Psychophysiological Studies Research Articles

Altered resting psychophysiology and startle response in Croatian combat veterans with PTSD

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a prolonged reaction to an extremely traumatic experience. One of the core symptoms of PTSD is hyper-arousal which can be the result of an elevated activation of the autonomic nervous system. Including psychophysiological assessment methods in PTSD research can point to the neurobiological bases of the disorder. The studies of psychophysiology of PTSD to date have mostly measured reactivity. The aim of the current study was to compare resting state psychophysiology and startle reflexes in PTSD patients and controls in a sample of Croatian combat veterans. We measured heart-rate, respiratory sinus arrhythmia, skin conductance, and eyeblink muscle contraction during an acclimation period and during the presentation of startle stimuli in 45 male PTSD patients and 33 male healthy controls. We found that PTSD patient had elevated baseline heart-rate and decreased respiratory sinus arrhythmia compared to the controls. Furthermore, PTSD patients had impaired habituation to the startle probe, but there was no group difference in initial startle magnitude. There was also no group difference in skin conductance level or skin conductance response. Startle habituation and baseline heart-rate appear to offer the most reliable psychophysiological indices of PTSD. This finding replicates trends in the literature in a new population of PTSD patients.

Recognition without awareness in a patient with simultanagnosia

We report a psychophysiological study of “recognition without awareness” in patient 2354, who had severe but circumscribed atrophy in the occipitoparietal region bilaterally (caused by visual-variant Alzheimer's disease, documented by structural and functional neuroimaging) and an accompanying Balint syndrome that prevented her from recognizing the emotional valence of many highly charged negative visual scenes (e.g., a burned body). Despite this lack of overt recognition, patient 2354 nonetheless generated large amplitude skin conductance responses to highly charged negative pictures, demonstrating the same kind of recognition without awareness that has been reported previously in patients with bilateral occipitotemporal dysfunction and prosopagnosia [e.g., Tranel, D., & Damasio, A. R. (1985). Knowledge without awareness: an autonomic index of facial recognition by prosopagnosics. Science, 228, 1453–1454.]. Our case complements both previous evidence of covert, nonconscious recognition in patients with prosopagnosia, and previous behavioral studies of patients with Balint syndrome that have shown evidence of “preattentive” visual processing. The findings add to the small but important set of empirical observations regarding nonconscious visual processing in neurological patients, and indicate that recognition without awareness can occur in the setting of dorsal visual stream dysfunction and Balint syndrome. The findings in our patient suggest that she has patent pathways from higher-order visual cortices to autonomic effectors in the amygdala or hypothalamus, even though the results of such information processing are not made available to conscious awareness.

A Middle‐Aged Female Serial Killer

The case of a 48-year-old woman accused of killing at least 12 elderly women and attempting to kill another one during the last 3 years is presented. Extensive neuropsychological, electrophysiological, and neuropsychiatric testing showed no evidence of a DSM-IV-TR Axis I diagnosis, but a decrease in executive functions and abnormalities in the processing of affective stimuli were found. Behavioral and psychophysiological studies revealed dissociation between knowing how to behave and actually behaving in socially acceptable ways. According to the woman, killing was just her response to "humiliating situations." Two potentially significant conditions in her past history are found: (i) childhood abuse; and (ii) multiple head injuries. It is conjectured that the nature of her crimes, paranoid and personality traits, a probable frontal brain dysfunction, as well as a specific demographic and social context represent unusual factors accounting for her violent behavior.

Imaging Facial Signs of Neurophysiological Responses

In the present paper, we introduce an integrated framework for detecting peripheral sympathetic responses through purely imaging means. The measurements are performed on three facial areas of sympathetic importance, that is, periorbital, supraorbital, and maxillary. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that the sympathetic importance of the maxillary area is analyzed. Because the imaging measurements are thermal in nature and are composed of multiple components of variable frequency (i.e., blood flow, sweat gland activation, and breathing), we chose wavelets as the image analysis framework. The measurements also carry substantial noise due to imperfections in tissue tracking and segmentation. The image analysis is grounded on galvanic skin response (GSR) signals, which are still considered the golden standard in peripheral neurophysiological and psychophysiological studies. The experimental results show that monitoring of the facial channels yields similar detecting power to GSR's. However, detailed quantification of the responses, although feasible in GSR through appropriate modeling, is quite difficult in the facial channels for the moment. Further improvements in facial tissue tracking and segmentation are bound to overcome this limitation. This paper opens a new research area that leads to unobtrusive screening technologies in neurophysiology and psychophysiology.

Longevity and spirituality: A psychophysiological study

Longevity and spirituality: A psychophysiological study

Psychophysiological study of the effects of adaptation to tactile interaction with dolphins in six- to seven-year-old children

The possibility of the use of an integrative psychophysiological approach to the investigation of the role of ultraslow information-controlling brain systems in the mechanisms regulating the wakefulness level and the actual development of cognitive functions in six- to seven-year-old children was estimated. For the studied children, with different types of psychological adaptation to an unfamiliar emotional situation (tactile interaction with dolphins), we found the features of the development of (a) corticosubcortical and limbic-reticular mechanisms of regulation of the wakefulness level and (b) suprasegmental mechanisms of autonomic, hemodynamic, and oxygen-dependent energy supply of the wakefulness level. The idea of a correlation between (1) the level of actual emotional and cognitive development and the type of adaptation to psychoemotional stress and (2) age-specific features of the formation of reflex and neurohumoral mechanisms of regulation of the wakefulness level in six- to seven-year-old children is substantiated.

Corporeality, Musical Heartbeats, and Cinematic Emotion

Music's relationship with emotion has been the subject of numerous philosophical and psychophysiological studies in recent years. The question of whether music merely expresses or actively arouses emotion in its listeners, however, gains added complexities when considered in the context of film. What is going on, for example, when we believe ourselves to be afraid in the cinema; and how does the presence of a musical heartbeat contribute to this feeling?In this article I answer those questions, firstly by invoking the notion of 'perceptual realism' and questioning a number of comfortable givens in film music theory (including the nondiegetic status of music), and secondly by proposing a 'heartbeat hypothesis' that combines empirical and philosophical approaches to musical emotion with theories of cinematic fiction. This hypothesis suggests that heartbeats are effective at helping us experience 'fictional fear' precisely because the real-world emotion of fear is fundamentally about the body; that there is ...

Non-Intrusive ECG Measurement on Vehicle Steering Wheel and Driver Seat

Driver drowsiness is one of the major causes of deadly traffic accidents. Continuous monitoring of drivers’ drowsiness thus is of great importance for preventing drowsiness-caused accidents. Previous psychophysiological studies have shown that heart rate variability (HRV) has established differences between waking and sleep stages. This offers a way to detect driver’s drowsiness by analyzing HRV, which is typically measured and analyzed from electrocardiogram (ECG) signal. Although ECG measurement techniques are well developed, most of them involve electrode contacts on chest or head. Wiring and discomfort problems inherent in those techniques prevent implementing them on cars. This research develops two non-intrusive real-time ECG measurement methods for drivers. In the first method, each half of the steering wheel is wrapped with conductive fabric as electrode and is isolated to each other. In the second one, two pieces of conductive fabric with the same dimension are placed on the driver seat’s backrest. Signals from conductive fabric electrodes are filtered by differential low pass, band pass and notch filters to amplify ECG signals and suppress noise. Noise whose frequency overlaps with the frequency range of ECG signal cannot be eliminated by these filters. To address this challenge, an adaptive filter is employed for baseline noise cancellation. Experimental tests show that both ECG measurement methods can provide clear ECG signals for further HRV analysis, although signals from the steering wheel are of better quality. Test results also demonstrate that the adaptive filter can effectively cancel baseline noise.

Is eye to eye contact really threatening and avoided in social anxiety?—An eye-tracking and psychophysiology study

The effects of direct and averted gaze on autonomic arousal and gaze behavior in social anxiety were investigated using a new paradigm including animated movie stimuli and eye-tracking methodology. While high, medium, and low socially anxious (HSA vs. MSA vs. LSA) women watched animated movie clips, in which faces responded to the gaze of the participants with either direct or averted gaze, their eye movements, heart rate (HR) and skin conductance responses (SCR) were continuously recorded. Groups did not differ in their gaze behavior concerning direct vs. averted gaze, but high socially anxious women tended to fixate the eye region of the presented face longer than MSA and LSA, respectively. Furthermore, they responded to direct gaze with more pronounced cardiac acceleration. This physiological finding indicates that direct gaze may be a fear-relevant feature for socially anxious individuals in social interaction. However, this seems not to result in gaze avoidance. Future studies should examine the role of gaze direction and its interaction with facial expressions in social anxiety and its consequences for avoidance behavior and fear responses. Additionally, further research is needed to clarify the role of gaze perception in social anxiety.

A long-term monitoring of fetal movement at home using a newly developed sensor: An introduction of maternal micro-arousals evoked by fetal movement during maternal sleep

Background Pregnant women's sleep disturbance due to fetal movement is well known. Fetal movement is thought to be an index of fetal well-being. However, as there has never been a way to easily and reliably record fetal movement, psychophysiological studies of pregnant women's sleep disturbance and fetal well-being have not been done. Aims To solve these methodological issues, we developed a new sensor with electrostatic capacity that can pick up acceleration of fetal movement. Methods and results Experiment I: We verified the reliability of our fetal movement recording system. Thirty-two pregnant women (from 19 to 39 weeks of gestation) were asked to lie down on a bed for about 1 h and to press a button as a subjective marker when they felt fetal movement. We simultaneously recorded maternal polysomnograms and fetal movement from the mothers' abdomens using a Medilog recorder. The mean of prevalence-adjusted bias-adjusted kappa for agreements, based on time between fetal movement signals recorded and subjective maternal markers, was substantial at 0.75. Experiment II: We recorded seven pregnant women's polysomnograms and fetal movement simultaneously during all-night sleep at home using our sensor during weeks 33 and 36 of gestation. We succeeded in recording maternal micro-arousals evoked by fetal movement. The mean value of the number of micro-arousals at 33 weeks was slightly larger than that at 36 weeks. Conclusions There was a high agreement between subjective maternal markers and fetal movement. Our recording system using the new sensor can be used for home monitoring of fetal movement.

Psychophysiological correlates of aggression and violence: an integrative review

This paper reviews existing psychophysiological studies of aggression and violent behaviour including research employing autonomic, electrocortical and neuroimaging measures. Robust physiological correlates of persistent aggressive behaviour evident in this literature include low baseline heart rate, enhanced autonomic reactivity to stressful or aversive stimuli, enhanced EEG slow wave activity, reduced P300 brain potential response and indications from structural and functional neuroimaging studies of dysfunction in frontocortical and limbic brain regions that mediate emotional processing and regulation. The findings are interpreted within a conceptual framework that draws on two integrative models in the literature. The first is a recently developed hierarchical model of impulse control (externalizing) problems, in which various disinhibitory syndromes including aggressive and addictive behaviours of different kinds are seen as arising from common as well as distinctive aetiologic factors. This model represents an approach to organizing these various interrelated phenotypes and investigating their common and distinctive aetiologic substrates. The other is a neurobiological model that posits impairments in affective regulatory circuits in the brain as a key mechanism for impulsive aggressive behaviour. This model provides a perspective for integrating findings from studies employing different measures that have implicated varying brain structures and physiological systems in violent and aggressive behaviour.

Attention to self-referential stimuli: Can I ignore my own face?

Auto-referential materials (i.e., the own name) have been described as particularly prone to capture attention. Some recent studies have questioned this view and shown that these own name effects are temporary and appear only in specific conditions: when enough resources are available (Harris, C. R., & Pashler, H. (2004). Attention and the processing of emotional words and names: Not so special after all. Psychological Science, 15, 171–178) or when the own name is presented within the focus of attention if it is a task-irrelevant stimulus (Gronau, N., Cohen, A., & Ben-Shakhar, G. (2003). Dissociations of personally significant and task-relevant distractors inside and outside the focus of attention: A combined behavioral and psychophysiological study. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 132, 512–529). In the present study, a stimulus that is unique to each individual was used: the self-face. In Experiment 1, the self-face produced a temporary distraction when presented at fixation during a digit-parity task. However, this distraction was not different from that triggered by another highly familiar face. In Experiment 2, the self-face failed to produce interference when presented outside the focus of attention. These results confirm recent findings showing that auto-referential materials do not automatically summon attention and have a distractive power only in specific conditions.

Electrophysiological studies of texture recognition mechanisms

We report here our electrophysiological and psychophysiological studies of the mechanisms by which the visual system recognizes structured images with different levels of ordering. Visual stimuli consisted of textures, i.e., a set of matrixes consisting of Gabor grids. Matrixes differed in terms of the degree of ordering resulting from changes in the probability that grids with the same orientation would appear. The subject's task was to identify the dominant orientation in the stimulus. The relationship between response accuracy, reaction time, and the main characteristics of evoked potentials on the one hand, and the number of identical grids in the matrix on the other was identified. The proportion of correct responses increased and the reaction time decreased as the degree of ordering of stimuli increased. Visual evoked potentials recorded in the occipital areas showed a relationship between the amplitudes of the N2, P2, and P3 waves, with latent periods of 180, 260, and 400 msec, respectively, and matrix parameters. The amplitudes of the P3 component and the positive component recorded in the frontal leads, with a latent period of 250 msec, increased gradually as the task became simpler. The amplitude of the N2 wave also increased with increases in the number of identically oriented elements in the matrix, though this relationship was S-shaped. The magnitude of the P2 component, conversely, was maximal in response to presentation of those matrixes which were most complex to recognize and gradually decreased as the content of identically oriented grids in the matrix increased. These relationships were compared with the statistical characteristics of the stimuli and assessed in terms of the view that the visual system contains two mechanisms, i.e., local and integral image descriptions.

Superior perception of phasic physiological arousal and the detrimental consequences of the conviction to be aroused on worrying and metacognitions in GAD.

Although people suffering from generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) often report arousal symptoms, psychophysiological studies show no evidence of autonomic hyperarousal. Hypersensitivity toward and catastrophic interpretation of phasic arousal cues may explain this discrepancy. The authors tested (a) whether GAD sufferers perceive nonspecific skin conductance fluctuations (NSCFs), an indicator of phasic autonomic arousal, better than controls do and (b) whether the conviction to be aroused contributes to the maintenance of worrying and metacognitive beliefs about worrying. Thirty-three GAD sufferers and 34 healthy controls participated in 2 experiments. In Experiment 1, participants were asked to detect their own NSCFs during a signal detection task. GAD sufferers accurately detected more of their NSCFs than did controls, who tended to miss NSCFs. In Experiment 2, participants were instructed to relax following worry induction. While relaxing, they received nonveridical feedback indicating either arousal or relaxation. Arousal feedback conserved negative metacognitive beliefs regarding worrying and also maintained negative mood and worry exclusively in GAD participants. These findings suggest that superior perception of phasic arousal cues and their catastrophic misinterpretation increases worrying, negative metacognitive beliefs about worrying, and anxious mood in GAD.

The Assessment and Significance of the Sleep/Waking Brain in Patients with Chronic Widespread Musculoskeletal Pain and Fatigue Syndromes

Objectives: To review 1. the animal and human experimental evidence that implicates disordered sleep/wake physiology in the etiology of widespread pain and fatigue and 2. the significance of circadian sleep/wake-related biological and behavioral functions in the assessment and management of patients with fibromyalgia syndrome [FMS] and related illnesses.Methods: Critical review of clinical and experimental evidence on the interrelationship of pain and sleep disturbances in FMS and allied disorders.Results: Psychophysiological studies demonstrate that total, partial, and rapid eye movement sleep deprivations decrease pain threshold. Pain stimuli disturb sleep and nonpainful stimuli [e.g., noise] that disrupt sleep [e.g., slow wave sleep] cause unrefreshing sleep, myalgia, and fatigue. Forced awakenings from sleep reduce pain inhibition and yields pain and nonpainful symptoms. Neurotransmitter dysfunctions, for example, central nervous system serotonin and substance P affect both sleep and pain. In clinical...

Selective suppression of self-initiated sounds in an auditory stream. An EEG-study

Event Abstract Back to Event Selective suppression of self-initiated sounds in an auditory stream. An EEG-study Pamela Baess1*, J. Horváth1, T. Jacobsen1 and E. Schröger1 1 University of Leipzig, Germany One of the most important human cognitive functions is the ability to discriminate the sensory consequences of one’s own actions from sensory events originating from other sources. One way to explain how this is realized in the brain is through the concept of the internal forward model (see e.g., Wolpert & Ghahramani, 2000). According to this model, for each action, a prediction about its sensory consequences is generated. If the re-afferent sensory information matches the prediction, the impact of the sensory information is attenuated or even completely eliminated. In the auditory domain, the existence of such a mechanism is supported by a number of psychophysiological studies, which found attenuated cortical brain responses to self-initiated sounds compared to externally initiated sounds around 100 ms after sound onset (Bäß et al, in revision; Martikainen et al, 2005; McCarthy & Donchin, 1976; Schäfer & Marcus, 1973). In these studies, brain responses to tones were recorded in 1) a condition where participants self-initiated the presentation of each tone (controlled solely for motor activity) and 2) the exact replay of the auditory stimulation from the self-initiated sequence, without any motor task. However, because of the blocked design, it remained unclear whether the attenuated brain responses to self-initiated sounds were attributable to self-initiation, or to some other difference (e.g. task-demands) between the different conditions. Therefore, in the present study, we recorded human EEG in a condition in which self-initiated and external sounds were mixed (“mixed” condition). A condition in which participants self-initiated the presentation of each tone was also added (“completely self-initiated” condition), similarly to the previous studies mentioned above. Our results showed that in the mixed condition, only the self-initiated sounds but not the external sounds were attenuated. Further, the brain responses were more attenuated in the “mixed”, than in the “completely self-initiated” condition. This is in line with the internal forward model assumptions. In a stream of sounds with different origin, the comparison process has to be more accurate. In contrast, in the “completely self-initiated” condition, the underlying comparison-process needs to be less accurate for the self-initiated sounds. Thus, the internal forward model mechanism in auditory perception seems to be flexible in regard to the environmental context. Conference: 10th International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience, Bodrum, Türkiye, 1 Sep - 5 Sep, 2008. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Attention Citation: Baess P, Horváth J, Jacobsen T and Schröger E (2008). Selective suppression of self-initiated sounds in an auditory stream. An EEG-study. Conference Abstract: 10th International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience. doi: 10.3389/conf.neuro.09.2009.01.095 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 02 Dec 2008; Published Online: 02 Dec 2008. * Correspondence: Pamela Baess, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany, baess@uni-leipzig.de Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Pamela Baess J. Horváth T. Jacobsen E. Schröger Google Pamela Baess J. Horváth T. Jacobsen E. Schröger Google Scholar Pamela Baess J. Horváth T. Jacobsen E. Schröger PubMed Pamela Baess J. Horváth T. Jacobsen E. Schröger Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.

An Application of Rough Set Analysis to a Psycho-physiological Study

An Application of Rough Set Analysis to a Psycho-physiological Study

ASSOCIATION BETWEEN OCCUPATIONAL ASTHENOPIA AND THE PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGICAL INDICATORS OF VISUAL FATIGUE FOR VDT WORKERS

To evaluate the relationship o f functional visual fatigue parameters with the symptoms of asthenopia, and to determine association between subjective and the objective indicators of eye fatigue. 404 office workers with and without VDT work were selected for the inclusion in the study. To evaluate visual fatigue was used questionnaire for subjective complaints and measurement of main ophtalmological indicators. Psychophysiological studies determine changes in the sensomotoric reactions during the working day and the working week; in addition to that, studies of the constancy of clear-unclear vision and the fluctuation of the clear and unclear vision periods were performed. Measurements of psychophysiological changes were taken over one week, three times per day, for five days in a row. The questionnaire data showed that 88.4% of all employees complained of various vision disorders. Our psychophysiological findings showed that during the second half of the working day, when general fatigue and asthenopia develops, ophthalmologic indications change: visual sensomotor reaction becomes slower, the duration of the periods of unclear vision increases, and the change of the periods of clear and unclear vision becomes faster. Changes in the ocular and psychophysiological functions before and at the end of the workday, as determined in our study, provide a good objective index of VDT-induced «ocular» and central nervous system fatigue, can be used for intervention research.

Some genetic approaches to psychophysiologic studies in animals and man

Some of the psychophysiological and psychogenetic research problems are reviewed in the article. Approaches to their resolving with the help of modern genetic methods are analysed. The important role of model objects in genetics of behavior is shown by several examples. Data are given about genetic mechanisms of some psychic diseases in human.

Early improvement of painful symptoms in MDD: is there an association in achieving remission?

Previous research proposes strong interaction between chronic pain and depression. Depressed patients have been shown to be more vulnerable to pain complaints and, vice versa, chronic pain is frequently accompanied by depressive symptoms. The presentation will focus on treatment options of physical symptoms in depression. Some epidemiological data on physical symptoms in depression will be presented in the first part. The second part of the presentation will deal with some psychophysiological studies of pain in depression and will demonstrate the effect of depressive symptoms on pain perception. It will be demonstrated that painful stimuli are processed differentially depending on the localization of pain induction in depression. Suspected brain areas will be discussed in the course of the talk as well. The talk will furthermore present the current knowledge on treatment options for physical symptoms in depression.