Daniela Palomba

Visual evoked potentials, heart rate responses and memory to emotional pictorial stimuli

Although the effects of emotional stimuli on event-related cortical potentials, heart rate, and memory have been extensively studied, the association of these variables in a single study has been neglected. The influence of pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral photographic slides on visual evoked potentials (VEPs), heart rate responses, and free recall, was investigated in 20 normal subjects. VEPs were recorded from Cz and Pz locations, and analyses were performed on both amplitudes and latencies of identifiable endogenous peaks (P2, N2 and P3), and mean amplitude in the 100-200-ms, 400-600-ms, and 600-900-ms latency ranges. An emotional effect was present on VEPs starting from about 282 ms on, as revealed by the N2, P3, and late components. Both pleasant and unpleasant slides yielded larger cortical positivity as compared to neutral ones. Peak latencies did not show any emotional effect. Heart rate data showed a deceleratory response that was larger to unpleasant slides. Free recall of the projected slides showed a better performance for emotional slides compared to neutral ones. VEPs and memory data showed the same pattern: both pleasant and unpleasant slides induced larger positivity in the event-related potentials and were better remembered than neutral slides. Positive correlations were found between the late negative VEPs component (600-900 ms), recorded from Cz, and heart rate deceleration (r = 0.62), and between P3 (at Pz location) and the number of remembered slides (r = 0.53).

Cardiac responses associated with affective processing of unpleasant film stimuli

The autonomic basis of cardiac reactions to unpleasant film stimuli was investigated. Film clips depicting major surgery, threats of violence, and neutral material were presented to 46 subjects. Self-report measures of emotion were obtained, as well as heart rate, respiration rate, respiratory sinus arrhythmia, T-wave amplitude and skin conductance level. Resting vagal tone was estimated in a paced breathing task prior to film viewing. Spontaneous blink rate was also taken as a measure of visual engagement during film viewing. Coherent increases in sympathetic activation accompanied the film containing violent threats, whereas the surgery film yielded greater electrodermal activation, as well as heart rate deceleration and T-wave increase. These data support the hypothesis of differential autonomic response patterns to specifically unpleasant material. As compared with threat and neutral films, greater blink rate inhibition was observed during the surgery film. Individual differences in parasympathetic cardiac control measured at rest were able to discriminate cardiac response patterns during film viewing.

Attentional Resources Measured by Reaction Times Highlight Differences Within Pleasant and Unpleasant, High Arousing Stimuli

Simple reaction times (RTs) to acoustic tones were recorded during picture viewing in order to investigate attentional resource allocation to threat stimuli compared with pleasant (sport/adventure) and neutral (household objects) contents. Stimuli were selected as equally arousing according to standardized subjective ratings. In the late stage of picture processing threat pictures showed shorter RTs compared with neutral and pleasant ones. In a second study, a choice-RT task was employed, and a wider range of both pleasant and unpleasant contents was shown. Results indicated slower RTs when blood/injury and erotic couples were presented, compared with other threat, and with other positive (sport/adventure) scenes. Specifically, erotic couples require a greater amount of attentional resources compared with sport/adventure; the same is true for blood/injury stimuli as compared with threat. Remarkable differences were thus shown in attentional deployment to specific stimulus contents within the same valence category. These differences should be taken into account when using such stimuli to investigate emotional processing.

Emotional Information Processing and Visual Evoked Brain Potentials

Visual evoked potentials to emotional slides presented for 2 sec. were investigated in 13 subjects. 73 emotional slides (pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral) were selected from a standardized set of photographic slides, the 1988 International Affective Picture System of Lang, Öhman, and Vaitl. Visual evoked potentials were recorded from three head locations, frontal, central and parietal (Fz, Cz, and Pz). Analyses were performed in the two latency ranges: 300–400 msec. and 400–500 msec. Analyses showed an arousal effect, as indicated by a quadratic trend, indicating that emotional slides (both pleasant and unpleasant) gave higher cortical positivity than neutral ones, for all components. In addition, in the two latency epochs, larger positivities were found at Pz, compared to Fz and Cz, whereas Fz and Cz did not differ from each other.

Emotional impairment after right orbitofrontal lesion in a patient without cognitive deficits.

The present study describes a patient, M.L., with right orbitofrontal lesion, who showed no impairment on main neuropsychological tests, including those measuring frontal functions. Nevertheless, he had deeply affected emotional responses. In line with Damasios work, the patient had lower skin conductance during the projection of a standardized set of emotional slides. Furthermore, he showed altered facial expressions to unpleasant emotions, displaying low corrugator supercilii electromyographical activity associated with reduced recall of unpleasant stimuli. During a task focusing on imagery of emotional situations, M.L.s heart rate and skin conductance responses were affected during both pleasant and unpleasant conditions. Facial expressions to unpleasant imagery scripts were also impaired. Thus, the orbitofrontal cortex proved to play a critical role in retrieval of psychophysiological emotional patterns, particularly to unpleasant material. These results provide the first evidence that orbitofrontal lesions are associated with emotional impairment at several psychophysiological levels.

Blood phobia and spider phobia: two specific phobias with different autonomic cardiac modulations

Cardiac reactions to two fear-related and one control film were compared in individuals high in spider or blood/injury fear. Twelve subjects in each phobic group were selected on the basis of their scores in the Spider or Mutilation Questionnaires and a semi-structured interview. Cardiac responses and self-reported affective ratings to the films were investigated. Sympathetic and parasympathetic cardiac influences were indexed by T-wave amplitude and respiratory sinus arrhythmia measured during film viewing. Basal parasympathetic cardiac control was also assessed during a paced breathing task. Results indicate differential autonomic modulation of cardiac responses for blood and spider phobics. Although each group reacted with marked cardiac activation to its feared stimulus, a sympathetic increase followed by withdrawal over time was found in blood phobics. Greater vagal tone at rest was present in blood phobics compared with spider phobics.

Efficacy of Psychotherapies for Borderline Personality Disorder: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Importance Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a debilitating condition, but several psychotherapies are considered effective. Objective To conduct an updated systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials to assess the efficacy of psychotherapies for BPD populations. Data Sources Search terms were combined for borderline personality and randomized trials in PubMed, PsycINFO, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (from database inception to November 2015), as well as the reference lists of earlier meta-analyses. Study Selection Included were randomized clinical trials of adults with diagnosed BPD randomized to psychotherapy exclusively or to a control intervention. Study selection differentiated stand-alone designs (in which an independent psychotherapy was compared with control interventions) from add-on designs (in which an experimental intervention added to usual treatment was compared with usual treatment alone). Data Extraction and Synthesis Data extraction coded characteristics of trials, participants, and interventions and assessed risk of bias using 4 domains of the Cochrane Collaboration Risk of Bias tool (independent extraction by 2 assessors). Outcomes were pooled using a random-effects model. Subgroup and meta-regression analyses were conducted. Main Outcomes and Measures Standardized mean differences (Hedges g) were calculated using all outcomes reported in the trials for borderline symptoms, self-harm, suicide, health service use, and general psychopathology at posttest and follow-up. Differential treatment retention at posttest was analyzed, reporting odds ratios. Results Thirty-three trials (2256 participants) were included. For borderline-relevant outcomes combined (symptoms, self-harm, and suicide) at posttest, the investigated psychotherapies were moderately more effective than control interventions in stand-alone designs (g = 0.32; 95% CI, 0.14-0.51) and add-on designs (g = 0.40; 95% CI, 0.15-0.65). Results were similar for other outcomes, including stand-alone designs: self-harm (g = 0.32; 95% CI, 0.09-0.54), suicide (g = 0.44; 95% CI, 0.15-0.74), health service use (g = 0.40; 95% CI, 0.22-0.58), and general psychopathology (g = 0.32; 95% CI, 0.09-0.55), with no differences between design types. There were no significant differences in the odds ratios for treatment retention (1.32; 95% CI, 0.87-2.00 for stand-alone designs and 1.01; 95% CI, 0.55-1.87 for add-on designs). Thirteen trials reported borderline-relevant outcomes at follow-up (g = 0.45; 95% CI, 0.15-0.75). Dialectical behavior therapy (g = 0.34; 95% CI, 0.15-0.53) and psychodynamic approaches (g = 0.41; 95% CI, 0.12-0.69) were the only types of psychotherapies more effective than control interventions. Risk of bias was a significant moderator in subgroup and meta-regression analyses (slope &bgr; = −0.16; 95% CI, −0.29 to −0.03; P = .02). Publication bias was persistent, particularly for follow-up. Conclusions and Relevance Psychotherapies, most notably dialectical behavior therapy and psychodynamic approaches, are effective for borderline symptoms and related problems. Nonetheless, effects are small, inflated by risk of bias and publication bias, and particularly unstable at follow-up.

Electrophysiological evidence of visual encoding deficits in a cross-modal attentional blink paradigm

Two experiments are reported in which two target stimuli, T1 and T2, were presented at variable stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs). In Experiment 1, T1 and T2 were visual stimuli embedded in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) stream of distractors. Participants were asked to report T1 and T2 at the end of the stream. In Experiment 2, T1 was an auditory stimulus, and T2 a visual stimulus embedded in an RSVP stream. Participants made a speeded discriminative response to T1, and reported T2 at the end of the stream. An attentional blink (AB) effect was observed in both experiments: T2 report suffered at short SOA compared to long SOA. During the AB, the amplitude of the P300 component of the event-related potential (ERP) locked to T2 onset was sensibly reduced in both experiments. Behavioral and ERP results were very similar across the two experiments. Implications for models of the AB effect are discussed.

Changes in EEG alpha power to different disgust elicitors: the specificity of mutilations

It is unclear in the literature whether the various disgust elicitors are differentially processed by the brain and/or able to elicit distinct psychophysiological response patterns. On the other hand, disgusting stimuli depicting mutilations have been proved to elicit a distinct autonomic response pattern and to demand greater attentional resources, as compared with other unpleasant visual stimuli. In this EEG study, 34 participants viewed 4 film-clips depicting surgery, cockroach invasion, human attack and neutral landscape during EEG recording, and then rated the clips for valence, arousal and the basic emotions. Independent of location, the highest cortical activation was found during the viewing of the surgery scene. Moreover, the above activation was prominent over the right posterior regions.

Cortical brain responses to semantic incongruity and syntactic violation in Italian language: an event-related potential study

The present experiment investigated cortical responses of native Italian subjects during reading of short sentences including semantic or morphosyntactic violations. Given the specificity of the Italian language in which the sequencing of words is relatively more free than in English or other languages, we investigated whether syntactic and semantic violations were able to elicit event-related potential (ERP) components similar to those found in other languages. Cortical potentials evoked by the anomalous target word were recorded at frontal, central and parietal electrodes. Results showed that, in Italian, semantic anomaly elicited a negative wave (N400) in the 400-500 ms time-window and syntactic error evoked a slower positive wave (P600) in the 500-700 ms time-window. Syntactic error also evoked a significant left anterior negativity in the 350-450 ms time-window, supporting the view that syntactic processes precedes semantic analysis. Thus, Italian language, notwithstanding its specificity, shows ERPs responses to semantic and syntactic violations, with effects, scalp distribution and latency similar to those found in German, Dutch and English. Results point to a cross-linguistic consistency of the semantic and syntactic ERP components associated with the detection of linguistic anomalies.