Being Anxious, Thinking Positively: The Effect of Emotional Context on Respiratory Sensory Gating.

Pei-Ying S Chan,Ya-Jhih Jhu,Chia-Ling Chen,Chia-Hsiung Cheng,Andreas Von Leupoldt

doi:10.3389/fphys.2016.00019

Abstract

Respiratory sensory gating function has been found decreased by induced negative emotion in healthy adults. The increased ratio of the respiratory-related evoked potential (RREP) N1 peak amplitude for the second occlusion (S2) vs. the first occlusion (S1), S2/S1, is indicative of such decreased respiratory sensory gating. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that a positive emotional context would enhance respiratory sensory gating function in healthy individuals. In addition, we tested the modulating role of individual anxiety levels. We compared respiratory sensory gating in 40 healthy individuals by the paired inspiratory occlusion paradigm in a positive and neutral emotional context induced by emotional picture viewing. The results showed that the group averaged RREP N1 peak amplitudes S2/S1 ratios were significantly smaller in the positive compared to neutral context (0.49 vs. 0.64; p < 0.01). Further, analysis showed that the ratio decrease was due to a reduced response to the S2 and an enhanced response to S1 in the positive emotional context (p < 0.05). The subgroup analyses showed that in the positive emotional context, both individuals with low-moderate anxiety levels and those with no anxiety demonstrated a significant decrease of their S2/S1 ratio, but only those with low-moderate anxiety levels showed reduced S2 amplitudes compared to the neutral context (p < 0.01). In conclusion, our results suggest that a positive emotional context is related to better brain inhibitory mechanisms by filtering out repetitive respiratory stimuli in healthy individuals, especially in the presence of low-moderate anxiety levels. Further, investigation on how positive emotional contexts might contribute to improved respiratory sensory gating ability in clinical populations is necessary.

Highlights

The perception of respiratory sensations is of essential importance for managing symptoms in respiratory diseases such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), but it is relevant in anxiety disorders (Tiller et al, 1987; Rietveld, 1998; von Leupoldt and Dahme, 2007; Janssens et al, 2009; Paulus and Stein, 2010)
The One-way RMANOVA revealed a significantly smaller N1 amplitude S2/S1 ratio in the positive compared to the neutral emotional context (p < 0.05)
Comparisons showed that the low-moderately anxious (LMA) subjects demonstrated significantly reduced S2 amplitudes in the positive compared to the neutral context (Cz and C4, p < 0.01, see Table 3A), which was not observed in the NA subjects

Summary

Introduction

The perception of respiratory sensations is of essential importance for managing symptoms in respiratory diseases such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), but it is relevant in anxiety disorders (Tiller et al, 1987; Rietveld, 1998; von Leupoldt and Dahme, 2007; Janssens et al, 2009; Paulus and Stein, 2010). Several impacting mechanisms unrelated to objectively-measured pulmonary function have been suggested over the past years (Janssens et al, 2009; Hayen et al, 2013; Laviolette et al, 2014) In this regard, especially the relationship between emotional factors and subjective perception of dyspnea has been studied over the past decade (von Leupoldt et al, 2010a). The method of respiratory-related evoked potentials (RREP) in the electroencephalogram (EEG) has been used to study cortical neural processing elicited by respiratory mechanical stimuli in both humans and animals These cortical dipole recordings of cerebral neuronal activations during the processing of information from respiratory muscle afferents are identified with the short- and long-latency peaks of Nf, P1, N1, P2, and P3 (Chan and Davenport, 2010). The N1 peak is thought to reflect both exogenous and endogenous aspects as it was found affected by manipulating physiological factors (Chou and Davenport, 2007; Davenport et al, 2007), and by manipulating psychological factors (Harver et al, 1995; Webster and Colrain, 2000)

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Conclusion