University of Louisville
STUDY 2: Effects of Emotional Distracters on Performance in Cognitive Tasks in Remitted Patients with Bipolar Disorder
Institution
University of Louisville
Faculty Advisor/ Mentor
Tato Sokhadze
Abstract
Patients with bipolar disorder (BD) even in euthymia reveal a pattern of responses across behavioral, electrocortical and autonomic measures that suggest an enhanced processing of task-irrelevant, moodcongruent and motivationally salient emotional stimuli with concurrent deficits in the processing of task-relevant emotionally neutral stimuli. The study used behavioral tasks aimed to infer dysfunctions of emotion and cognition processes, analyzing overt responses, dense-array event-related potentials (ERP), and autonomic outcomes in 12 euthymic BD patients and 12 control subjects. In this experimental study we used modifications of a three-category oddball task: facial emotional expressions both as target and distracter stimuli; ERPs to targets, standards, and distracters, as well as difference waves (target-minus-standard; target-minus-distracter) were calculated at topographical regions-of-interest and compared across all conditions using ANOVA. Bipolar patients, compared with controls, demonstrated more interference effects expressed in delayed reaction time and lower accuracy, and prolonged latencies of endogenous ERP indices (P2a, N2b, P3a, P3b) when distracters were stimulated (facial expressions) with emotional content, and demonstrated lower interference effects to emotionally neutral target and standard stimuli. Tonic autonomic measures (heart rate, HRV, SCL, respiration, etc.) also showed between group differences in conditions with emotional distracters. This study develops innovative psychophysiological measurement approach by combining 128 channel ERP and autonomic activity recordings for more comprehensive assessment of the physiological manifestations of residual emotional disturbances in euthymic patients with BD. The proposed methodology has practical value and usefulness in the cognitive and emotional impairment assessment process in mood disorders. Dense-array ERPs techniques make the recording of activity of the brain areas involved in cognitive and emotional processes possible. Affective states are under the control of a more primitive limbic system, which governs activity of the autonomic nervous system. Integration of both cortical and autonomic measures may have clinical significance in the study of mood disorders.
STUDY 2: Effects of Emotional Distracters on Performance in Cognitive Tasks in Remitted Patients with Bipolar Disorder
Patients with bipolar disorder (BD) even in euthymia reveal a pattern of responses across behavioral, electrocortical and autonomic measures that suggest an enhanced processing of task-irrelevant, moodcongruent and motivationally salient emotional stimuli with concurrent deficits in the processing of task-relevant emotionally neutral stimuli. The study used behavioral tasks aimed to infer dysfunctions of emotion and cognition processes, analyzing overt responses, dense-array event-related potentials (ERP), and autonomic outcomes in 12 euthymic BD patients and 12 control subjects. In this experimental study we used modifications of a three-category oddball task: facial emotional expressions both as target and distracter stimuli; ERPs to targets, standards, and distracters, as well as difference waves (target-minus-standard; target-minus-distracter) were calculated at topographical regions-of-interest and compared across all conditions using ANOVA. Bipolar patients, compared with controls, demonstrated more interference effects expressed in delayed reaction time and lower accuracy, and prolonged latencies of endogenous ERP indices (P2a, N2b, P3a, P3b) when distracters were stimulated (facial expressions) with emotional content, and demonstrated lower interference effects to emotionally neutral target and standard stimuli. Tonic autonomic measures (heart rate, HRV, SCL, respiration, etc.) also showed between group differences in conditions with emotional distracters. This study develops innovative psychophysiological measurement approach by combining 128 channel ERP and autonomic activity recordings for more comprehensive assessment of the physiological manifestations of residual emotional disturbances in euthymic patients with BD. The proposed methodology has practical value and usefulness in the cognitive and emotional impairment assessment process in mood disorders. Dense-array ERPs techniques make the recording of activity of the brain areas involved in cognitive and emotional processes possible. Affective states are under the control of a more primitive limbic system, which governs activity of the autonomic nervous system. Integration of both cortical and autonomic measures may have clinical significance in the study of mood disorders.