The Effect of Emotional Contexts on the Inhibited Perception of Repetitive Respiratory Stimuli

• Main Authors: Ya Jhih Jhu, 朱雅智
• Other Authors: P. Y. S. Chan
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2017
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/jhebfq

碩士 === 長庚大學 === 職能治療學系 === 105 === Respiration is an innate and unconscious process. However respiratory sensory inputs do not always reach the higher cortices during eupneic breathing, indicating “sensory gating” phenomena exists in the central nervous system. When obstructed, the central nervous system automatically adjusts respiration into a conscious pattern. Inferior gate control might lower the connection between an individual’s conscious respiration and actual respiratory difficulty, thus producing misconception of having dyspnea and severely affecting quality of life. While some studies have shown that negative emotional context might evoke problems related to respiratory sensory gating, empirical evidence regarding the effect of positive emotional context remains scarce. Therefore, the current study, with respiratory-related evoked potential (RREP) collected by electroencephalography, examined healthy adults’ respiratory sensory gating abilities in positive and neutral contexts. The participants were 40 healthy adults (aged 23.8 ± 4.2 years), examined with behavioral assessments and with the paired-occlusion RREP trials in the positive and neutral contexts. The RREP and behavioral data were analyzed with Paired-sample t-tests, Independentsample t-tests, and Pearson correlation coefficients. The results revealed that the participants had better respiratory sensory gating ability in the positive context (S2/S1 ratio: 0.44 ± 0.2) than in the neutral context (S2/S1 ratio: 0.59 ± 0.23). Similar results also applied to the high-anxiety group (S2/S1 ratio: 0.54 ± 0.2 in the pleasant context, and 0.77 ± 0.36 in the neutral context). Correlation analysis indicated that the participants’ anxiety level and the S2/S1 ratio were correlated at an intermediate level in the positive context (r = 0.41, p = 0.01), and also in the neutral context (r = 0.51, p = 0.01). The results of the study suggest that a positive compared to neutral context improves individuals’ sensory gating abilities. Clinicians in clinical practice are encouraged to create positive emotional context to help people with comorbid dyspnea and anxiety symptoms improve their respiratory sensation during rehabilitation.