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Oscillatory brain responses to emotional stimuli are effects related to events rather than states

Emotional cues draw attention, thereby enabling enhanced processing. Electrophysiological brain research in humans suggests that increased gamma band activity and decreased alpha band activity over posterior brain areas is associated with the allocation of attention. However, emotional events can al...

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Autores principales: Luther, Lisa, Horschig, Jörn M., van Peer, Jacobien M., Roelofs, Karin, Jensen, Ole, Hagenaars, Muriel A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9891458/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36741785
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2022.868549
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author Luther, Lisa
Horschig, Jörn M.
van Peer, Jacobien M.
Roelofs, Karin
Jensen, Ole
Hagenaars, Muriel A.
author_facet Luther, Lisa
Horschig, Jörn M.
van Peer, Jacobien M.
Roelofs, Karin
Jensen, Ole
Hagenaars, Muriel A.
author_sort Luther, Lisa
collection PubMed
description Emotional cues draw attention, thereby enabling enhanced processing. Electrophysiological brain research in humans suggests that increased gamma band activity and decreased alpha band activity over posterior brain areas is associated with the allocation of attention. However, emotional events can alternate quickly, like rapidly changing news items and it remains unknown whether the modulation of brain oscillations happens in a stimulus induced manner, changing with each individual stimulus, or whether the events lead to prolonged, state-like changes. To investigate this, we measured the electroencephalogram (EEG) during a passive viewing task (N = 32) while emotional pictures International Affective Picture System (IAPS) were presented in blocks containing either pleasant and neutral or unpleasant and neutral pictures. As predicted, we found decreased alpha and increased gamma power over posterior areas in response to unpleasant compared to pleasant pictures (and also compared to neutral pictures for gamma power). When testing the neutral pictures of the unpleasant and pleasant block against each other, we found no significant difference, which speaks to a stimulus induced effect of alpha and gamma power rather than a state effect. In addition, the inter-trial interval (ITI) between the pictures did not differ between the unpleasant and pleasant block either, corroborating this conclusion. Since emotional pictures can at the same time elicit a freezing-like response and we were interested in whether this freezing-like response co-occurs with enhanced attention, we also collected postural sway data. However, within this EEG-setup, postural analyses indicated no stimulus-related effects nor a correlation with EEG-data. We interpret the alpha and gamma band results as reflecting event-related attention toward unpleasant compared to pleasant (and neutral) pictures and discuss this finding in light of previous EEG research and in combination with behavioral research on threat-induced reductions in body sway (freezing-like response).
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spelling pubmed-98914582023-02-02 Oscillatory brain responses to emotional stimuli are effects related to events rather than states Luther, Lisa Horschig, Jörn M. van Peer, Jacobien M. Roelofs, Karin Jensen, Ole Hagenaars, Muriel A. Front Hum Neurosci Human Neuroscience Emotional cues draw attention, thereby enabling enhanced processing. Electrophysiological brain research in humans suggests that increased gamma band activity and decreased alpha band activity over posterior brain areas is associated with the allocation of attention. However, emotional events can alternate quickly, like rapidly changing news items and it remains unknown whether the modulation of brain oscillations happens in a stimulus induced manner, changing with each individual stimulus, or whether the events lead to prolonged, state-like changes. To investigate this, we measured the electroencephalogram (EEG) during a passive viewing task (N = 32) while emotional pictures International Affective Picture System (IAPS) were presented in blocks containing either pleasant and neutral or unpleasant and neutral pictures. As predicted, we found decreased alpha and increased gamma power over posterior areas in response to unpleasant compared to pleasant pictures (and also compared to neutral pictures for gamma power). When testing the neutral pictures of the unpleasant and pleasant block against each other, we found no significant difference, which speaks to a stimulus induced effect of alpha and gamma power rather than a state effect. In addition, the inter-trial interval (ITI) between the pictures did not differ between the unpleasant and pleasant block either, corroborating this conclusion. Since emotional pictures can at the same time elicit a freezing-like response and we were interested in whether this freezing-like response co-occurs with enhanced attention, we also collected postural sway data. However, within this EEG-setup, postural analyses indicated no stimulus-related effects nor a correlation with EEG-data. We interpret the alpha and gamma band results as reflecting event-related attention toward unpleasant compared to pleasant (and neutral) pictures and discuss this finding in light of previous EEG research and in combination with behavioral research on threat-induced reductions in body sway (freezing-like response). Frontiers Media S.A. 2023-01-18 /pmc/articles/PMC9891458/ /pubmed/36741785 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2022.868549 Text en Copyright © 2023 Luther, Horschig, van Peer, Roelofs, Jensen and Hagenaars. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Human Neuroscience
Luther, Lisa
Horschig, Jörn M.
van Peer, Jacobien M.
Roelofs, Karin
Jensen, Ole
Hagenaars, Muriel A.
Oscillatory brain responses to emotional stimuli are effects related to events rather than states
title Oscillatory brain responses to emotional stimuli are effects related to events rather than states
title_full Oscillatory brain responses to emotional stimuli are effects related to events rather than states
title_fullStr Oscillatory brain responses to emotional stimuli are effects related to events rather than states
title_full_unstemmed Oscillatory brain responses to emotional stimuli are effects related to events rather than states
title_short Oscillatory brain responses to emotional stimuli are effects related to events rather than states
title_sort oscillatory brain responses to emotional stimuli are effects related to events rather than states
topic Human Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9891458/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36741785
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2022.868549
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