Threat and anxiety affect visual contrast perception

Journal of Psychopharmacology

Volumn 24, Issue 5, 2010, Pages 667-675

  Laretzaki, G ^a,b   Plainis, S ^b   Argyropoulos, S ^c   Pallikaris, I G ^b   Bitsios, P ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CRETE   (Greece)

^b UNIVERSITY OF CRETE   (Greece)

^c KING'S COLLEGE LONDON   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Contrast perception; Healthy volunteers; P100 latency; Threat; Trait anxiety; Visual evoked potentials

Indexed keywords

ADULT; ANXIETY; ARTICLE; CONTRAST SENSITIVITY; CONTROLLED STUDY; EVOKED VISUAL RESPONSE; FEMALE; HUMAN; HUMAN EXPERIMENT; LATENT PERIOD; MALE; NORMAL HUMAN; PRIORITY JOURNAL; STATE TRAIT ANXIETY INVENTORY; THREAT; VISUAL ANALOG SCALE; VISUAL STIMULATION;

ADULT; ANXIETY; CONTRAST SENSITIVITY; ELECTROSHOCK; EVOKED POTENTIALS, VISUAL; FEAR; FEMALE; FORM PERCEPTION; HUMANS; MALE; NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS; REACTION TIME; SEVERITY OF ILLNESS INDEX; YOUNG ADULT;

EID: 77952154320     PISSN: 02698811     EISSN: 14617285     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0269881108098823     Document Type: Article

References (66)

1. Amaral, DG, Price, JL, Pitkänen, A., Carmichael, ST (1992) Anatomical organization of the primate amygdaloid complex. In: Aggleton, JP (ed). The Amygdala: Neurobiological Aspects of Emotion, Memory and Mental Dysfunction. New York: Wiley-Liss, pp. 1-66.
2. Baas, JM, Kenemans, JL, Bocker, KB, Verbaten, MN (2002) Threat-induced cortical processing and startle potentiation. Neuroreport 13: 133-137.
3. Barrett, J., Armony, JL (2008) Influence of trait anxiety on brain activity during the acquisition and extinction of aversive conditioning. Psychol Med 9: 1-11.
4. Bauer, U., Scholz, M., Levitt, JB, Obermayer, K., Lund, JS (1999) A model for the depth-dependence of receptive field size and contrast sensitivity of cells in layer 4C of macaque striate cortex. Vision Res 39: 613-629.
5. Bishop, S., Duncan, J., Brett, M., Lawrence, AD (2004) Prefrontal cortical function and anxiety: controlling attention to threat-related stimuli. Nat Neurosci 7: 184-188.
6. Bitsios, P., Philpott, A., Langley, RW, Bradshaw, CM, Szabadi, E. (1999) Comparison of the effects of diazepam on the fear-potentiated startle reflex and the fear-inhibited light reflex in man. J Psychopharmacol 13: 226-234. (Pubitemid 29435781) (Pubitemid 29435781) (Pubitemid 29435781)
7. Bitsios, P., Szabadi, E., Bradshaw, CM (1998) Sensitivity of the fear-inhibited light reflex to diazepam. Psychopharmacology (Berl) 135: 93-98. (Pubitemid 28055454) (Pubitemid 28055454) (Pubitemid 28055454)
8. Bitsios, P., Szabadi, E., Bradshaw, CM (1996) The inhibition of the light reflex by the threat of an electric shock: a potential laboratory model of human anxiety. J Psychopharmacol 10: 279-287.
9. Bond, A., Lader, M. (1974) The use of analogue scales in rating subjective feelings. Br J Med Psychol 47: 211-218.
10. Bradley, MM, Sabatinelli, D., Lang, PJ, Fitzsimmons, JR, King, W., Desai, P. (2003) Activation of the visual cortex in motivated attention. Behav Neurosci 117: 369-380.
11. Brigell, M., Bach, M., Barber, C., Moskowitz, A., Robson, J. (2003) Guidelines for calibration of stimulus and recording parameters used in clinical electrophysiology of vision. Doc Ophthalmol 107: 185-193.
12. Campbell, FW, Kulikowski, JJ (1972) The visual evoked potential as a function of contrast of a grating pattern. J Physiol 222: 345-356.
13. Cuthbert, BN, Schupp, HT, Bradley, M., McManis, M., Lang, PJ (1998) Probing affective pictures: attended startle and tone probes. Psychophysiology 35: 344-347.
14. Davis, M. (1992) The role of the amygdala in conditioned fear. In: Aggleton, J (ed). The Amygdala: Neurobiological Aspects of Emotion, Memory Andmental Dysfunction. New York: Wiley-Liss, pp. 255-305.
15. De Cesarei, A., Codispoti, M. (2006) When does size not matter? Effects of stimulus size on affective modulation. Psychophysiology 43: 207-215.
16. Derrington, M., Lennie, P. (1984) Spatial and temporal contrast sensitivity of neurones in lateral geniculate nucleous of macaque. J Physiol 357: 219-240.
17. Eastwood, JD, Smilek, D., Merikle, PM (2001) Differential attentional guidance by unattended faces expressing positive and negative emotion. Percept Psychophys 63: 1004-1013.
18. Fahle, M., Bach, M. (2006) Origin of the visual evoked potential. In: Heckenlively, JR, Arden, GB (eds). Principles and Practice of Clinical Electrophysiology of Vision, second ed. The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
19. Fox, E., Lester, V., Russo, R., Bowles, RJ, Pichler, A., Dutton, K. (2000) Facial expressions of emotion: are angry faces detected more efficiently. Cogn Emot 14: 61-92.
20. Gray, M., Kemp, AH, Silberstein, RB, Nathan, PJ (2003) Cortical neurophysiology of anticipatory anxiety: an investigation utilizing steady state probe topography (SSPT). Neuroimage 20: 975-986.
21. Grillon, C., Ameli, R., Merikangas, K., Woods, SW, Davis, M. (1993) Measuring the time course of anticipatory anxiety using the fear-potentiated startle reflex. Psychophysiology 30: 340-346.
22. Hare, TA, Tottenham, N., Galvan, A., Voss, HU, Glover, GH, Casey, BJ (2008) Biological substrates of emotional reactivity and regulation in adolescence during an emotional go-nogo task. Biol Psychiatry 63: 927-934.
23. Harter, MR, Salmon, LE (1972) Intra-modality selective attention and evoked cortical potentials to randomly presented patterns. Electroencephalogr Clin Neurophysiol 32: 605-613.
24. Hermann, A., Schafer, A., Walter, B., Stark, R., Vaitl, D., Schienle, A. (2007) Diminished medial prefrontal cortex activity in blood-injection-injury phobia. Biol Psychol 75: 124-130.
25. Hicks, TP, Lee, BP, Visyasagar, TR (1983) The responses of cells in macaque lateral geniculate nucleus to sinusoidal gratings. J Physiol 337: 183-200.
26. Holmes, A., Nielsen, MK, Green, S. (2007) Effects of anxiety on the processing of fearful and happy faces: an event-related potential study. Biol Psychol 77: 159-173.
27. Hourdaki, E., Giakoumaki, SG, Grinakis, V., Theou, K., Karataraki, M., Bitsios, P. (2005) Parametric exploration of the fear-inhibited light reflex. Psychophysiology 42: 447-455.
28. Ito, TA, Larsen, JT, Smith, NK, Cacioppo, JT (1998) Negative information weighs more heavily on the brain: the negativity bias in evaluative categorizations. J Pers Soc Psychol 75: 887-900.
29. Junghofer, M., Bradley, MM, Elbert, TR, Lang, PJ (2001) Fleeting images: a new look at early emotion discrimination. Psychophysiology 38: 175-178.
30. Junghofer, M., Peyk, P., Flaisch, T., Schupp, HT (2006) Neuroimaging methods in affective neuroscience: selected methodological issues. Prog Brain Res 156: 123-143.
31. Junghofer, M., Schupp, HT, Stark, R., Vaitl, D. (2005) Neuroimaging of emotion: empirical effects of proportional global signal scaling in fMRI data analysis. Neuroimage 25: 520-526.
32. Kaplan, E., Shapley, R. (1986) The primate retina contains two types of ganglion cells, with high and low contrast sensitivity. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 83: 2755-2757.
33. Keil, A., Bradley, MM, Hauk, O., Rockstroh, B., Elbert, T., Lang, PJ (2002) Large-scale neural correlates of affective picture processing. Psychophysiology 39: 641-649.
34. Keil, A., Gruber, T., Muller, MM, Moratti, S., Stolarova, M., Bradley, MM, et al. (2003) Early modulation of visual perception by emotional arousal: evidence from steady-state visual evoked brain potentials. Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci 3: 195-206.
35. Keil, A., Muller, MM, Gruber, T., Wienbruch, C., Stolarova, M., Elbert, T. (2001) Effects of emotional arousal in the cerebral hemispheres: a study of oscillatory brain activity and event-related potentials. Clin Neurophysiol 112: 2057-2068.
36. Kim, SH, Hamann, S. (2007) Neural correlates of positive and negative emotion regulation. J Cogn Neurosci 19: 776-798.
37. Kulikowski, JJ, Leisman, G. (1973) The effect of nitrous oxide on the relation between the evoked potential and contrast threshold. Vision Res 13: 2079-2086.
38. Kulikowski, JJ (1975) Apparent fineness of briefly presented gratings: balance between movement and pattern channels. Vision Res 15: 673-680.
39. Kulikowski, JJ (1976) Effective contrast constancy and linearity of contrast sensation. Vision Res 16: 1419-1431.
40. Lang, PJ, Bradley, MM, Cuthbert, BN (1997) Motivated attention: affect, activation, and action. In: Lang, PJ, Simons, RF, Balaban, MT (eds). Attention and Orienting: Sensory and Motivational Processes. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, pp. 97-135.
41. Lang, PJ, Bradley, MM, Cuthbert, BN (1990) Emotion, attention, and the startle reflex. Psychol Rev 97: 377-395.
42. Lipp, OV, Derakshan, N., Waters, AM, Logies, S. (2004) Snakes and cats in the flower bed: fast detection is not specific to pictures of fear-relevant animals. Emotion 4: 233-250.
43. Mihaylova, M., Stomonyakov, V., Vassilev, A. (1999) Peripheral and central delay in processing high spatial frequencies: reaction time and VEP latency studies. Vision Res 39: 699-705.
44. Mini, A., Palomba, D., Angrilli, A., Bravi, S. (1996) Emotional information processing and visual evoked brain potentials. Percept Mot Skills 83: 143-152.
45. Movshon, JA, Thompson, ID, Tolhurst, DJ (1978) Spatial and temporal contrast sensitivity of neurones in areas 17 and 18 of the catgs visual cortex. J Physiol 283: 101-120.
46. Murray, I., Parry, N., Carden, D., Kulikowski, J. (1987) Human visual evoked potentials to chromatic and achromatic gratings. Clin Vis Sci 1: 231-244.
47. Murray, IJ, Kulikowski, JJ (1983) VEPs and contrast. Vision Res 23: 1741-1743.
48. Murray, IJ, Plainis, S. (2003) Contrast coding and magno/parvo segregation revealed in reaction time studies. Vision Res 43: 2707-2719.
49. Najström, M., Jansson, B. (2007) Skin conductance responses as predictor of emotional responses to stressful life events. Behav Res Ther 45: 2456-2463.
50. Odom, JV, Bach, M., Barber, C., Brigell, M., Marmor, MF, Tormene, AP, et al. (2004) Visual evoked potentials standard. Doc Ophthalmol 108: 115-123.
51. Ohman, A., Flykt, A., Esteves, F. (2001) Emotion drives attention: detecting the snake in the grass. J Exp Psychol Gen 130: 466-478.
52. Palomba, D., Angrilli, A., Mini, A. (1997) Visual evoked potentials, heart rate responses and memory to emotional pictorial stimuli. Int J Psychophysiol 27: 55-67.
53. Phelps, EA, OgConnor, KJ, Gatenby, JC, Gore, JC, Grillon, C., Davis, M. (2001) Activation of the left amygdala to a cognitive representation of fear. Nat Neurosci 4: 437-441.
54. Phelps, EA, Ling, S., Carrasco, M. (2006) Emotion facilitates perception and potentiates the perceptual benefits of attention. Psychol Sci 17: 292-299.
55. Plainis, S., Murray, IJ (2000) Neurophysiological interpretation of human visual reaction times: effect of contrast, spatial frequency and luminance. Neuropsychologia 38: 1555-1564.
56. Plainis, S., Murray, IJ (2005) Magnocellular channel subserves the human contrast-sensitivity function. Perception 34: 933-940.
57. Pokorny, J., Smith, VC (1997) Psychophysical signatures associated with magnocellular and parvocellular pathway contrast gain. J Opt Soc Am A Opt Image Sci Vis 14: 2477-2486.
58. Sabatinelli, D., Bradley, MM, Fitzsimmons, JR, Lang, PJ (2005) Parallel amygdala and inferotemporal activation reflect emotional intensity and fear relevance. Neuroimage 24: 1265-1270.
59. Sheehan, DV, Lecrubier, Y., Sheehan, KH, Amorim, P., Janavs, J., Weiller, E., et al. (1998) The Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview (M.I.N.I.): the development and validation of a structured diagnostic psychiatric interview for DSM-IV and ICD-10. J Clin Psychiatry 59 (Suppl. 20). 22-33 quiz 34-57.
60. Spielberger, CD (1983) Manual for the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.
61. Tipples, J., Young, AW, Quinlan, P., Broks, P., Ellis, AW (2002) Searching for threat. Q J Exp Psychol A 55: 1007-1026.
62. Vidyasagar, TR (1998) Gating of neuronal responses in macaque primary visual cortex by an attentional spotlight. Neuroreport 9: 1947-1952.
63. Vidyasagar, TR, Pigarev, IN (2007) Gating of neuronal responses in macaque primary visual cortex in a memory task. Eur J Neurosci 25: 2547-2557.
64. Weinstein, AM (1995) Visual ERPs evidence for enhanced processing of threatening information in anxious university students. Biol Psychiatry 37: 847-858.
65. Wik, G., Fredrikson, M., Fischer, H. (1996) Cerebral correlates of anticipated fear: a PET study of specific phobia. Int J Neurosci 87: 267-276.
66. Yerkes, RM, Dodson, JD (1908) The relation of strength of stimulus to rapidity of habit-formation. J Comp Neurol Psychol 18: 459-482.