15.53) and 19 healthy controls (mean age=26.32; SD=7.16). Potentials were averaged for frequent stimuli and P200 amplitude and latency measures were obtained.Results:Analysis of midline electrodes revealed significant group effects for P200 peak amplitudes (F(2, 78)=3.315, p=.042), but not for peak latencies. Post-hoc analyses revealed that patients with schizophrenia present significantly lower P200 amplitudes (M=2.466; SD=1.564) than controls (M=5.037; SD=2.500) at Pz (T(38)=3.851, p=.003). No other significant differences were found.Conclusion:The results obtained do not straight-forwardly support the P200 peak amplitude nor peak latency as an endophenotype of schizophrenia. However, the trends of our results may suggest that the P200 amplitudes of relatives may present intermediate values between healthy controls (with higher amplitudes) and patients (with lower amplitudes). Further statistical analyses will be required in order to disentangle the effects of possible confounding variables.


2018 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 238-247 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derek J. Fisher ◽  
Debra J. Campbell ◽  
Shelagh C. Abriel ◽  
Emma M. L. Ells ◽  
Erica D. Rudolph ◽  
...  

The mismatch negativity (MMN) is an EEG-derived event-related potential (ERP) elicited by any violation of a predicted auditory “rule,” regardless of whether one is attending to the stimuli and is thought to reflect updating of the stimulus context. Redirection of attention toward a rare, distracting stimulus event, however, can be measured by the subsequent P3a component of the P300. Chronic schizophrenia patients exhibit robust MMN deficits, as well as reductions in P3a amplitude. While, the substantial literature on the MMN in first-episode and early phase schizophrenia in this population reports reduced amplitudes, there also exist several contradictory studies. Conversely, P3a reduction in this population is relatively consistent, although the literature investigating this is small. The primary goal of this study was to contribute to our understanding of whether auditory change detection mechanisms are altered in early phase schizophrenia and, if so, under what conditions. Event-related potentials elicited by duration, frequency, gap, intensity, and location deviants (as elicited by the “optimal” multi-feature paradigm) were recorded in 14 early phase schizophrenia (EP) patients and 17 healthy controls (HCs). Electrical activity was recorded from 15 scalp electrodes. MMN/P3a amplitudes and latencies for each deviant were compared between groups and were correlated with clinical measures in EPs. There were no significant group differences for MMN amplitudes or latencies, though EPs did exhibit reduced P3a amplitudes to gap and duration deviants. Furthermore, PANSS (Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale) positive symptom scores were correlated with intensity MMN latencies and duration P3a amplitudes in EPs. These findings suggest that MMNs may not be as robustly reduced in early phase schizophrenia (relative to chronic illness), but that alterations may be more likely in patients with increased positive symptomatology. Furthermore, these findings offer further support to previous work suggesting that the understudied P3a may have good complementary utility as a marker of early cortical dysfunction in psychosis.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chenglong Cao ◽  
Jian Song ◽  
Binbin Liu ◽  
Jianren Yue ◽  
Yuzhao Lu ◽  
...  

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.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document