Emotional perception: correspondence of early and late event-related potentials with cortical and subcortical functional MRI

How and when social evaluative feedback is processed in the brain: A systematic review on ERP studies

Social evaluative feedback informs the receiver of the other's views, which may contain judgments of personality-related traits and/or the level of likability. Such kinds of social evaluative feedback are of particular importance to humans. Event-related potentials (ERPs) can directly measure where in the processing stream feedback valence, expectancy, or contextual relevance modulate information processing. This review provides an overview and systematization of studies and early, mid-latency, and late ERP effects. Early effects were inconsistently reported for all factors. Feedback valence effects are more consistently reported for specific mid-latency ERPs (Reward Positivity, RewP, and Early Posterior Negativity, EPN) and late positivities (P3 and Late Positive Potential, LPP). Unexpected feedback consistently increased the Feedback Related Negativity (FRN) and, less consistently, decreased P3 amplitudes. Contextual relevance of the sender (e.g., human vs computer sender) or self-relatedness increased mid-latency to late ERPs. Interactions between valence and other factors were less often found, arising during mid-latency stages, where most consistent interactions showed larger EPN and P3 amplitude differences for valent feedback in a more relevant context. The ERP findings highlight that social evaluative feedback is consistently differentiated during mid-latency processing stages. The review discusses the relevance of findings, possible shortcomings of different experimental designs, and open questions. Furthermore, we suggest concrete venues for future research.

The joy of being frightened: Fear experience in psychopathy

OBJECTIVE

Psychopathic traits are associated with abnormalities in fear processing. While traditional theories focus on a lack of fear, Hosker-Field et al. (2016) provided a new perspective. They suggested that individuals with elevated psychopathic traits may experience threatening situations with appreciation or positivity, resulting in reduced negative fear responses and heightened positive responses (fear enjoyment hypothesis, FEH).

METHOD

Our study aimed to refine Hosker-Field et al.'s (2016) study design, addressing methodological limitations and improving the inconsistent operationalization of fear experience in the literature. In an online sample of 353 participants from the general population, we examined the relationship between the FEH and relevant psychopathic traits, specifically those derived from the PCL-R framework (i.e., SRP 4 Factor 1), and from a more trait-based approach to psychopathy with assumed links to fearlessness (i.e., TriPM Boldness).

RESULTS

By employing linear mixed effect models, we extended Hosker-Field et al.'s correlational analysis and provided further evidence for the FEH, particularly in relation to psychopathic traits measured using the PCL-R framework. The results regarding Boldness, however, are somewhat inconclusive.

CONCLUSION

The present study enhances existing research on fear deficits in psychopathy by assessing the subjective experience of individuals facing threat.

The impact of culture on emotion suppression: Insights from an electrophysiological study of emotion regulation in Japan

Prior theory and evidence suggest that native East Asians tend to down-regulate their emotional arousal to negatively valenced experiences through expressive suppression, an emotion regulation technique focused on suppressing one's emotional experience. One proposed explanation for this choice of regulation strategy and its efficacy is rooted in their commitment to the cultural value of interdependence with others. However, prior work has not yet thoroughly supported this hypothesis using in vivo neural correlates of emotion regulation. Here, we utilized an established electroencephalogram (EEG) correlate of emotional arousal, the late positive potential (LPP), to examine whether down-regulation of the LPP in native East Asians might be particularly pronounced for those relatively high in interdependent self-construal. In this study, native Japanese participants attempted to suppress their emotional reaction to unpleasant images during EEG recording. In support of the hypothesis that emotion suppression among native East Asians is influenced by the cultural value of interdependence, there was a significant effect of interdependent self-construal on the LPP. Specifically, those relatively high in interdependent (versus independent) self-construal exhibited a smaller LPP in response to unpleasant pictures when instructed to suppress their emotions versus a passive viewing condition. However, this effect was negligible for those relatively low in interdependent self-construal, suggesting that cultural values impact the in vivo efficacy of different emotion regulation techniques. These results demonstrate the importance of identifying correspondence between self-report measures and in vivo correlates of emotion regulation in cross-cultural research.

Dissociating different temporal stages of emotional word processing by feature-based attention

Negative emotional content is prioritized across different stages of information processing as reflected by different components of the event-related potential (ERP). In this preregistered study (N = 40), we investigated how varying the attentional focus allows us to dissociate the involvement of specific ERP components in the processing of negative and neutral words. Participants had to discriminate the orientation of lines overlaid onto the words, the word type (adjective/noun), or the emotional content (negative/neutral). Thus, attention was either not focused on words (distraction task), non-emotional aspects, or the emotional relevance of words. Regardless of the task, there were no significant differences between negative and neutral words for the P1, N1, or P2 components. In contrast, interactions between emotion and task were observed for the early posterior negativity (EPN) and late positive potential (LPP). EPN differences were absent during the distraction task but were present in the other two tasks. LPP emotion differences were found only when attention was directed to the emotional content of words. Our study adds to the evidence that early ERP components do not reliably separate negative and neutral words. However, results show that mid-latency and late stages of emotion processing are separable by different attention tasks. The EPN represents a stage of attentional enhancement of negative words given sufficient attentional resources. Differential activations during the LPP stage are associated with more elaborative processing of the emotional meaning of words.

Hierarchical status is rapidly assessed from behaviourally dominant faces

Recognition of social hierarchy is a key feature that helps us navigate through our complex social environment. Neuroimaging studies have identified brain structures involved in the processing of hierarchical stimuli, but the precise temporal dynamics of brain activity associated with such processing remains largely unknown. In this investigation, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine the effect of social hierarchy on the neural responses elicited by dominant and nondominant faces. Participants played a game where they were led to believe that they were middle-rank players, responding alongside other alleged players, whom they perceived as higher or lower-ranking. ERPs were examined in response to dominant and nondominant faces, and low-resolution electromagnetic tomography (LORETA) was used to identify the implicated brain areas. The results revealed that the amplitude of the N170 component was enhanced for faces of dominant individuals, showing that hierarchy influences the early stages of face processing. A later component, the late positive potential (LPP) appearing between 350-700 ms, also was enhanced for faces of higher-ranking players. Source localisation suggested that the early modulation was due to an enhanced response in limbic regions. These findings provide electrophysiological evidence for enhanced early visual processing of socially dominant faces.

The P300, the LPP, context updating, and memory: What is the functional significance of the emotion-related late positive potential?

The emotion-related late positive potential (LPP) of the event-related potential (ERP) has been the topic of many studies over the previous two decades, but the function of this component (the cognitive process that it reflects) is very much an open question. In this paper, I build on frameworks that suggest a close relationship between the LPP and the P300 component of the ERP to argue that the classic context updating account of the P300 may provide insights into the function of the LPP. I then review broader connections between the LPP and memory, and I connect the LPP to research and theory in the area of emotional memory. I argue that while a relationship between the LPP and attention has been widely noted in the literature, connections to memory have been overlooked and that a memory-related process should be considered as one candidate for the function of the LPP.

Can neural correlates of encoding explain the context dependence of reward-enhanced memory?

Selective encoding can be studied by manipulating how valuable it is for participants to remember specific stimuli, for instance, by varying the monetary reward participants receive for recalling a particular stimulus in a subsequent memory test. It would be reasonable for participants to strategically attend more to high-reward items compared to low-reward items in mixed list contexts, but to attend both types of items equally in pure list contexts, where all items are of equal value. Reward-enhanced memory may be driven by automatic dopaminergic interactions between reward circuitry and the hippocampus and thus be insensitive to list context; or it may be driven by meta-cognitive strategies, and thus context-dependent. We contrasted these alternatives by manipulating list composition and tracked selective encoding through multiple EEG measures of attention and rehearsal. Behavioral results were context-dependent, such that recall of high-reward items was increased only in mixed lists. This result and aspects of the recall dynamics confirm predictions of the eCMR (emotional Context Maintenance and Retrieval) model. The power of ssVEPs was lower for high-reward items regardless of list composition, suggesting decreased visual processing of high-reward stimuli and that ssVEPs may index the modulation of context-to-item associations predicted by eCMR. By contrast, reward modulated the amplitude of Late Positive Potential and Frontal Slow Wave only in mixed lists. Taken together, the results provide evidence that reward-enhanced memory is caused by an interplay between strategic processes applied when high- and low-reward items compete for cognitive resources during encoding and context-dependent mechanisms operating during recall.

Reappraisal is less effective than distraction in downregulation of neural responses to physical threats-An event-related potential investigation

Evolutionary threats (ETs), such as predatory animals and heights, elicit stronger fear responses and are more often the subject of specific phobias, as compared to modern threats (MTs, such as guns and motorcycles). Since processing of ET depends on lower-order, phylogenetically conserved neural fear circuits, it may be less susceptible to higher-order (vs. simpler) cognitive emotion regulation. Given the relevance for treatment of specific phobias, we tested this hypothesis in an ERP study. Sixty-one female participants passively watched high- and low-threat pictures of evolutionary (snakes, lizards) and modern (guns, water-guns) origin, and downregulated responses to the high-threat pictures (snakes and guns) using either cognitive reappraisal or a simpler cognitive distraction strategy. ET elicited stronger early (EPN) and sustained (LPP) attention processing compared to MT. Both strategies successfully downregulated subjective and LPP (but not EPN) responses compared to passive watching. Although reappraisal was more effective subjectively, distraction downregulated the LPP earlier and stronger than reappraisal, irrespective of the threat type. These findings provide novel evidence that neural responses to physical threat might be less susceptible to cognitive emotion regulation via higher-order (reappraisal) versus simpler (distraction) strategies, irrespective of the evolutionary or modern relevance of threat. Combining both strategies could be beneficial for the emotion regulation-enhancing interventions for specific phobias. Distraction could be used during initial exposure, to reduce immediate emotion responding and help endure the contact with the feared stimulus, whereas reappraisal could be used subsequently, when emotions are less intense, to change maladaptive thoughts about the stimulus for future encounters.

Chronic stress in peer relationships moderates the association between pubertal development and neural response to emotional faces in adolescence

Adolescence is a period of heightened risk for multiple forms of psychopathology, partly due to greater exposure to interpersonal stress. One way that interpersonal stress may increase risk for psychopathology is by altering the normative development of neural systems that support socio-affective processing. The late positive potential (LPP) is an event-related potential component that reflects sustained attention to motivationally-salient information and is a promising marker of risk for stress-related psychopathology. However, it is not clear how the LPP to socio-affective information changes across adolescence, nor whether exposure to stress with peers interferes with normative developmental differences in the LPP to socio-affective content during this period. In 92 adolescent girls (10-19 years old), we assessed the LPP to task-irrelevant emotional and neutral faces, as well as behavioural measures of interference following the presentation of these faces. Adolescents at more advanced stages of puberty showed a smaller LPP to emotional faces, but adolescents exposed to greater peer stress exhibited a larger LPP to these stimuli. Additionally, for girls exposed to lower levels of peer stress, more advanced pubertal development was associated with a smaller LPP to emotional faces, whereas for girls exposed to higher levels of peer stress, the association between pubertal development and the LPP to emotional faces was not significant. Neither stress nor pubertal stage was significantly associated with behavioural measures. Combined, these data suggest that one pathway through which stress exposure increases risk for psychopathology during adolescence is by interfering with the normative development of socio-affective processing.

Emotional scene processing in biotypes of psychosis

Social-emotional deficits in psychosis may be indexed by deviations in emotional scene processing, but event-related potential (ERP) studies indicate such deviations may not map cleanly to diagnostic categories. Neurobiologically defined psychosis subgroups offer an alternative that may better capture neurophysiological correlates of social-emotional deficits. The current study investigates emotional scene-elicited ERPs in Biotypes of psychosis in a large (N = 622), well-characterized sample. Electroencephalography was recorded in healthy persons (N = 129), Biotype-1 (N = 195), Biotype-2 (N = 131), and Biotype-3 (N = 167) psychosis cases. ERPs were measured from posterior and centroparietal scalp locations. Neural responses to emotional scenes were compared between healthy and psychosis groups. Multivariate group discrimination analyses resulted in two composite variates that differentiated groups. The first variate displayed large differences between low-cognition (Biotype-1, Biotype-2) and intact-cognition groups (Biotype-3, healthy persons). The second indicated a small-to-moderate distinction of Biotypes-2 and -3 from Biotype-1 and healthy persons. Two multivariate correlations were identified indicating associations between 1) self-reported emotional experience and generalized cognition and 2) socio-occupational functioning and late-stage emotional processing. Psychosis Biotypes displayed emotional processing deficits not apparent in DSM psychosis subgroups. Future translational research may benefit from exploring emotional scene processing in such neurobiologically-defined psychosis groups.

Temporal stability of neurophysiological drug cue reactivity before and after acute stress in cannabis users: A test of incentive sensitization

BACKGROUND

Given increasing rates of Cannabis Use Disorder (CUD), objective measures are needed that can reliably index risk and track cannabis use progression. Based on incentive sensitization models, neurophysiological reactivity to cannabis cues, measured with the electroencephalography-recorded late positive potential (LPP), may be a candidate biomarker. To serve as such, the cannabis cue-elicited LPP must demonstrate adequate retest reliability and sensitivity to cannabis use change. Moreover, incentive sensitization theory suggests that state-level contextual variables, such as acute stress, can impact drug cue reactivity. Therefore, the present study evaluated the three-month retest reliability of the cannabis cue-elicited LPP, recorded before and after a laboratory stress induction, as well as its sensitivity to cannabis use change.

METHOD

Cannabis and neutral cue-elicited LPPs were measured in 102 adults reporting frequent cannabis use (86 % with current CUD) before and after an acute stress induction at two lab visits three-months apart. Physiological and subjective stress reactivity were also measured.

RESULTS

Manipulation checks confirmed expected cannabis cue and acute stress effects. Cannabis cue-elicited LPP amplitudes showed significant three-month retest reliability of poor-to-fair through moderate-to-good size. Change in cannabis use frequency significantly predicted change in cannabis cue-elicited LPP amplitudes, particularly at post-stress.

CONCLUSION

Consistent with incentive sensitization models of addiction, the cannabis cue-elicited LPP demonstrated trait-like, moderate three-month stability and responsivity to change in cannabis use behavior. Greater predictive validity of the post-stress LPP may arise through kindling effects of acute stress on incentive salience-related neural activity, which should be explored in future studies.

Impact of observational and direct learning on fear conditioning generalization in humans

Humans gain knowledge about threats not only from their own experiences but also from observing others' behavior. A neutral stimulus is associated with a threat stimulus for several times and the neutral stimulus will evoke fear responses, which is known as fear conditioning. When encountering a new event that is similar to one previously associated with a threat, one may feel afraid and produce fear responses. This is called fear generalization. Previous studies have mostly focused on fear conditioning and generalization based on direct learning, but few have explored how observational fear learning affects fear conditioning and generalization. To the best of our knowledge, no previous study has focused on the neural correlations of fear conditioning and generalization based on observational learning. In the present study, 58 participants performed a differential conditioning paradigm in which they learned the associations between neutral cues (i.e., geometric figures) and threat stimuli (i.e., electric shock). The learning occurred on their own (i.e., direct learning) and by observing other participant's responses (i.e., observational learning); the study used a within-subjects design. After each learning condition, a fear generalization paradigm was conducted by each participant independently while their behavioral responses (i.e., expectation of a shock) and electroencephalography (EEG) recordings or responses were recorded. The shock expectancy ratings showed that observational learning, compared to direct learning, reduced the differentiation between the conditioned threatening stimuli and safety stimuli and the increased shock expectancy to the generalization stimuli. The EEG indicated that in fear learning, threatening conditioned stimuli in observational and direct learning increased early discrimination (P1) and late motivated attention (late positive potential [LPP]), compared with safety conditioned stimuli. In fear generalization, early discrimination, late motivated attention, and orienting attention (alpha-event-related desynchronization [alpha-ERD]) to generalization stimuli were reduced in the observational learning condition. These findings suggest that compared to direct learning, observational learning reduces differential fear learning and increases the generalization of fear, and this might be associated with reduced discrimination and attentional function related to generalization stimuli.

ERP and attachment dimensions as predictors of seeking care or food comfort in stressful situations

In this study, we aimed to test the association of the Late Positive Potential (LPP) response and attachment dimensions in the choice of care/food pictures and its reaction time (RT) in threatening versus neutral conditions. Fifty-two participants (38 females, M_age 22.62) responded to the ECR questionnaire and were exposed to adequate visual stimuli, during EEG recording. Results showed that threatening stimuli increase the choice of care, decrease RT, and increase LPP magnitude in centro-parietal areas (Cpz, Pz, P3 and P4). Food choice was lower, with increased RT. Furthermore, larger LPP magnitude in centro-parietal cluster was associated with increased RT in the choice of care. Considering the dimensions of attachment, in threatening conditions, while anxiety was not associated with RT and care/food choice, avoidance was associated with an increase in care choice and RT. In conclusion, the specific association of increased RT in care choice with high LPP magnitude centro-parietal cluster may be explained in terms of a functional interference of these areas in the choice of care, but not of food. Further, we postulate that the increased RT of avoidant individuals may reflect a more articulated choice process.

Neuroanatomical Correlates of the Late Positive Potential in Youth with Pediatric Bipolar Disorder

BACKGROUND

The late positive potential (LPP) could be a marker of emotion dysregulation in youth with pediatric bipolar disorder (PBD). However, the neuroanatomical correlates of the LPP are still not clarified.

OBJECTIVE

To provide cortical and deep gray matter correlates of the LPP in youth, specifically, youth with PBD.

METHODS

Twenty-four 7 to 17 years-old children with PBD and 28 healthy controls (HC) underwent cortical thickness and deep gray matter volumes measurements through magnetic resonance imaging and LPP measurement elicited by passively viewing emotional faces through electroencephalography. T-tests compared group differences in LPP, cortical thickness, and deep gray matter volumes. Linear regressions tested the relationship between LPP amplitude and cortical thickness/deep gray matter volumes.

RESULTS

PBD had a more pronounced LPP amplitude for happy faces and a thinner cortex in prefrontal areas than HC. While considering both groups, a higher LPP amplitude was associated with a thicker cortex across occipital and frontal lobes, and with a smaller right globus pallidus volume. In addition, a higher LPP amplitude for happy faces was associated with smaller left caudate and left globus pallidus volumes across both groups. Finally, the LPP amplitude correlated negatively with right precentral gyrus thickness across youth with PBD, but positively across HC.

CONCLUSION

Neural correlates of LPP in youth included fronto-occipital areas that have been associated also with emotion processing and control. The opposite relationship between BPD and HC of LPP amplitude and right precentral gyrus thickness might explain the inefficacy of the emotional control system in PBD.

Neural reactivity to affective stimuli and internalizing symptom dimensions in a transdiagnostic patient sample

BACKGROUND

Internalizing psychopathologies (IPs) are highly comorbid and exhibit substantial overlap, such as aberrant affective reactivity. Neural reactivity to emotional images, measured via the late positive potential (LPP) event-related potential (ERP) component, has been utilized to index affective reactivity in IPs. The LPP is often examined in isolation with a specific disorder, ignoring overlap between IPs. The current study examined how transdiagnostic IP symptom dimensions relate to neural affective reactivity in a highly comorbid patient sample.

METHODS

Participants (N = 99) completed a battery of IP symptom assessments as well as a target categorization task while viewing pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral images during electroencephalography recording. ERPs to each image valence were averaged from 400 to 1000 ms following picture onset at pooled centroparietal and occipital electrodes to calculate the LPP. A principal components analysis performed on the IP symptom measures resulted in two factors: affective distress/misery and fear-based anxiety.

RESULTS

Fear-based anxiety was associated with enhanced LPP reactivity to unpleasant, but not pleasant, images. Distress/misery was related to attenuated average LPP reactivity across images.

CONCLUSIONS

Results revealed a dissociable effect of IP symptom factors in a transdiagnostic sample such that enhanced reactivity to negative images was specific to enhanced fear-based anxiety symptoms while distress/misery symptoms predicted blunted affective reactivity. Neural affective reactivity may serve as an objective biological marker to elucidate the nature of psychological concerns in individuals with comorbid IPs.

Electrophysiological correlates of in vivo and virtual reality exposure therapy in spider phobia

Specific phobia can be treated successfully with exposure therapy. Although exposure therapy has strong effects on self-reported ratings and behavioral avoidance, effects on measures derived from electroencephalography (EEG) are scant and unclear. To fill this gap, spider-phobic individuals received either in-vivo or virtual reality exposure treatment. Patients were tested twice (one week before and after treatment), and control subjects once. In each session, EEG was recorded to spider pictures as well as other positive, negative, and neutral pictures. During EEG recording, participants performed a simple detection task while task-irrelevant pictures were shown in the background. The task was used to reduce potential confounding effects from shifts of attention. After the task, subjects were shown the pictures again and rated each in terms of their emotional reaction (arousal and pleasantness). The results showed that before treatment, patients rated spiders as more negative than did control subjects. Patients also showed elevated early posterior negativity (EPN) and late positive potential (LPP) to spiders. After treatment, the negative emotional ratings of spiders were substantially reduced. Critically, Bayesian analyses suggested that EPN and LPP were unaffected by treatment and that the treatment groups did not differ in their responses (EPN, LPP, and ratings). These findings suggest that the effects of in vivo and virtual reality exposure therapy are similar and that the initial stages of motivated attention (EPN and LPP) are unaffected by treatment.

Large-scale dysfunctional white matter and grey matter networks in patients with social anxiety disorder

Dysfunction of large-scale brain networks has been implicated in social anxiety disorder (SAD); most work has focused on grey matter (GM) functional connectivity (FC) abnormalities, whereas white matter (WM) FC alterations remain unclear. Here, using a K-means clustering algorithm, we obtained 8 GM and 10 WM functional networks from a cohort dataset (48 SAD patients and 48 healthy controls). By calculating and comparing FC matrices between SAD group and healthy controls, we demonstrated disrupted connections between the limbic and dorsal prefrontal, lateral temporal, and sensorimotor networks, and between the visual and sensorimotor networks. Furthermore, there were negative correlations between HAMD scores and limbic-dorsal prefrontal and limbic-sensorimotor networks, and between illness duration and sensorimotor-visual networks. These findings reflect the critical role of limbic network, with its extensive connections to other networks, and the neurobiology of disordered cognition processing and emotional regulation in SAD.

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Anomalous interactions between large-scale functional networks were identified in SAD

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The limbic, prefrontal, and perceptual networks underlie the neurobiology of SAD

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The white matter functional network is physiologically important

Late positive potential as a candidate biomarker of motivational relevance in substance use: Evidence from a meta-analysis

The objective of the current meta-analysis was to assess the effect size of the Late Positive Potential (LPP) to drug and emotional cues in substance users compared to controls. The secondary objective was to test for moderation by: age, gender, years of use, use status, and substance type. Search was performed in August 2021 using PubMed. Inclusion criteria were: substance use disorder/dependence or validated self-report, LPP means, healthy control comparison, non-acute drug study, data available, peer-reviewed journal, English, and human participants. Selection bias was tested through modified Egger's regression and exploratory 3-parameter selection model tests. Results (k = 11) indicated LPP to drug cues was larger in substance use compared to control group, with a large effect size (Hedges' g=1.66, 95%CI [0.64,2.67], p = 0.005). There were no overall differences for emotional cues. Though threats of selection bias were not severe, inclusion of more studies with larger sample sizes in future meta-analyses will allow more robust tests of publication bias and more accurate measures of effect size.

Decoding the temporal dynamics of affective scene processing

Natural images containing affective scenes are used extensively to investigate the neural mechanisms of visual emotion processing. Functional fMRI studies have shown that these images activate a large-scale distributed brain network that encompasses areas in visual, temporal, and frontal cortices. The underlying spatial and temporal dynamics, however, remain to be better characterized. We recorded simultaneous EEG-fMRI data while participants passively viewed affective images from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS). Applying multivariate pattern analysis to decode EEG data, and representational similarity analysis to fuse EEG data with simultaneously recorded fMRI data, we found that: (1) ∼80 ms after picture onset, perceptual processing of complex visual scenes began in early visual cortex, proceeding to ventral visual cortex at ∼100 ms, (2) between ∼200 and ∼300 ms (pleasant pictures: ∼200 ms; unpleasant pictures: ∼260 ms), affect-specific neural representations began to form, supported mainly by areas in occipital and temporal cortices, and (3) affect-specific neural representations were stable, lasting up to ∼2 s, and exhibited temporally generalizable activity patterns. These results suggest that affective scene representations in the brain are formed temporally in a valence-dependent manner and may be sustained by recurrent neural interactions among distributed brain areas.

Neural correlates of emotional reactivity predict response to cognitive-behavioral therapy in obsessive-compulsive disorder

BACKGROUND

Examining predictive biomarkers to identify individuals who will likely benefit from a specific treatment is important for the development of targeted interventions. The late positive potential (LPP) is a neural marker of attention and elaborated stimulus processing, and increased LPP responses to negative stimuli are characteristic of pathological anxiety. The present study investigated whether LPP reactivity would prospectively predict response to cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), the first-line treatment for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

METHODS

To this end, the LPP in response to negative as compared to neutral pictures was examined in 45 patients with OCD, who underwent CBT in a naturalistic outpatient setting. LPP amplitudes were used as predictors of symptom reduction after CBT.

RESULTS

We found that higher LPP amplitudes to negative relative to neutral stimuli were predictive of lower self-reported OCD symptoms after completion of CBT, controlling for pre-treatment symptoms. Further, LPP reactivity was negatively correlated with self-reported habitual use of suppression in everyday life.

LIMITATIONS

Some participants had already begun treatment at the time of study participation. Overall, results need further replication in larger samples and standardized therapy settings.

CONCLUSIONS

The current findings suggest that patients with increased emotional reactivity benefit more from CBT, possibly through less avoidance of anxiety-provoking stimuli during exposure with response prevention, a crucial component in CBT for OCD. Although its clinical utility still needs to be evaluated further, the LPP constitutes a promising candidate as a prognostic marker for CBT response in OCD.

Electrophysiological Evidence of Enhanced Processing of Novel Pornographic Images in Individuals With Tendencies Toward Problematic Internet Pornography Use

Novelty seeking is regarded as a core feature in substance use disorders. However, few studies thus far have investigated this feature in problematic Internet pornography use (PIPU). The main aim of the present study was to examine group differences in electrophysiological activity associated with novelty processing in participants with high tendencies toward PIPU vs. low tendencies using event-related potentials (ERPs). Twenty-seven participants with high tendencies toward PIPU and 25 with low tendencies toward PIPU completed a modified three-stimulus oddball task while electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded. Participants were instructed to detect neutral target stimuli from distracting stimuli. The distracting stimuli contained a familiar sexual stimulus and a set of novel sexual stimuli. The novel-familiar difference waves were calculated to identify specific group difference in novelty effect. While both groups demonstrated a sustained novelty effect in the late positive potential (LPP) within the 500–800 ms time windows, the novelty effect was greater in the high tendencies toward PIPU group than in the low tendencies toward PIPU group. This result suggests that individuals with high tendencies toward PIPU allocate more attentional resources for novelty processing. Enhanced brain responding to novel sexual stimuli may facilitate pornographic consumption and play an essential role in the development and maintenance of PIPU.

Emotional processing prospectively modulates the impact of anxiety on COVID-19 pandemic-related post-traumatic stress symptoms: an ERP study

BACKGROUND

Considering that the elevated distress caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, in some cases, led to post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS), it has been proposed as a specific traumatic event. The present longitudinal study investigated pre-pandemic motivated attention to emotional stimuli, as indexed by Late Positive Potential (LPP) amplitude, in relation with the potential differential role of anxiety and depressive symptoms in predicting PTSS severity related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

METHODS

A total of 79 university students initially completed self-report measures of depression and anxiety along with a passive viewing task of emotional (pleasant, unpleasant) and neutral pictures while electroencephaloghic activity was recorded. In December 2020, 57 participants completed a questionnaire assessing PTSS.

RESULTS

Significant interactions between anxiety and LPP emerged in predicting pandemic-related PTSS, where greater anxiety symptoms predicted PTSS only in individuals with greater LPP to unpleasant or with reduced LPP to pleasant stimuli.

LIMITATIONS

The prevalence of the female sex, the relatively young age of the participants, as well as the fact that they were all enrolled in a University course might not allow the generalization of the findings.

CONCLUSIONS

Taken together, the present longitudinal study provided novel evidence on EEG predictors of pandemic-related PTSS that might be useful for the prevention and treatment of PTSS. Indeed, assessing anxiety symptoms and pre-trauma LPP to emotional stimuli might be a useful target for identifying individuals that are more vulnerable to the development of PTSS during times of crisis.

Effects of left and right medial temporal lobe resections on hemodynamic correlates of negative and neutral scene processing

Enhanced visual cortex activation by negative compared to neutral stimuli is often attributed to modulating feedback from the amygdala, but evidence from lesion studies is scarce, particularly regarding differential effects of left and right amygdala lesions. Therefore, we compared visual cortex activation by negative and neutral complex scenes in an event‐related fMRI study between 40 patients with unilateral temporal lobe resection (TLR; 19 left [lTLR], 21 right [rTLR]), including the amygdala, and 20 healthy controls. We found preserved hemodynamic emotion modulation of visual cortex in rTLR patients and only subtle reductions in lTLR patients. In contrast, rTLR patients showed a significant decrease in visual cortex activation irrespective of picture content. In line with this, healthy controls showed small emotional modulation of the left amygdala only, while their right amygdala was activated equally by negative and neutral pictures. Correlations of activation in amygdala and visual cortex were observed for both negative and neutral pictures in the controls. In both patient groups, this relationship was attenuated ipsilateral to the TLR. Our results support the notion of reentrant mechanisms between amygdala and visual cortex and suggest laterality differences in their emotion‐specificity. While right medial temporal lobe structures including the amygdala seem to influence visual processing in general, the left medial temporal lobe appears to contribute specifically to emotion processing. Still, effects of left TLR on visual emotion processing were relatively subtle. Therefore, hemodynamic correlates of visual emotion processing are likely supported by a distributed cerebral network, challenging an amygdalocentric view of emotion processing.

Adolescents and young adults differ in their neural response to and recognition of adolescent and adult emotional faces

Peer relationships become increasingly important during adolescence. The success of these relationships may rely on the ability to attend to and decode subtle or ambiguous emotional expressions that are common in social interactions. However, most studies examining youths' processing and labeling of facial emotion have employed adult faces and faces that depict emotional extremes as stimuli. In this study, 40 adolescents and 40 young adults viewed blends of angry-neutral, fearful-neutral, and happy-neutral faces (e.g., 100% angry, 66% angry, 33% angry, neutral) portrayed by adolescent and adult actors as electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded. Participants also labeled these faces according to the emotion expressed (i.e., angry, fearful, happy, or neutral). The Late Positive Potential (LPP), an event-related potential (ERP) component that reflects sustained attention to motivationally salient information, was scored from the EEG following face presentation. Among adolescents, as peer-age faces moved from ambiguous (33%) to unambiguous (100%) emotional expression, the LPP similarly increased. These effects were not found when adolescents viewed emotional face blends portrayed by adult actors. Additionally, while both adolescents and young adults showed greater emotion labeling accuracy as faces increased in emotional intensity from ambiguous to unambiguous emotional expression, adolescent participants did not show greater accuracy when labeling peer-compared to adult-age faces. Together, these data suggest that adolescents attend more to subtle differences in peer-age emotional faces, but they do not label these emotional expressions more accurately than adults.

The cortisol awakening response and the late positive potentials evoked by unpleasant emotional pictures in healthy adults

The cortisol awakening response (CAR) refers to a sharp rise in cortisol concentrations within the 45 min following morning awakening. Alterations in CAR have been associated with various internalizing symptoms and brain function. The current study aimed to investigate the association between CAR and neural activity in response to unpleasant emotional pictures. A total of 46 healthy adults (22.55 years ± 1.69) collected saliva samples at 0, 30, and 45 min post-awakening on two days to assess the CAR. In the afternoon after CAR measurement on the first day, electroencephalograms were recorded when the participants completed a passive viewing task. The results showed that a greater CAR was associated with a decreased late positive potential difference score between unpleasant and neutral stimuli. This finding indicates that a larger CAR may be associated with decreased attentional engagement to unpleasant emotional information in healthy adults.

Emotional content influences eye-movements under natural but not under instructed conditions

ABSTRACTIn everyday life, people can freely decide if and where they would like to move their attention and gaze, often influenced by physical and emotional salience of stimuli. However, many laboratory paradigms explicitly instruct participants when and how to move their eyes, leading to unnatural instructed eye-movements. The current preregistered study compared eye-movements to peripherally appearing faces with happy, angry and neutral expressions under natural and instructed conditions. Participants reliably moved their eyes towards peripheral faces, even when they were not instructed to do so; however, eye-movements were significantly slower under natural than under instructed conditions. Competing central stimuli decelerated eye-movements independently of instructions. Unexpectedly, the emotional salience only affected eye-movements under natural conditions, with faster saccades towards emotional than towards neutral faces. No effects of emotional expression occurred when participants were instructed to move their eyes. The study shows that natural eye-movements significantly differ from instructed eye-movements and emotion-driven attention effects are reduced when participants are artificially instructed to move their eyes, suggesting that research should investigate eye-movements under natural conditions.

Negative news dominates fast and slow brain responses and social judgments even after source credibility evaluation

Remedies to counter the impact of misinformation are in high demand, but little is known about the neuro-cognitive consequences of untrustworthy information and how they can be mitigated. In this preregistered study, we investigated the effects of social-emotional headline contents on social judgments and brain responses and whether they can be modulated by explicit evaluations of the trustworthiness of the media source. Participants (N = 30) evaluated -and clearly discerned- the trustworthiness of news sources before they were exposed to person-related news headlines. Despite this intervention, social judgments and brain responses were dominated largely by emotional headline contents. Results suggest differential effects of source credibility might depend on headline valence. Electrophysiological indexes of fast emotional and arousal-related brain responses, as well as correlates of slow evaluative processing were enhanced for persons associated with positive headline contents from trusted sources, but not when positive headlines stemmed from distrusted sources. In contrast, negative headlines dominated fast and slow brain responses unaffected by explicit source credibility evaluations. These results provide novel insights into the brain mechanisms underlying the "success" of emotional news from untrustworthy sources, suggesting a pronounced susceptibility to negative information even from distrusted sources that is reduced for positive contents. The differential pattern of responses to misinformation in mind and brain sheds light on the cognitive mechanisms underlying the processing of misinformation and possible strategies to avoid their potentially detrimental effects.

Do rare emotional scenes enhance LPP modulation?

The slow wave late positive potential (LPP) is one of the most dependable measures of emotional processing in human neuroscience. While LPP positivity shows modest malleability by emotional regulation and competing tasks, its fundamental enhancement by emotional scene perception is extremely reliable. Here we assess the impact of emotional scene frequency (67%, 50% and 17%) on the strength of LPP modulation, across 3 groups of participants, using consistent presentation and analysis methods. The results demonstrate strong consistency in the strength of emotional modulation across frequent, equiprobable, and rare emotion conditions. However, a small enhancement of LPP positivity was found during unpleasant scenes in the rare emotion condition. The LPP thus appears to be largely insensitive to contextual features such as scene frequency and predictability, suggesting that strong emotional cues persistently engage orienting and evaluation processes because this tendency was selected in phylogeny.

Do food images as action outcomes evoke a reward positivity?

Favourable compared to unfavourable action outcomes typically evoke a positive-going amplitude shift at frontomedial electrodes in the scalp-recorded electroencephalogram. Since prior studies on this Reward Positivity (RewP) have heavily relied on monetary outcomes, it is still debated whether the RewP is also elicited by other kinds of reward. We addressed this issue by focussing on food as another major category of daily reward. Twenty-eight healthy participants completed a decision task, in which they received images of personally liked, neutral or disliked food as outcome stimuli. Importantly, single trial outcomes were of relevance for a prolonged task goal (i.e., obtaining the liked foods and avoiding the disliked foods). The observed amplitude pattern did not correspond to the typical RewP effect observed for monetary outcomes. In particular, disliked foods evoked a similar positive-going amplitude shift as liked foods when compared to neutral foods. Exploratory analyses indicated that this pattern may result from a spatiotemporal overlap between a potential RewP response and other, emotion-related ERP components (i.e., the Early Posterior Negativity and the Late Positive Potential). We discuss our findings with regard to theoretical and methodological implications for the usage of the RewP in the study of reward processing.

Establishment of Emotional Memories Is Mediated by Vagal Nerve Activation: Evidence from Noninvasive taVNS

Emotional memories are better remembered than neutral ones, but the mechanisms leading to this memory bias are not well understood in humans yet. Based on animal research, it is suggested that the memory-enhancing effect of emotion is based on central noradrenergic release, which is triggered by afferent vagal nerve activation. To test the causal link between vagus nerve activation and emotional memory in humans, we applied continuous noninvasive transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) during exposure to emotional arousing and neutral scenes and tested subsequent, long-term recognition memory after 1 week. We found that taVNS, compared with sham, increased recollection-based memory performance for emotional, but not neutral, material. These findings were complemented by larger recollection-related brain potentials (parietal ERP Old/New effect) during retrieval of emotional scenes encoded under taVNS, compared with sham. Furthermore, brain potentials recorded during encoding also revealed that taVNS facilitated early attentional discrimination between emotional and neutral scenes. Extending animal research, our behavioral and neural findings confirm a modulatory influence of the vagus nerve in emotional memory formation in humans.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Emotionally relevant information elicits stronger and more enduring memories than nonrelevant information. Animal research has shown that this memory-enhancing effect of emotion is related to the noradrenergic activation in the brain, which is triggered by afferent fibers of the vagus nerve (VN). In the current study, we show that noninvasive transcutaneous auricular VN stimulation enhances recollection-based memory formation specifically for emotionally relevant information as indicated by behavioral and electrophysiological indices. These human findings give novel insights into the mechanisms underlying the establishment of emotional episodic memories by confirming the causal link between the VN and memory formation which may help understand the neural mechanisms underlying disorders associated with altered memory functions and develop treatment options.

The impact of a single session of aerobic exercise on positive emotional reactivity in depression: Insight into individual differences from the late positive potential

Depression has been characterized by a broad disengagement from the environment, as reflected by dampened positive and negative emotional reactivity. Research has shown that acute exercise may enhance positive emotional reactivity in healthy adults. It is unknown whether it can alter positive emotional reactivity in depression. In the present study, positive emotional reactivity was assessed using the late positive potential (LPP) event-related potential before and after 30 min of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise in 43 adults with current or a lifetime history of depression (Mage = 32.74 years; Min/Max = 18/59) and 18 never-depressed healthy adults (Mage = 37.94 years; Min/Max = 21/61). Acute exercise increased the LPP for healthy adults; the LPP did not change among those with current or a lifetime history of depression. A secondary aim was to identify moderators of change in positive emotional reactivity among subgroups of adults with current depression. Compared to adults with impaired mood reactivity, those with intact mood reactivity had a pre-to-post increase in the LPP. The current study provides preliminary support for the LPP as a neural indicator of exercise efficacy and highlights individual differences in response to acute exercise in depression.

Visual food cue processing in children with Prader-Willi Syndrome

Hyperphagia and the associated interest in food is a characteristic feature of Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) that emerges during childhood and remains a life-long concern. This study examined neural responses reflecting food cue salience in children with PWS and typical controls, age 3-12 years. Visual event-related potentials were recorded while participants in satiated state passively viewed photographs of high- and low-calorie foods, animals, and neutral objects. Contrary to the prediction, children with PWS did not demonstrate greater than typical neural responses to food, suggesting that it is not an exceptionally motivationally salient stimulus in PWS. Caregiver reports of greater hyperphagia were associated with neural responses to low-calorie foods suggesting accelerated and more fine-grained visual stimulus categorization in terms of edibility and caloric content. Overall, the findings align more closely with the altered satiety rather than increased food reward models of hyperphagia in PWS.

Multivariate pattern analysis of electroencephalography data reveals information predictive of charitable giving

Charitable donations are an altruistic behavior whereby individuals donate money or other resources to benefit others while the recipient is normally absent from the context. Several psychological factors have been shown to influence charitable donations, including a cost-benefit analysis, the motivation to engage in altruistic behavior, and the perceived psychological benefits of donation. Recent work has identified the ventral medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) for assigning value to options in social decision making tasks, with other regions involved in empathy and emotion contributing input to the value computation (e.g. Hare et al., 2010; Hutcherson et al., 2015; Tusche et al., 2016). Most impressively, multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) has been applied to fMRI data to predict donation behavior on a trial-by-trial basis from ventral MPFC activity (Hare et al., 2010) while identifying the contribution of emotional processing in other regions to the value computation (e.g. Tusche et al., 2016). MVPA of EEG data may be able to provide further insight into the timing and scalp topography of neural activity related to both value computation and emotional effects on donation behavior. We examined the effect of incidental emotional states and the perceived urgency of the charitable cause on donation behavior using support vector regression on EEG data to predict donation amount on a trial by trial basis. We used positive, negative, and neutral pictures to induce incidental emotional states in participants before they made donation decisions concerning two types of charities. One category of charity was oriented toward saving people from current suffering, and the other was to prevent future suffering. Behaviorally, subjects donated more money in a negative emotional state relative to other emotional states, and more money to alleviate current over future suffering. The data-driven multivariate pattern analysis revealed that the electrophysiological activity elicited by both emotion-priming pictures and charity cues could predict the variation in donation magnitude on a trial-by-trial basis.

Emotional news affects social judgments independent of perceived media credibility

How does the credibility we attribute to media sources influence our opinions and judgments derived from news? Participants read headlines about the social behavior of depicted unfamiliar persons from websites of trusted or distrusted well-known German news media. As a consequence, persons paired with negative or positive headlines were judged more negative or positive than persons associated with neutral information independent of source credibility. Likewise, electrophysiological signatures of slow and controlled evaluative brain activity revealed a dominant influence of emotional headline contents regardless of credibility. Modulations of earlier brain responses associated with arousal and reflexive emotional processing show an effect of negative news and suggest that distrusted sources may even enhance the impact of negative headlines. These findings demonstrate that though we may have distinct perceptions about the credibility of media sources, information processing and social judgments rely on the emotional content of headlines, even when they stem from sources we distrust.

Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Affective and Semantic Valence Among Women

As an important dimension of emotional assessment, valence can refer to affective valence reflecting an emotional response, or semantic valence reflecting knowledge about the nature of a stimulus. A previous study has used repeated exposure to separate these two similar cognitive processes. Here, for the first time, we compared the spatiotemporal dynamics of the affective and semantic modes of valence by combining event-related potentials with repeated exposure. Forty-seven female participants were assigned to the feeling-focused and semantic-focused groups and thereafter repeatedly viewed the pictures selected for the study. Self-report behavioral results showed that post-test scores were significantly lower than pre-test scores in the feeling-focused group, while the differences between the two tests were not significant in the semantic-focused group. At the neural level, N2 amplitudes decreased and early late positive potential amplitudes increased in both groups, suggesting that the participants perceived the repeated pictures more fluently and retrieved the traces of the stimulus spontaneously regardless of the valence they judged. However, the late positive potential amplitudes in anterior areas and the activity of the middle frontal gyrus were attenuated in the feeling-focused group; however, this component in posterior areas and the activity of the precentral gyrus were increased in the semantic-focused group. Therefore, the processes of affective and semantic valence are similar in the early stages of image perception and retrieval, while in the later stage of valence judgment, these processes show different brain activation patterns. The results provide electrophysiological evidence for the differences in psychological processes when judging the two modes of valence.

Attention bias modification in drug addiction: Enhancing control of subsequent habits

A relapse in addiction is often precipitated by heightened attention bias to drug-related cues, underpinned by a subcortically mediated transition to habitual/automatized responding and reduced prefrontal control. Modification of such automatized attention bias is a fundamental, albeit elusive, target for relapse reduction. Here, on a trial-by-trial basis, we used electroencephalography and eye tracking with a task that assessed, in this order, drug cue reactivity, its instructed self-regulation via reappraisal, and the immediate aftereffects on spontaneous (i.e., not instructed and automatized) attention bias. The results show that cognitive reappraisal, a facet of prefrontal control, decreased spontaneous attention bias to drug-related cues in cocaine-addicted individuals, more so in those with less frequent recent use. The results point to the mechanisms underlying the disruption of automatized maladaptive drug-related attention bias in cocaine addiction. These results pave the way for future studies to examine the role of such habit disruption in reducing compulsive drug seeking outside the controlled laboratory environment, with the ultimate goal of developing a readily deployable cognitive-behavioral and personalized intervention for drug addiction.

Neurophysiological Responses to Interpersonal Emotional Images Prospectively Predict the Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic-Related Stress on Internalizing Symptoms

BACKGROUND

Exposure to stressful events related to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic has been associated with increases in the prevalence of depression and anxiety, raising questions about vulnerabilities that make some individuals more susceptible to internalizing symptoms following stress exposure.

METHODS

This prospective study examined the effects of neurophysiological reactivity to positive and threatening interpersonal stimuli, indexed by the late positive potential (LPP) event-related potential, in conjunction with exposure to interpersonal pandemic-related stressors in the prediction of internalizing symptom changes from before to during the pandemic. Emerging adults (n= 75) initially completed measures of internalizing symptoms and an interpersonal emotional images task while an electroencephalogram was recorded pre-pandemic and were recontacted during the COVID-19 pandemic in May 2020 to complete measures of exposure to pandemic-related stressful events and current internalizing symptoms.

RESULTS

Results indicated that emerging adults experienced numerous stressful events associated with the pandemic, as well as overall increases in symptoms of depression and traumatic intrusions during the pandemic. Furthermore, significant interactions between LPP reactivity to positive and threatening interpersonal stimuli and interpersonal stress exposure emerged in the prediction of internalizing symptoms, controlling for baseline symptoms. Under high exposure to interpersonal stressors, reduced positive LPPs predicted increases in depressive symptoms while enhanced threatening LPPs predicted increases in traumatic intrusions.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings highlight the mental health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on emerging adults, and the role of individual differences in neurophysiological reactivity to emotional stimuli in vulnerability for depression and traumatic intrusions following stress exposure.

Face and emotional expression processing under continuous perceptual load tasks: An ERP study

High perceptual load is thought to impair already the early stages of visual processing of task-irrelevant visual stimuli. However, recent studies showed no effects of perceptual load on early ERPs in response to task-irrelevant emotional faces. In this preregistered EEG study (N = 40), we investigated the effects of continuous perceptual load on ERPs to fearful and neutral task-irrelevant faces and their phase-scrambled versions. Perceptual load did not modulate face or emotion effects for the P1 or N170. In contrast, larger face-scramble and fearful-neutral differentiation were found during low as compared to high load for the Early Posterior Negativity (EPN). Further, face-independent P1, but face-dependent N170 emotional modulations were observed. Taken together, our findings show that P1 and N170 face and emotional modulations are highly resistant to load manipulations, indicating a high degree of automaticity during this processing stage, whereas the EPN might represent a bottleneck in visual information processing.

Decoding Neural Representations of Affective Scenes in Retinotopic Visual Cortex

The perception of opportunities and threats in complex visual scenes represents one of the main functions of the human visual system. The underlying neurophysiology is often studied by having observers view pictures varying in affective content. It has been shown that viewing emotionally engaging, compared with neutral, pictures (1) heightens blood flow in limbic, frontoparietal, and anterior visual structures and (2) enhances the late positive event-related potential (LPP). The role of retinotopic visual cortex in this process has, however, been contentious, with competing theories predicting the presence versus absence of emotion-specific signals in retinotopic visual areas. Recording simultaneous electroencephalography-functional magnetic resonance imaging while observers viewed pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral affective pictures, and applying multivariate pattern analysis, we found that (1) unpleasant versus neutral and pleasant versus neutral decoding accuracy were well above chance level in retinotopic visual areas, (2) decoding accuracy in ventral visual cortex (VVC), but not in early or dorsal visual cortex, was correlated with LPP, and (3) effective connectivity from amygdala to VVC predicted unpleasant versus neutral decoding accuracy, whereas effective connectivity from ventral frontal cortex to VVC predicted pleasant versus neutral decoding accuracy. These results suggest that affective scenes evoke valence-specific neural representations in retinotopic visual cortex and that these representations are influenced by reentry signals from anterior brain regions.

Psychometric properties of the late positive potential in combat-exposed veterans

Trauma exposure is prevalent, associated with multiple forms of psychopathology, and thought to alter the neurobiological substrates of threat processing. The late positive potential (LPP) is an event-related potential (ERP) that may be a clinically useful probe of the neurobiology of threat processing. Despite evidence that combat-exposed veterans exhibit aberrant threat modulation of the LPP, no studies to date have tested the psychometric properties of the LPP in combat trauma-exposed, symptomatic veterans. The primary aim of the current study was to evaluate the reliability (internal consistency, retest reliability) and convergent validity of LPP modulation by threatening faces and scenes in two common tasks among combat-exposed veterans. Participants included 82 combat-exposed veterans who completed face-matching and emotion regulation tasks during EEG recording at baseline and twelve weeks. Internal consistencies of the early LPP time windows (<1000 ms) were acceptable in both tasks, whereas they were poor in late time windows (>1000 ms). Twelve-week retest reliabilities were fair for the early window LPPs to threatening scenes and fear faces, as well as in the late time window for fear faces. Reliabilities were better for individual condition compared to difference scores. Finally, LPPs modulated by threatening scenes and faces were unrelated. Together, these results suggest that the LPPs to threatening scenes and faces reflect distinct forms of threat processing in combat-exposed veterans, and their reliabilities for the early window indicate potential clinical utility in this population.

Neural Indicators of Anhedonia: Predictors and Mechanisms of Treatment Change in a Randomized Clinical Trial in Early Childhood Depression

BACKGROUND

Early childhood depression is associated with anhedonia and reduced event-related potential (ERP) responses to rewarding or pleasant stimuli. Whether these neural measures are indicators of target engagement or treatment outcome is not yet known.

METHODS

We measured ERP responses to win and loss feedback in a guessing task and to pleasant versus neutral pictures in young (4.0-6.9 years of age) depressed children before and after randomization to either 18 weeks of Parent-Child Interaction Therapy-Emotion Development (PCIT-ED) or waitlist.

RESULTS

Analyses included reward positivity (RewP) data from 118 children randomly assigned to PCIT-ED (n = 60) or waitlist (n = 58) at baseline and late positive potential (LPP) data from 99 children (44 assigned to PCIT-ED vs. 55 assigned to waitlist) at baseline. Children undergoing PCIT-ED showed a greater reduction in anhedonia (F_1,103 = 10.32, p = .002, partial η² = .09). RewP reward responses increased more (F_1,86 = 5.98, p = .02, partial η² = .07) for PCIT-ED, but a greater change in RewP was not significantly associated with a greater reduction in major depressive disorder symptoms (r = -.12, p > .4). Baseline RewP did not predict treatment change. LPPs to positive pictures did not change across treatment, but greater baseline LPPs to positive pictures predicted a higher likelihood of remission from major depressive disorder in children undergoing PCIT-ED (B = 0.14; SE = 0.07; odds ratio = 1.15; p = .03).

CONCLUSIONS

The ERP reward response improved in young children with depression during a treatment designed to enhance emotion development, providing evidence of target engagement of the neural systems associated with reward. Further, greater baseline LPP responses to positive pictures was associated with a greater likelihood of depression remission, suggesting that this ERP measure can predict which children are most likely to respond to treatment.

Time will tell: Object categorization and emotional engagement during processing of degraded natural scenes

The aim of the present study was to examine the relationship between object categorization in natural scenes and the engagement of cortico-limbic appetitive and defensive systems (emotional engagement) by manipulating both the bottom-up information and the top-down context. Concerning the bottom-up information, we manipulated the computational load by scrambling the phase of the spatial frequency spectrum, and asked participants to classify natural scenes as containing an animal or a person. The role of the top-down context was assessed by comparing an incremental condition, in which pictures were progressively revealed, to a condition in which no probabilistic relationship existed between each stimulus and the following one. In two experiments, the categorization and response to emotional and neutral scenes were similarly modulated by the computational load. The Late Positive Potential (LPP) was affected by the emotional content of the scenes, and by categorization accuracy. When the phase of the spatial frequency spectrum was scrambled by a large amount (>58%), chance categorization resulted, and affective LPP modulation was eliminated. With less degraded scenes, categorization accuracy was higher (.82 in Experiment 1, .86 in Experiment 2) and affective modulation of the LPP was observed at a late window (>800 ms), indicating that it is possible to delay the time of engagement of the motivational systems which are responsible for the LPP affective modulation. The present data strongly support the view that semantic analysis of visual scenes, operationalized here as object categorization, is a necessary condition for emotional engagement at the electrocortical level (LPP).

Emotional reactivity and regulation in 5- to 8-year-old children: An ERP study of own-age face processing

The school-age years is a period of increasing social interaction with peers and development of emotion regulation in facilitating that interaction. This study was an investigation of the neural correlates of emotional reactivity and reappraisal in typically developing school-age children elicited by threatening facial expressions of same-aged peers. This experimental paradigm is novel in eliciting event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to social stimuli that are ecologically valid to the everyday life of children. ERPs of 5- to 8-year-old children (N = 41, 18 females) were elicited by threatening (i.e., angry and fearful) and neutral child facial expressions, which were preceded by audio contextual cues. Three conditions differed in audio-image pairing: neutral context-neutral expression (neutral condition), negative context-threatening expression (threat condition), and reappraisal context-threatening expression (reappraisal condition). In addition, parental reporting of childhood temperament was collected to determine if elicited ERP morphologies were associated with temperamental dimensions of negative affect, extraversion, and effortful control. Elicitation of the P100 and N170 did not largely differ between conditions; however, amplitude of the late positive potential (LPP), a marker of heightened emotional reactivity and attention, was greater for threatening faces relative to neutral faces. During the reappraisal condition, no differences in ERP activity was observed compared to the threat condition. Neural substrates of emotional reactivity to social threat from peers were evident; however, the lack of ERP modulation facilitating reappraisal and the lack of strong associations between ERP morphology and temperamental dimensions is indicative of heterogeneity in LPP elicitation underlying emotion regulation in children.

Lasting Effects of Using Distraction to Manage Responses to Unpleasant Pictures: Electrophysiological Evidence

Distraction is a widely used form of emotion regulation. Most studies have focused on the influence of distraction on the processing of aversive stimuli during distraction regulation, however, few studies investigated the impact on responses to aversive stimuli when they are re-presented later. This study examined whether processing of unpleasant pictures could be modulated by previous distraction and whether this modulation was associated with the intervals between regulation and re-exposure. Participants were presented with unpleasant images and asked to attend to or distract themselves from the images. After a 5- or 30-minute interval, the participants were re-exposed to the same images in an oddball task. Event-related potential measurements revealed that compared with the previous attention condition, the P3 amplitudes were significantly larger in the 30-min interval group, but not in the 5-min interval group under the previous distraction condition, and that the late positive potential amplitudes were significantly larger in the 30-min interval group, but tended to be smaller in the 5-min interval group. These findings suggest that the effects of distraction were diminished or disappeared after a 5-min interval and reversed after a 30-min interval. This pattern suggests that caution should be exercised in the use of distraction strategies to reduce negative emotions, particularly in cases in which unpleasant images may reappear in everyday life.