scholarly journals Flashing a smile: Startle eyeblink modulation by masked affective faces

2017 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. e13012
Author(s):  
Elizabeth R. Duval ◽  
Christopher T. Lovelace ◽  
Katherine Gimmestad ◽  
Justin Aarant ◽  
Diane L. Filion
Keyword(s):  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Benke ◽  
Manuela G. Alius ◽  
Alfons O. Hamm ◽  
Christiane A. Pané-Farré

AbstractPanic disorder (PD) is characterized by a dysfunctional defensive responding to panic-related body symptoms that is assumed to contribute to the persistence of panic symptomatology. The present study aimed at examining whether this dysfunctional defensive reactivity to panic-related body symptoms would no longer be present following successful cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) but would persist when patients show insufficient symptom improvement. Therefore, in the present study, effects of CBT on reported symptoms and defensive response mobilization during interoceptive challenge were investigated using hyperventilation as a respiratory symptom provocation procedure. Changes in defensive mobilization to body symptoms in the course of CBT were investigated in patients with a primary diagnosis of PD with or without agoraphobia by applying a highly standardized hyperventilation task prior to and after a manual-based CBT (n = 38) or a waiting period (wait-list controls: n = 20). Defensive activation was indexed by the potentiation of the amygdala-dependent startle eyeblink response. All patients showed a pronounced defensive response mobilization to body symptoms at baseline. After treatment, no startle reflex potentiation was found in those patients who showed a clinically significant improvement. However, wait-list controls and treatment non-responders continued to show increased defensive responses to actually innocuous body symptoms after the treatment/waiting period. The present results indicate that the elimination of defensive reactivity to actually innocuous body symptoms might be a neurobiological correlate and indicator of successful CBT in patients with PD, which may help to monitor and optimize CBT outcomes.


2007 ◽  
Vol 93 (1-3) ◽  
pp. 288-295 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin A. Hazlett ◽  
Michelle J. Romero ◽  
M. Mehmet Haznedar ◽  
Antonia S. New ◽  
Kim E. Goldstein ◽  
...  

2001 ◽  
Vol 88 (3_suppl) ◽  
pp. 1035-1045 ◽  
Author(s):  
Almut I. Weike ◽  
Alfons O. Hamm ◽  
Dieter Vaitl

The magnitude of the startle eyeblink response is diminished when the startle-eliciting probe is shortly preceded by another stimulus. This so called prepulse inhibition is interpreted as an automatic sensorimotor gating mechanism. There is substantial support for prepulse inhibition deficits in subjects suffering from schizophrenia spectrum disorders and in psychosis-prone normals as well. Thus, prepulse inhibition deficits may reflect vulnerability on the hypothesized psychopathological continuum from “normal” to “schizophrenia.” The present experiment investigated the amount of prepulse inhibition in a sample selected for “belief in extraordinary phenomena,” an attitude related to measures of psychosis-proneness. Believers and skeptics were tested in an acoustic prepulse-inhibition paradigm. As expected, presentation of prepulses clearly diminished magnitude of startle response, with greatest inhibition effects gained by lead intervals of 60 and 120 msec. Patterns of response were identical for believers and skeptics, i.e., attitude towards extraordinary phenomena did not seem to be related to functional information-processing deficits as has been observed in psychosis-prone normals.


2016 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 204-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saurabh Khemka ◽  
Athina Tzovara ◽  
Samuel Gerster ◽  
Boris B. Quednow ◽  
Dominik R. Bach

2005 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 440-446 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony J. Rissling ◽  
Michael E. Dawson ◽  
Anne M. Schell ◽  
Keith H. Nuechterlein

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