Thoughts of death modulate psychophysical and cortical responses to threatening stimuli.
Existential social psychology studies show that awareness of one's eventual death profoundly influences human cognition and behaviour by inducing defensive reactions against end-of-life related anxiety. Much less is known about the impact of reminders of mortality on brain activity. Therefore w...
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doaj-1f2642b5d79c4cb683f50db6115e2f522020-11-24T21:26:33ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032014-01-01911e11232410.1371/journal.pone.0112324Thoughts of death modulate psychophysical and cortical responses to threatening stimuli.Elia ValentiniKatharina KochSalvatore Maria AgliotiExistential social psychology studies show that awareness of one's eventual death profoundly influences human cognition and behaviour by inducing defensive reactions against end-of-life related anxiety. Much less is known about the impact of reminders of mortality on brain activity. Therefore we explored whether reminders of mortality influence subjective ratings of intensity and threat of auditory and painful thermal stimuli and the associated electroencephalographic activity. Moreover, we explored whether personality and demographics modulate psychophysical and neural changes related to mortality salience (MS). Following MS induction, a specific increase in ratings of intensity and threat was found for both nociceptive and auditory stimuli. While MS did not have any specific effect on nociceptive and auditory evoked potentials, larger amplitude of theta oscillatory activity related to thermal nociceptive activity was found after thoughts of death were induced. MS thus exerted a top-down modulation on theta electroencephalographic oscillatory amplitude, specifically for brain activity triggered by painful thermal stimuli. This effect was higher in participants reporting higher threat perception, suggesting that inducing a death-related mind-set may have an influence on body-defence related somatosensory representations.http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC4227888?pdf=render |
collection |
DOAJ |
language |
English |
format |
Article |
sources |
DOAJ |
author |
Elia Valentini Katharina Koch Salvatore Maria Aglioti |
spellingShingle |
Elia Valentini Katharina Koch Salvatore Maria Aglioti Thoughts of death modulate psychophysical and cortical responses to threatening stimuli. PLoS ONE |
author_facet |
Elia Valentini Katharina Koch Salvatore Maria Aglioti |
author_sort |
Elia Valentini |
title |
Thoughts of death modulate psychophysical and cortical responses to threatening stimuli. |
title_short |
Thoughts of death modulate psychophysical and cortical responses to threatening stimuli. |
title_full |
Thoughts of death modulate psychophysical and cortical responses to threatening stimuli. |
title_fullStr |
Thoughts of death modulate psychophysical and cortical responses to threatening stimuli. |
title_full_unstemmed |
Thoughts of death modulate psychophysical and cortical responses to threatening stimuli. |
title_sort |
thoughts of death modulate psychophysical and cortical responses to threatening stimuli. |
publisher |
Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
series |
PLoS ONE |
issn |
1932-6203 |
publishDate |
2014-01-01 |
description |
Existential social psychology studies show that awareness of one's eventual death profoundly influences human cognition and behaviour by inducing defensive reactions against end-of-life related anxiety. Much less is known about the impact of reminders of mortality on brain activity. Therefore we explored whether reminders of mortality influence subjective ratings of intensity and threat of auditory and painful thermal stimuli and the associated electroencephalographic activity. Moreover, we explored whether personality and demographics modulate psychophysical and neural changes related to mortality salience (MS). Following MS induction, a specific increase in ratings of intensity and threat was found for both nociceptive and auditory stimuli. While MS did not have any specific effect on nociceptive and auditory evoked potentials, larger amplitude of theta oscillatory activity related to thermal nociceptive activity was found after thoughts of death were induced. MS thus exerted a top-down modulation on theta electroencephalographic oscillatory amplitude, specifically for brain activity triggered by painful thermal stimuli. This effect was higher in participants reporting higher threat perception, suggesting that inducing a death-related mind-set may have an influence on body-defence related somatosensory representations. |
url |
http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC4227888?pdf=render |
work_keys_str_mv |
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