Journal
EXPERIMENTAL BRAIN RESEARCH
Volume 220, Issue 3-4, Pages 277-286Publisher
SPRINGER
DOI: 10.1007/s00221-012-3136-2
Keywords
Pain; Emotion; Priming; Event-related potentials (ERP); P3
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Funding
- Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [SWU1109084]
- China Education Ministry [NSKD08020]
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Previous event-related potential (ERP) and brain imaging studies have suggested observer responses to others' pain are modulated by various bottom-up and top-down factors, including emotional primes. However, the temporal dynamics underlying the impact of emotional primes on responses to others' pain remains poorly understood. In the present study, we explored effects of negative, neutral, and positive emotional priming stimuli on behavioral and cortical responses to visual depictions of others in pain. ERPs were recorded from 20 healthy adults, who were presented with painful and non-painful target pictures following observation of negative, neutral, and positive emotional priming pictures. ERP analyses revealed that relative to non-painful pictures, differential P3 amplitudes for painful pictures were larger followed by negative primes than either neutral or positive primes. There were no significant differential P3 amplitudes for painful pictures relative to non-painful pictures were found followed neutral and positive emotional primes. These results suggest that negative emotional primes strengthen observers' attention toward others' pain. These results support the threat value of pain hypothesis.
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