1,720,998 research outputs found
Approach and avoidance personality traits in acute pain and placebo analgesia
No full textPain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential damage to the body. The experience of acute pain reflects the continuous processing of a complex hierarchical system of motivations to act that incorporates expectations and beliefs serving to limit the impact of adverse events. Research on placebo analgesia highlights that placebo analgesia can be modulated by dispositional characteristics that interact with environmental and personality-state variables. Generally, acute pain relief, and particularly placebo analgesia, is conceptualized as a self-regulated homoeostatic process associated with the achievement of a reward that serves to interrupt the ongoing pain sensation. Motivational states that drive the behaviour of aversion to acute pain and the attainment of pain relief or placebo analgesia can be conceptualized in terms of behavioural inhibition, behavioural approach, and the fight-flight-freeze system. It is desirable to conduct more research on placebo analgesia to evaluate the role of individual approach/avoidance behaviour to allow the planning of individual treatments to reduce pain
The influence of EEG oscillations, heart rate variability changes, and personality on self-pain and empathy for pain under placebo analgesia
No full textWe induced placebo analgesia (PA), a phenomenon explicitly attenuating the self-pain feeling, to assess whether this resulted in reduced empathy pain when witnessing a confederate undergoing such pain experience. We recorded EEG and electrocardiogram during a painful Control and PA treatment in healthy adults who rated their experienced pain and empathy for pain. We derived HRV changes and, using wavelet analysis of non-phase-locked event-related EEG oscillations, EEG spectral power differences for self-pain and other-pain conditions. First-hand PA reduced self-pain and self-unpleasantness, whereas we observed only a slight decrease in other unpleasantness. We derived linear combinations of HRV and EEG band power changes significantly associated with self-pain and empathy for pain changes using PCAs. Lower Behavioral Inhibition System scores predicted self-pain reduction through the mediating effect of a relative HR-slowing and a decreased midline θ-band (4–8 Hz) power factor moderated by lower Fight-Flight-Freeze System trait scores. In the other-pain condition, we detected a direct positive influence of Total Empathic Ability on the other-pain decline with a mediating role of the midline β2-band (22–30 Hz) power reduction. These findings suggest that PA modulation of first-hand versus other pain relies on functionally different physiological processes involving different personality traits
Resting anxiety increases EEG delta–beta correlation: Relationships with the Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory Personality traits
No full textResearch has shown that the coupling between slow and fast EEG frequency oscillations reflects cortico-subcortical interaction. Specifically, the between-subject delta-beta amplitude-amplitude correlation is found to increase in some hypothetically anxiogenic conditions. We tested whether cortical-subcortical coupling would increase as a function of decreased delta (theta) or higher beta (gamma) activity. EEG recording was obtained from a group of 59 students during a resting anxiogenic situation (Anxiety) and from another group of 66 during a relaxation situation (Relaxation). Participants filled out the State Anxiety and the Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory Personality Questionnaire. Between-subjects cross-frequency correlations were calculated between power values in the delta (theta) and beta (gamma) frequency bands and compared between Anxiety and Relaxation groups. A significant positive between-subject delta-beta correlation was observed in the resting Anxiety, and this association was significantly higher than that observed in the Relaxation group. In the Anxiety, but not Relaxation group, we observed a delta-beta coupling for the low delta activity. In the Anxiety group, BIS trait was significantly associated with higher strength of within-subject delta-beta coupling, while in the Relaxation group BIS was positively associated with delta-theta coupling. Interesting, in both resting Anxiety and Relaxation groups, BAS-GDP was positively associated with higher delta-gamma coupling
40 Hz EEG during hypnotic induction and hypnotic testing
No full textAbstract The present study evaluates changes in left and right 40-Hz EEG production for 19 high and 20 low hypnotizable female Ss during the hypnotic induction and the administration of the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale, Form C (SHSS:C) of the Weitzenhoffer and Hilgard (1962). Scalp recorded 40-Hz EEG density was obtained from the middle of the O1-P3-T5 and O2-P4-T6 triangles. As the hypnotic induction proceeded, high hypnotizable Ss exhibited a shift to greater right-hemisphere activity as compared to a waking-state rest condition. In contrast, low hypnotizable Ss, showed a reduction in left- and right-hemisphere activity. No differences between groups for SHSS:C ideomotor items were observed. A main effect for Hypnotizability among SHSS:C imaginative items was found. A Hypnotizability ? Hemisphere ? Trial interaction was found for both sensory distortion and imaginative SHSS:C items. A comparison was made between low versus high hypnotizable Ss of 40-Hz EEG activity while they passed the same item. The results of these comparisons indicate that differences in brain activity might be partially related to the differences between experiencing a hypnotic suggestion or failing to do so. Significant relationships between 40-Hz EEG production and hypnotizability and 40-Hz EEG production and level of amnesia were also found
Changes of eeg band oscillations to tonic cold pain and the behavioral inhibition and fight-flight-freeze systems
Full text linkUsing electroencephalography (EEG) power measures within conventional delta, theta, alpha, beta, and gamma bands, the aims of the current study were to highlight cortical correlates of subjective perception of cold pain (CP) and the associations of these measures with behavioral inhibition system (BIS), fight-flight-freeze system (FFFS), and behavioral approach system personality traits. EEG was recorded in 55 healthy right-handed women under (i) a white noise interruption detection condition (Baseline); (ii) enduring CP induced by the cold cup test. CP and Baseline EEG band power scores within conventional frequency bands served for covariance analyses. We found that: (1) higher Pain scorers had higher EEG beta power changes at left frontal, midline central, posterior temporal leads; (2) higher BIS was associated with greater EEG delta activity changes at parietal scalp regions; (3) higher FFFS was associated with higher EEG delta activity changes at temporal and left-parietal regions, and with lower EEG gamma activity changes at right parietal regions. High FFFS, compared to Low FFFS scorers, also showed a lower gamma power across the midline, posterior temporal, and parietal regions. Results suggest a functional role of higher EEG beta activity in the subjective perception of tonic pain. EEG delta activity underpins conflict resolution system responsible for passive avoidance control of pain, while higher EEG delta and lower EEG gamma activity changes, taken together, underpin active avoidance system responsible for pain escape behavior
40 Hz EEG asymmetry during recall of emotional events in waking and hypnosis: differences between low and high hypnotizables
No full textSixteen high and thirteen low hypnotizable women, who had participated in our previous study (De Pascalis et al., 1987), were enrolled in a hypnotic session. After the hypnotic induction they were requested to recollect 2 positive and 2 negative personal life experiences. In our previous study subjects performed similar tasks in a waking-state. Hypnotizability was evaluated the first time with the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility (Form A) and, a second time, individually, with the Standford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale (Form C). The State Trait Anxiety Inventory,. Maudsley Personality Inventory, and Tellegen Absorption Scale were administered. Upper-trapezius electromyogram (EMG) and bilateral electroencephalogram (EEG) activities within the 35-45 Hz band were recorded. Self-report rating scores for vividness of visual imagery and emotional feeling of the material recalled were evaluated. The 40-Hz EMG amplitude and the left and right hemisphere 40-Hz EEG densities were obtained. The data collected in hypnosis were compared with those in the waking-state. High hypnotizables, with respect to the lows, displayed significantly lower 40-Hz EEG density in the rest condition. High hypnotizables, while they were in hypnosis, showed an increase of 40-Hz EEG density during emotional recall compared with rest periods. In contrast, low hypnotizables, after hypnotic induction, showed no density change during tasks compared to the rest conditions. Different hemispheric trends were found between groups. Highs showed an increase of 40-Hz EEG density over both hemisphere during positive emotions and a density increase in the right and a density reduction in the left during negative ones. This hemispheric trend was found in waking and hypnotic conditions although in the hypnotic condition more pronounced hemispheric patterns were observed. The Tellegen Absorption Scale was found positively related to hypnotizability and with the level of 40-Hz density increase on the right hemisphere during emotional tasks. High hypnotizables, with respect to the lows, were able to access affects more readily. They also showed a greater hemispheric specificity in waking and hypnotic conditions. © 1989
Event-related potentials as asymmetry indices of lateralized cognitive processes during music and verbal tasks
No full textThe present study replicates and extends earlier findings by using event-related potentials (ERPs) as a means of providing information about differential hemispheric engagement in cognitive processing. ERPs were recorded from T3, T4, T5 and T6 in response to task-irrelevant tone pips superimposed on white noise, on music and on verbal passages, which are thought to differentially activate the two hemispheres. The latencies and amplitudes of three peaks (N1, P2 and N2) were obtained in 37 women. Task-related ERP asymmetries were found only for the peak amplitude of N2 recorded at posterior-temporal scalp areas, whereas at the anterior-temporal recording, there were no interactional effects. The hemisphere assumed to be most engaged in task processing showed a smaller N2 peak amplitude to tone pips at the posterior-temporal scalp area than the hypothesized unengaged hemisphere. A result common to the three peaks in the ERP was that peak latencies were longer in the music than in the noise condition. Finally, the posterior-temporal areas produced longer N2 peak latencies in verbal and even more in music conditions compared to white noise conditions. No differences in latencies were found between hemispheres during the ongoing cognitive tasks
Psychopathy traits and reinforcement sensitivity theory: prepulse inhibition and ERP responses
No full textThis study examined the associations between Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory (RST-PQ, Corr & Cooper, 2016) and psychopathy traits (LSRPS, Levenson et al., 1995) in university students. The aim was to identify psychopathy and RST traits associated with prepulse inhibition (PPI) of acoustic startle and ERP responses by using two prepulse-stimulus intensities (70 and 85 dB) combined with a 105 dB startle pulse (200 ms prepulse-plus-pulse interval). The higher intensity prepulse produced a larger PPI, although both prepulse stimuli reliably activated the startle system. Higher Primary Psychopathy was associated with a higher Defensive-Fight trait and both measures were associated with larger PPI. A principal components factor analysis disclosed an N1-startle factor that was a significant predictor of both reward reactivity and Goal-Drive Persistence scores. Results appear in line with Newman's response modulation hypothesis emphasizing the engagement of attention and recognition of stimulus salience, which may be disrupted in psychopathy
Morningness-eveningness preference and sensation seeking
No full textThe aim of this study was to explore the relationship between circadian preference and sensation seeking. To this aim 1041 university students
(408 males and 633 females), ranging in age between 18 and 30 years, filled the reduced version of the Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire
(MEQr) and the Sensation Seeking Scale-Form V (SSS-V). Males scored higher than females in SSS-V total score and all subscales, except
experience seeking (ES). As regards circadian preference, evening types scored higher than morning types in SSS-V total score and all subscales,
except boredom susceptibility (BS) where they significantly differed only from intermediate types. On the whole our results highlight a significant
relationship between circadian preference and sensation seeking
The Influence of Catechol-O-Methyltransferase (COMT) Val158Met Gene Polymorphism, Persistence, and Attentional Characteristics on Novelty Seeking
No full textOver the last five decades, a number of biological oriented
personality theories have been proposed to explain how anatomical
and functional differences in the human brain are responsible for
individual differences in personality. Catechol-O-methyltransferase
(COMT) gene for the Val158Met single nucleotide polymorphism
(rs4680) is known to influence the activity of the enzyme responsible
for dopamine metabolism and has been linked with various aspect of
personality dimensions and cognitive processes. In the present study,
non-clinical participants (201 women and 53 men) were adminis-
tered the Temperament and Character Inventory-Revised, Tellegen
Absorption Scale, Differential Attentional Processes Inventory, and
Waterloo-Stanford Group Scale of Hypnotic Suggestibility, Form C.
Among these participants, COMT polymorphism (parameterized as
a 3-level variable: 0 = Met/Met, 1 = Val/Met, 2 = Val/Val) was
assessed in 117 women and 51 men. Hypnotic Suggestibility scores
were significantly correlated with scores from the Absorption,
Extremely Focused Attention, and Dual Attention for Physical-
Cognitive task. We failed to find the expected significant association
between COMT and Hypnotic Suggestibility scores. In contrast, COMT
scores were significantly correlated with scores from Novelty Seeking
(r = -.15, p = .049) and its Disorderliness subscale (r = -.21, p =
.006). A principal component analysis (with varimax rotation),
performed on personality and attention measures, yielded a four-
factor solution: Factor-1 (Moderately Focused Attention, Dual Atten-
tion Cognitive-Cognitive, and Dual Attention Physical-Cognitive),
Factor-2 (Novelty Seeking, Reward Dependence, and Harm Avoidance),
Factor-3 (Hypnotic Suggestibility, Absorption, and Extremely Focused
Attention), and Factor-4 (Persistence). These factors accounted for
18.4%, 16.3%, 16.2%, and 12.3% of the total variance, respectively. These
findings guided us in the choice of the COMT, Persistence, Extremely
Focused Attention, and Absorption scores as predictors of Disorderli-
ness scores in separate multivariate regression analyses. Lower COMT
activity, higher Absorption scores, and lower Persistence scores
accounted for 18% of the total variance in the whole sample, and
10.8% in female sample. In male sample, higher Absorption and lower
Persistence scores significantly predicted Disorderliness scores,
accounting for 22% of the total variance. Since our male sample was
relatively small, further research is needed to understand gender
differences, if any, using a larger male sample
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