Darkness facilitates the acoustic startle reflex in humans

Biological Psychiatry

Volumn 42, Issue 6, 1997, Pages 453-460

  Grillon, Christian ^a   Pellowski, Mark ^a   Merikangas, Kathleen R ^a   Davis, Michael ^a  

^a YALE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE   (United States)

Author keywords

Anxiety; Dark; Fear; Humans; Prepulse inhibition; Startle reflex

Indexed keywords

ADULT; ANXIETY; ARTICLE; ATTENTION; AUDITORY STIMULATION; AVERSION; CLINICAL ARTICLE; CONDITIONING; DARKNESS; ELECTROMYOGRAPHY; FACILITATION; FEAR; FEMALE; HUMAN; MALE; NEUROBIOLOGY; PRIORITY JOURNAL; RATING SCALE; STARTLE REFLEX; STIMULUS RESPONSE;

ACOUSTIC STIMULATION; ADULT; ANXIETY; ATTENTION; BLINKING; DARKNESS; FEAR; FEMALE; HUMANS; MALE; QUESTIONNAIRES; STARTLE REACTION;

EID: 0030868601     PISSN: 00063223     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/S0006-3223(96)00466-0     Document Type: Article

References (66)

1. Acocello CM, Blumenthal TD (1990): Directed attention influences the modification of startle reflex probability. Psychol Rep 66:275-285.
2. Aggleton JP (1992): The functional effects of amygdala lesions in humans: A comparison with findings from monkeys. In Aggleton JP (ed), The Amygdala: Neurochemical Aspects of Emotion, Memory, and Mental Dysfunction. New York: Wiley, pp 485-504.
3. Anthony BJ (1985): In the blink of an eye: Implications of reflex modification for information processing. In Ackles PK, Jenning JR, Coles MGH (eds), Advances in Psychophysiology. Greenwich: JAI Press, pp 167-218.
4. Bachar E, Peri T, Halamish R, Shalev AY (1993): Auditory startle response in blind subjects. Percept Motor Skills 76: 1251-1256.
5. Balaban MT, Losito B, Simons RF, Graham FK (1986): Offline latency and amplitude scoring of the human reflex eyeblink with Fortran IV (computer program abstract). Psychophysiology 23:612.
6. Bradley MM, Cuthbert BN, Lang PJ (1990): Startle reflex modification: Emotion or attention. Psychophysiology 27: 513-522.
7. Bradley MM, Cuthbert BN, Lang PJ (1991): Startle and emotion: Lateral acoustic probes and the bilateral blink. Psychophysiology 28:285-295.
8. Bratzlavsky M (1979): Feedback control of human lip muscle. Exp Neurol 65:209-217.
9. Brown JS, Kalish HI, Farber IE (1951): Conditioned fear as revealed by the magnitude of startle response to an auditory stimulus. J Exp Psychol 41:317-327.
10. Cook EW, Hawk LW, Davis TL, Stevenson VE (1991): Affective individual differences and startle reflex modulation. J Abnorm Psychol 100:5-13.
11. Cory RN, Ison JR (1979): Persistent effect of noise on the acoustic startle reflex in the rat. Anim Learn Behav 7:367-371.
12. Davis M (1974): Sensitization of the rat startle response by noise. J Comp Physiol Psychol 87:571-581.
13. Davis M (1992): The role of the amygdala in fear and anxiety. Annu Rev Neurosci 15:353-375.
14. Davis M, Astrachan DI (1978): Conditioned fear and startle magnitude: Effects of different footshock and backshock intensities used in training. J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process 4:95-103.
15. Davis M, Falls WA, Campeau S, Kim M (1993): Fear-potentiated startle: A neural and pharmacological analysis. Behav Brain Res 58:175-198.
16. Dean KF, Sheets LP (1990): The effect of age and experience on inhibition of the acoustic startle response by gaps in background noise. Psychobiology 18:89-95.
17. DelPezzo EM, Hoffman HS (1980): Attentional factors in the inhibition of a reflex by a visual stimulus. Science 210:673-674.
18. Fechter LD, Young JS (1983): Discrimination of auditory from nonauditory toxicity by reflex modulation audiometry: Effects of triethyltin. Toxicol Appl Pharmacol 70:216-227.
19. Filion DL, Dawson ME, Schell AM (1993): Modification of the acoustic startle-reflex eyeblink: A tool for investigating early and late attentional processes. Biol Psychol 35:185-200.
20. Gerrard RL, Ison JR (1990): Spectral frequency and the modulation of the acoustic startle-reflex eyeblink: A tool for investigating early and late attentional processes. Biol Psychol 35:185-200.
21. Graham FK (1975): The more of less startling effects of weak prestimulation. Psychophysiology 12:238-248.
22. Graham FK, Murray GM (1977): Discordant effects of weak prestimulation on magnitude and latency of the reflex blink. Physiol Psychol 5:108-114.
23. Gray JA (1987): The Psychology of Fear and Stress. Cambridge University Press.
24. Graziano AM, DeGiovanni IS (1979): The clinical significance of childhood phobias: A note on the proportion of child-clinic referrals for treatment of children's fears. Behav Res Ther 17:161-162.
25. Graziano AM, DeGiovanni IS, Garcia K (1979): Behavioral treatment of children's fears: A review. Psychol Bull 86:804-830.
26. Grillon C, Ameli R, Woods SW, Merikangas K, Davis M (1991): Fear-potentiated startle in humans: Effects of anticipatory anxiety on the acoustic blink reflex. Psychophysiology 28: 588-595.
27. Grillon C, Ameli R, Woods SW, Merikangas K, Davis M (1992): Measuring the time-course of anxiety using the fear-potentiated startle reflex. Psychophysiology 30:340-346.
28. Grillon C, Morgan CA, Davis M, Southwick SM. (in submission). Effect of darkness on acoustic startle in Vietnam Veterans with DTSD: A preliminary report.
29. Groves PM, Thompson RF (1970): Habituation: A dual process theory. Psychol Rev 77:419-450.
30. Hackley SA, Graham FK (1987): Effects of attending selectively to the spatial position of reflex-eliciting and reflex-modulating stimuli. J Exp Psychol 13:411-424.
31. Hamm AO, Greenwald MK, Bradley MM, Lang PJ (1993): Emotional learning, hedonic changes, and the startle probe. J Abnorm Psychol 102:453-465.
32. Hardy RE, Cull JD (1972): Social and Rehabilitation and Services for the Blind. Springfield, IL: Thomas.
33. Hawk LW, Stevenson VE, Cook EW III (1992): The effects of eyelid closure on affective imagery and eyeblink startle. J Psychophysiol 6:299-310.
34. Hoffman HS, Ison JR (1980): Reflex modification in the domain of startle: I. Some empirical findings and their implications for how the nervous system processes sensory output. Psychol Rev 87:175-189.
35. Hoffman HS, Searle JL (1965): Acoustic variables in the modification of startle reaction in the rat. J Comp Physiol Psychol 60:53-58.
36. Ison JR, Russo JM (1990): Enhancement and depression of tactile and acoustic startle reflexes with variation in background noise levels. Psychobiology 60:53-58.
37. Jennings PD, Schell AM, Filion DL, Dawson ME (1996): Tracking early and late stage of information processing: Contributions of startle eyeblink reflex modification. Psychophysiology 33:148-155.
38. Kanfer FH, Karoly P, Newman A (1975): Reduction of children's fear of the dark by competence-related and situational threat-related verbal cues. J Consult Clin Psychol 43:251-258.
39. Kaufman LS (1983): PGO waves in rats in the non-paradoxical sleep states. Brain Res 276:73-80.
40. Kellogg CK, Sullivan AT, Bitran D, Ison JR (1991): Modulation of noise-potentiated acoustic startle via the benzodiazepine-y-aminobutyric acid receptor complex. Behav Neurosci 105: 640-646.
41. King NJ, Tonge BJ, Ollendick TH (1992): Night-time fears in children. J Paediatr Child Health 28:347-350.
42. Krauter EE, Wallace JE, Campell BA (1981): Sensory-motor functioning in the aging rat. Behav Neurol Biol 31:367-392.
43. Landis C, Hunt WA (1939): The Startle Pattern. New York: Farrar and Rinehart.
44. Lang PJ, Bradley MM, Cuthbert BN (1990): Emotion, attention, and the startle reflex. Psychol Rev 97:377-395.
45. Lykken DT, Rose R, Luther B, Maley M (1966): Correcting psychophysiological measures for individual differences in range. Psychol Bull 66:481-484.
46. Marks IM, Mathews AM (1979): Brief standard self-rating for phobic patients. Behav Res Ther 17:263-267.
47. Meinck HM, Kuster S, Benecke R, Conrad B (1985): The flexor reflex - Influence of stimulus parameters on the reflex response. Electroencephalogr Clin Neurophysiol 61:287-298.
48. Mellstrom M, Cicala GA, Zuckerman M (1976): General versus specific trait anxiety measures in the prediction of fear of snakes, heights, and darkness. J Consult Clin Psychol 44:83-91.
49. Peak P, Leonard J (1971): The use heart rate as an index of stress in blind pedestrians. Ergonomics 14:189-204.
50. Ponchillia P, Laduke R, Lagrow S (1984): The measurement of stress in nonvisual travel. Educ Visually Handicapped 16:21-29.
51. Reiter LA, Goetzinger CP, Press SE (1981): Reflex modulation: A hearing test for the difficult-to-test. J Speech Hear Disord 24:262-266.
52. Russo JM, Ison JR (1979): Sensitization of the rat's acoustic startle response by repetition of a photic stimulation. Physiol Psychol 7:102-106.
53. Sandford LD, Morrisson AR, Ball WA, Ross RJ, Mann GL (1992): Varying the expressions of alerting mechanisms in wakefulness and across sleep states. Electroencephalogr Clin Neurophysiol 82:458-468.
54. Sanes JN (1984): Voluntary movement and excitability of cutaneous eyeblink reflexes. Psychophysiology 21:653-663.
55. Shahani BT, Young RR (1971): Human flexor reflexes. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 34:616-627.
56. Silverstein LD, Graham FK, Calloway JM (1980): Preconditioning and excitability of the human orbicularis oculi reflex as a function of state. Electroencephalogr Clin Neurophysiol 48: 406-417.
57. Silverstein LD, Graham FK, Bohlin G (1981): Selective attention effects on the reflex blink. Psychophysiology 18:240-247.
58. Spence SH, McCathie H (1993): The stability of fears in children: A two-year prospective study: A research note. J Child Psychol Psychiatry 34:579-585.
59. Spielberger CD (1983): Manual for the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologist Press.
60. Stitt CL, Hoffman HS, Marsh RR (1976): Interaction versus independence of startle-modification processes in the rat. J Exp Psychol 2:260-265.
61. Vrana SR, Lang PJ (1990): Fear imagery and the startle probe reflex. J Abnorm Psychol 99:189-197.
62. Walker D, Davis M (in press): Anxiogenic effects of high illumination levels assessed with the acoustic startle response. Biol Psychiatry.
63. Wedeking P, Carlton PL (1979): Habituation and sensitization in the modulation of reflex amplitude. Physiol Behav 22:57-62.
64. Wright B (1980): Developing constructive views of life with a disability. Rehab Lit 41:274-279.
65. Wu M-F, Mallick BN, Siegel JM (1989): Lateral geniculate spikes, muscle atonia and startle response elicited by auditory stimuli as a function of stimulus parameters and arousal state. Brain Res 499:7-17.
66. Young JS, Fechter LD (1983): Reflex inhibition procedures for animal audiometry: A technique for assessing ototoxicity. J Acoust Soc Am 73:1686-1693.