Functional significance of the emotion-related late positive potential

• Published in: Frontiers in human neuroscience Vol. 6; p. 33
• Main Authors: Brown, Stephen B R E, van Steenbergen, Henk, Band, Guido P H, de Rover, Mischa, Nieuwenhuis, Sander
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland Frontiers Research Foundation 2012; Frontiers Media S.A
• Subjects: Auditory evoked potentials; emotion; Emotions; ERP; Event-related potentials; Excitability; global inhibition; Information processing; late positive potential; LPP; Neuroscience; Perception; Visual cortex; Visual stimuli; late positive potential; ERP; emotion; global inhibition; LPP; perception
• ISSN: 1662-5161; 1662-5161
• DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2012.00033

The late positive potential (LPP) is an event-related potential (ERP) component over visual cortical areas that is modulated by the emotional intensity of a stimulus. However, the functional significance of this neural modulation remains elusive. We conducted two experiments in which we studied the relation between LPP amplitude, subsequent perceptual sensitivity to a non-emotional stimulus (Experiment 1) and visual cortical excitability, as reflected by P1/N1 components evoked by this stimulus (Experiment 2). During the LPP modulation elicited by unpleasant stimuli, perceptual sensitivity was not affected. In contrast, we found some evidence for a decreased N1 amplitude during the LPP modulation, a decreased P1 amplitude on trials with a relatively large LPP, and consistent negative (but non-significant) across-subject correlations between the magnitudes of the LPP modulation and corresponding changes in d-prime or P1/N1 amplitude. The results provide preliminary evidence that the LPP reflects a global inhibition of activity in visual cortex, resulting in the selective survival of activity associated with the processing of the emotional stimulus.