Increased anticipatory contingent negative variation in posttraumatic stress disorder

Hongxia Duan; Li Wang; Guillén Fernández; Kan Zhang; Jianhui Wu

doi:10.1016/j.biopsycho.2016.03.004

Increased anticipatory contingent negative variation in posttraumatic stress disorder

Biol Psychol. 2016 May:117:80-88. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2016.03.004. Epub 2016 Mar 7.

Authors

Hongxia Duan¹, Li Wang², Guillén Fernández³, Kan Zhang⁴, Jianhui Wu⁵

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China; Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behavior, Department for Cognitive Neuroscience, Radboud University Medical Centre, Nijmegen, The Netherlands, The Netherlands.
² Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
³ Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behavior, Department for Cognitive Neuroscience, Radboud University Medical Centre, Nijmegen, The Netherlands, The Netherlands.
⁴ Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
⁵ Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China. Electronic address: wujh@psych.ac.cn.

PMID: 26965485
DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2016.03.004

Abstract

Altered anticipation processes are implicated across various clinical samples, but few studies focused on the posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). We measured contingent negative variation (CNV) in a choice reaction paradigm among 58 survivors of the Wenchuan earthquake, including 28 individuals who were diagnosed with PTSD and 30 without PTSD. Compared to the non-PTSD group, the PTSD group had significantly larger CNV amplitude. On the behavioral level, although the reaction times were comparable between groups, the PTSD group committed more errors than the non-PTSD group. Furthermore, the total PTSD symptom severity score as well as the re-experiencing symptom score were positively related to CNV amplitude. These results suggested that individuals with PTSD might be more alerted to and anticipate more to upcoming events in their environment, yet still have degraded performance in response to the stimulus.

Keywords: Anticipation; Contingent negative variation; Event-related potentials; PTSD; Re-experiencing.

MeSH terms

Adult
Anticipation, Psychological / physiology*
Contingent Negative Variation / physiology*
Disasters
Earthquakes
Electroencephalography
Female
Humans
Male
Middle Aged
Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic / physiopathology*
Survivors