Event-Related Brain Potentials of Spider Phobics to Disorder- Relevant, Generally Disgust- and Fear-Inducing Pictures

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

This investigation covered the disgust and fear reactivity of patients suffering from spider phobia. We analyzed event-related brain potentials and affective responses to pictures depicting spiders, as well as generally fear-inducing, disgust-inducing, and neutral content, and compared them between 18 phobic and 18 nonphobic female participants. The patients rated the spider scenes as more fear- and disgust-inducing than the controls. This was accompanied by enhanced amplitudes of the P300 and the late positive potential (LPP). The other picture types elicited comparable electrocortical and affective responses in both groups. Separate group analyses showed that the patients were characterized by larger ERP positivity (P300, LPP) for phobic than for nonphobic material. Control subjects’ P300s were equally enhanced for spider, disgust and fear pictures relative to neutral scenes. Their LPPs were smaller for spiders compared to disgust and fear. Taken altogether, motivated attention in emotional picture processing is reflected by P300 and LPP modulation.