The Electrically Elicited Startle Blink Reflex in Patients with Schizophrenia: A Threshold Study of Different Reflex Components

1999 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 76-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ulrich Meincke ◽  
Rudolf Töpper ◽  
Paul Hoff
Keyword(s):  
Blink Reflex ◽  
Startle Blink ◽  
Startle Blink Reflex

The Postauricular Reflex as a Measure of Attention and Positive Emotion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen D. Benning
Keyword(s):  
Personality Traits ◽  
Prepulse Inhibition ◽  
Opioid Dependence ◽  
Positive Emotion ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Blink Reflex ◽  
Startle Blink ◽  
Startle Blink Reflex

The postauricular reflex is a muscular reaction that occurs behind the ear in response to short, abrupt sounds. Its magnitude increases with louder eliciting sounds, rotating the eyes in the direction of the eliciting sound, and flexing the head forward. The reflex exhibits prepulse inhibition, especially during attention to complex foreground stimuli. Its magnitude is larger (or potentiated) during pleasant than during neutral pictures, sounds, and videos that are highly arousing. This pattern is particularly evident for erotic, food, and nurturant scenes, suggesting it assesses more than just appetitive processing. This reflex’s potentiation varies across development; positively correlates with personality traits associated with well-being; and negatively correlates with such psychopathologies as depression, schizophrenia, and opioid dependence. It appears distinct from and uncorrelated with the startle blink reflex. New data suggest that activity in left frontal areas generates postauricular reflex potentiation during pleasant versus neutral pictures.

scholarly journals Clarifying domains of internalizing psychopathology using neurophysiology

2011 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 447-459 ◽  
Author(s):  
U. Vaidyanathan ◽  
L. D. Nelson ◽  
C. J. Patrick
Keyword(s):  
Depressive Symptomatology ◽  
Neural Substrates ◽  
Blink Reflex ◽  
Psychiatric Research ◽  
Physiological Measures ◽  
Error Related Negativity ◽  
Startle Blink ◽  
Research Domain ◽  
Startle Blink Reflex

Current initiatives such as the National Institute of Mental Health's Research Domain Criteria project aim to reorganize classification of mental disorders along neurobiological lines. Here, we describe how consideration of findings from psychiatric research employing two physiological measures with distinct neural substrates – the startle blink reflex and the error-related negativity (ERN) – can help to clarify relations among disorders entailing salient anxiety or depressive symptomatology. Specifically, findings across various studies and reviews reveal distinct patterns of association for both the startle blink reflex and the ERN with three key domains of psychopathology: (1) Fear (or phobic) disorders (distinguished by increased startle to unpleasant stimuli, but normal-range ERN). (2) Non-phobic anxiety disorders and negative affect (associated with increased ERN, increased startle across all types of emotional stimuli and increased baseline startle) and, more tentatively (3) Major depression (for which patterns of response for both startle and ERN appear to vary, as a function of severity and distinct symptomatology). Findings from this review point to distinct neurobiological indicators of key psychopathology domains that have been previously demarcated using personality and diagnostic data. Notably, these indicators exhibit more specificity in their relations with these three domains than has been seen in quantitative-dimensional models. Implications of these findings are discussed.

scholarly journals Examining the role of thin-ideal internalization in the relationship between reactions to high- and low-calorie food and eating pathology

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samantha Wilson ◽  
Stephen D Benning ◽  
Sarah Elizabeth Racine
Keyword(s):  
Blink Reflex ◽  
Eating Pathology ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Thin Ideal ◽  
Low Calorie ◽  
Thin Ideal Internalization ◽  
Startle Blink ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
High Calorie

Motivational responses to both body and food stimuli are relevant for eating disorders (EDs). Thin-ideal internalization, a socio-cognitive factor implicated in EDs, has been associated with approach responses toward thin bodies and avoidant responses to overweight bodies. Research examining reactions to food in EDs has been mixed, with some studies reporting enhanced approach and others observing avoidant responses to food. Thin-ideal internalization may help to explain these mixed findings, as individuals with eating pathology may experience food as a threat to internalized ideals of thinness, despite its inherently appetitive qualities. In the present study, physiological reflexes measuring aversive (startle blink reflex) and appetitive (postauricular reflex) responding as well as self-report ratings were recorded while 87 women with and without eating pathology viewed images of high- and low-calorie food. Greater global eating pathology, but not thin-ideal internalization, was associated with negative self-report valence ratings and lower craving ratings of high-calorie food. Thin-ideal internalization was related to more positive self-report ratings of low-calorie food, and low-calorie food ratings were related to eating pathology indirectly through thin-ideal internalization. Overall, thin-ideal internalization may represent a higher-order factor that influences conscious reactions to food.

scholarly journals Your guess is as good as mine: Assessing physiological markers of fear and anxiety to the unknown in individuals with varying levels of intolerance of uncertainty

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jayne Morriss ◽  
Nicolò Biagi ◽  
Helen Dodd
Keyword(s):  
Skin Conductance Response ◽  
Intolerance Of Uncertainty ◽  
Blink Reflex ◽  
Stress Disorders ◽  
Corrugator Supercilii ◽  
Startle Blink ◽  
N 93 ◽  
Fear And Anxiety ◽  
Physiological Markers ◽  
The Impact

Individuals who score high in Intolerance of Uncertainty (IU) have a tendency to find uncertainty and the unknown aversive. However, there is a dearth of literature on the extent to which known vs. unknown threat induce fear and anxiety in individuals with high IU. Here we seek to address this question by varying the level of known and unknown threat using a modified version of the NPU-threat test. We will use the standard instructed conditions of the NPU-threat test (known unpredictable shock, known predictable shock and known no shock), as well as an uninstructed condition (unknown threat). We propose to measure ratings, skin conductance response, pupil dilation, orbicularis occuli (startle blink reflex) and corrugator supercilii activity during the modified NPU-threat test (n = 93). This work will further our understanding of the impact of known and unknown threat upon physiological markers of fear and anxiety in IU. Ultimately, this research will inform future models of IU and clinical treatments of anxiety and stress disorders.

scholarly journals The Effect of Content and Physical Properties of Affective Pictures on Emotional Responses

2006 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juan Pedro Sánchez-Navarro ◽  
José María Martínez-Selva ◽  
Francisco Román ◽  
Ginesa Torrente
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Response ◽  
Emotional Responses ◽  
Blink Reflex ◽  
Emotional Content ◽  
Viewing Time ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
Affective Content ◽  
Affective Stimuli ◽  
Startle Blink ◽  
Formal Properties

The aim of this research was to study the influence of both the emotional content and the physical characteristics of affective stimuli on the psychophysiological, behavioral and cognitive indexes of the emotional response. We selected 54 pictures from the IAPS, depicting unpleasant, neutral, and pleasant contents, and used two picture sizes as experimental conditions (120 × 90 cm and 52 × 42 cm). Sixty-one subjects were randomly assigned to each experimental condition. We recorded the startle blink reflex, skin conductance response, heart rate, free viewing time, and picture valence and arousal ratings. In line with previous research (e.g., Bradley, Codispoti, Cuthbert, & Lang, 2001), our data showed an effect of the affective content on all the measurements recorded. Importantly, effects of the size of the affective pictures on emotional responses were not found, indicating that the emotional content is more important than the formal properties of the stimuli in evoking the emotional response.

scholarly journals Psychophysiological, Behavioral, and Cognitive Indices of the Emotional Response: A Factor-Analytic Study

2008 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juan Pedro Sánchez-Navarro ◽  
José María Martínez-Selva ◽  
Ginesa Torrente ◽  
Francisco Román
Keyword(s):  
Heart Rate ◽  
Emotional Response ◽  
Factor Model ◽  
Acoustic Startle ◽  
Blink Reflex ◽  
Heart Rate Change ◽  
Viewing Time ◽  
Factor Analytic ◽  
Startle Blink ◽  
Valence And Arousal

Previous research on the components of the emotional response employing factor analytic studies has yielded a two-factor structure (Lang, Greenwald, Bradley, & Hamm, 1993; Cuthbert, Schupp, Bradley, Birbaumer, & Lang, 2000). However, the startle blink reflex, a widely employed measure of the emotional response, has not been considered to date. We decided to include two parameters of the startle reflex (magnitude and latency) in order to explore further how this response fits into the two-factor model of emotion. We recorded the acoustic startle blink response, skin conductance response, heart rate, free viewing time, and picture valence and arousal ratings of 45 subjects while viewing 54 pictures from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS; 18 unpleasant, 18 neutral, and 18 pleasant). Factorizations of all measures gave a two-factor solution (valence and arousal) that accounted for 70% of the variance. Although some measurements, including heart rate change, did not behave as predicted, our results reinforce the two-dimension model of the emotion, and show that startle fits into the model.

The effect of Parkinson's disease on learning-related slow potentials and emotion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Ren Xi
Keyword(s):  
Parkinson’S Disease ◽  
Parkinson's Disease ◽  
Negative Feedback ◽  
Blink Reflex ◽  
Learning System ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Blink Rate ◽  
Learning Effects ◽  
Startle Blink

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] The dopaminergic reward system is the focus of intensive research because of its relevance to disorders such as addiction, obesity, Parkinson's disease (PD), schizophrenia, and depression. One purpose of the current study was to test whether learning effects on a measure of reward expectancy, the Stimulus-Preceding Negativity (SPN), are dopamine mediated. We compared changes in SPN amplitude across trials as healthy people and people whose dopamine system had been damaged by PD learned a series of probabilistic categorization tasks, in which they were required to find out which of two doors was usually followed by a pleasant picture and which by an unpleasant one. We also assessed dopamine effects in the two groups using a behavioral assay, resting spontaneous eye-blink rate. The second purpose of the study was to test the involvement of dopamine in emotions triggered by positive and negative feedback displays via measures of the late positive potential (LPP), startle blink reflex, post-auricular reflex (PAR), and self-report. Results showed that SPN learning effects seen in the control group were absent in the patient group. These effects did not vary as a function of spontaneous blink rate. Changes in SPN topography suggested that patients might have compensated for impairments in their dopamine-dependent reinforcement learning system by switching to declarative memory. Confirming prior findings, participants with Parkinson's disease were less responsive to negative feedback as indicated by LPP. Patients with low spontaneous blink rate tended to exhibit reduced affective modulation of startle blink. Dopamine plays an important role in both anticipation and receipt of task feedback.

The effect of Parkinson's disease on learning-related slow potentials and emotion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Xi Ren
Keyword(s):  
Parkinson’S Disease ◽  
Parkinson's Disease ◽  
Negative Feedback ◽  
Blink Reflex ◽  
Learning System ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Blink Rate ◽  
Learning Effects ◽  
Startle Blink

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] The dopaminergic reward system is the focus of intensive research because of its relevance to disorders such as addiction, obesity, Parkinson's disease (PD), schizophrenia, and depression. One purpose of the current study was to test whether learning effects on a measure of reward expectancy, the Stimulus-Preceding Negativity (SPN), are dopamine mediated. We compared changes in SPN amplitude across trials as healthy people and people whose dopamine system had been damaged by PD learned a series of probabilistic categorization tasks, in which they were required to find out which of two doors was usually followed by a pleasant picture and which by an unpleasant one. We also assessed dopamine effects in the two groups using a behavioral assay, resting spontaneous eye-blink rate. The second purpose of the study was to test the involvement of dopamine in emotions triggered by positive and negative feedback displays via measures of the late positive potential (LPP), startle blink reflex, post-auricular reflex (PAR), and self-report. Results showed that SPN learning effects seen in the control group were absent in the patient group. These effects did not vary as a function of spontaneous blink rate. Changes in SPN topography suggested that patients might have compensated for impairments in their dopamine-dependent reinforcement learning system by switching to declarative memory. Confirming prior findings, participants with Parkinson's disease were less responsive to negative feedback as indicated by LPP. Patients with low spontaneous blink rate tended to exhibit reduced affective modulation of startle blink. Dopamine plays an important role in both anticipation and receipt of task feedback.

Moral Identity and Emotion in Athletes

2012 ◽  
Vol 34 (6) ◽  
pp. 695-714 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Kavussanu ◽  
Adrian Willoughby ◽  
Christopher Ring
Keyword(s):  
Evoked Potential ◽  
Moral Identity ◽  
Physiological Responses ◽  
Team Sports ◽  
Blink Reflex ◽  
Identity Group ◽  
Objective Evidence ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Startle Blink

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of moral identity on physiological responses to affective pictures, namely, the startle blink reflex and pain-related evoked potential. Male (n = 48) and female (n = 46) athletes participating in contact team sports were randomly assigned to either a moral identity group or a non-moral identity group and viewed a series of unpleasant, neutral, and pleasant sport-specific pictures. During picture viewing, a noxious electrocutaneous stimulus was delivered as the startle probe and the startle blink and pain-related evoked potential were measured. Upon completion of physiological measures, participants reviewed the pictures and rated them for valence and arousal. ANOVAs revealed that participants in the moral identity group displayed larger startle blinks and smaller pain-related potentials than did those in the non-moral identity group across all picture valence categories. However, the difference in the magnitude of startle blinks between the moral and non-moral identity groups was larger in response to unpleasant than pleasant and neutral pictures. Our findings suggest that moral identity affects physiological responses to sport-specific affective pictures, thereby providing objective evidence for the link between moral identity and emotion in athletes.

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