The late positive potentials evoked by negative emotional pictures predict autonomic responses to an acute psychosocial stressor in healthy adults

Abstract

Individuals vary substantially in their response to an acute stressor. Identifying the factors contributing to these individual differences in stress reactivity is of particular interest but still remains largely unknown in the stress and resilience domain. The present study aimed to investigate whether and how brain reactivity to negative stimuli during a non-stressful state could predict autonomic and neuroendocrine stress responses to an acute psychosocial stressor in healthy adults. To address this issue, fifty-two healthy young adults were recruited to view negative or neutral pictures while their electroencephalogram was recorded during a non-stressful state on the first experimental day. On the second experimental day, their autonomic and neuroendocrine responses to the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) were measured. Results showed that increased late positive potential (LPP) to negative relative to neutral pictures was significantly associated with higher heart rate response but not with the cortisol response to acute social stress. These results implicate greater neural reactivity to negative stimuli as a physiological marker of heightened acute autonomic responses. These findings may help identify individuals who are at increased risk of developing negative outcomes under stress.