How do cognition, emotion, and epileptogenesis meet? A study of emotional cognitive bias in temporal lobe epilepsy

• Published in: Epilepsy & behavior Vol. 15; no. 2; pp. 218 - 224
• Main Authors: Lanteaume, Laura, Bartolomei, Fabrice, Bastien-Toniazzo, Mireille
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Inc 01.06.2009
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Affective Symptoms - complications; Amygdala; Anxiety; Arousal; Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity - complications; Attentional bias; Bias; Cognition - physiology; Emotion; Emotional vulnerability; Emotions - physiology; Epilepsy, Temporal Lobe - etiology; Epilepsy, Temporal Lobe - psychology; Facial Expression; Female; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Neurology; Neuropsychological Tests; Photic Stimulation - methods; Reaction Time - physiology; Retrospective Studies; Seizure precipitants; Statistics, Nonparametric; Stress; Temporal lobe epilepsy; Young Adult; Attentional bias; Amygdala; Seizure precipitants; Temporal lobe epilepsy; Anxiety; Emotion; Stress; Emotional vulnerability
• ISSN: 1525-5050; 1525-5069
• DOI: 10.1016/j.yebeh.2009.03.034

Abstract Emotional distress is one of the most frequently reported seizure precipitants in epilepsy, but little is known about its causes and processes. Interestingly, it is now accepted that emotional distress, such as anxiety, may be accompanied by evolutionary adaptation, or abnormal attentional vigilance toward threatening stimuli. The goal of this research was to study the link between emotional seizure precipitants and pathological attention-related biases toward threat in temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). To this aim, patients were asked to report the extent to which seizures were elicited or not by emotional precipitants, allowing distinction of two groups: “Emo-TLE” group and “Other-TLE” group. Attentional biases were investigated by comparing patients’ emotional Stroop and dot detection paradigms with those of healthy individuals (control group). We found that the Emo-TLE group was characterized by attentional bias toward threatening stimuli compared with neutral stimuli and compared with the other two groups. We thus hypothesize that attentional biases related to threat in patients with TLE may sustain emotional vulnerability and seizure occurrence.