2017

Santa Lucia - Neurosciences and Rehabilitation Sapienza University of Rome

Biol Psychol. 2017 Aug 30;129:121-130. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2017.08.055. [Epub ahead of print]

Visual reminders of death enhance nociceptive-related cortical responses and event-related alpha desynchronisation

Previous research suggests that prompting individuals to think on their own mortality affects their perception of painful somatic stimuli and related brain activity. Grounded on the assumption that reminders of mortality may recruit threat-defence mechanisms similar to the ones activated by painful nociceptive stimuli, we hypothesize that the effects exerted by linguistic reminders of death on pain perception and brain activity would be elicited by passive observation of death-related pictures vs. more generic threat-related pictures. Results showed an increase of the laser evoked P2 amplitude and oscillatory theta activity when participants observed death-related images. However, no change in pain ratings was found. Moreover, observation of death-related content was linked to increased oscillatory alpha desynchronisation but not to variations of visual evoked potentials amplitude. Our findings indicate that pairing potentially noxious stimuli with death-related images exerts a preferential modulation of nociceptive and visual cortical representations.

 Download fulltext

This website uses technical cookies and third party cookies. By closing this banner, scrolling this page or by clicking any of its elements you consent to the use of cookies. If you want to know more or refuse consent to all or some cookies, please see the Cookie Policy. TRADUCI IN ITALIANO