Event-Related Brain Potentials in Psychopathology: Clinical and cognitive perspectives

Abstract

Since the discovery of the P300 component, a large number of studies have been conducted with the aim to find abnormalities of this psychophysiological marker among the main psychiatric disorders. The first studies were very promising, but successive findings were rather controversial resulting in two main positions (the pros and the cons) as regard to the usefulness of P300 in clinical psychopathology. However, P300 studies provide interesting findings concerning information processing in psychopathology. Moreover, other Event-Related Potentials (ERPs), such as the Mismatch Negativity (MMN) and the Error-Related Negativity (ERN) are particularly interesting for the study of cognitive processes in psychopathology. In this review, the author will give an overview of the main findings of P300, MMN and ERN values in psychopathology from a clinical and a cognitive point of view. After a brief description of the rationale of ERPs, the findings in schizophrenia, depression, alcoholism, posttraumatic stress disorder, panic disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder will be sequentially reviewed. The diagnostic usefulness of P300 in psychopathology is limited, but could be increased if variables known to influence P300 amplitude or latency are controlled. Doubtless, grouping two or more different ERP components would greatly improve the usefulness of the clinical applications of brain potentials. On the other hand, a growing number of studies have provided evidence of the relevance of ERPs to investigate cognitive processes in psychopathology.

Electrophysiological correlates of alcohol- and non-alcohol-related stimuli processing in binge drinkers: A follow-up study

“…Studies on chronic alcohol dependent patients also showed amplitude abnormalities affecting early components associated with visuo-spatial and perceptive abilities (e.g. Maurage et al, 2007;Nicolas et al, 1997) as well as marked P3 amplitude impairments (see Hansenne (2006), Porjesz and Begleiter (1996) for reviews). This may be consistent with the 'continuum hypothesis' suggesting that cerebral impairments linked with binge drinking show some similarities with those of alcohol dependence and could be considered as a first step to this pathological state (e.g.…”

Chronic alcoholism: Insights from neurophysiology

“…P300 (or P3) is a long-lasting positive component that occurs between 300 and 700 ms after the stimulation onset [30,31,159]. It appears when a subject detects an informative task-related stimulus [64]. The P3 is thought to reflect premotor decisional processes, such as memory updating [126] or cognitive closure [165], and to involve activation of inhibitory processes over widespread cortical areas [150,165,162].…”

“…The P3b is the component recorded in response to task-relevant targets. It has a more centro-parietal distribution and a longer latency, usually comprised between 280 to 600 ms [64]. The P3a component occurs after novel events independently of task relevance, i.e., when the subject is ignoring (is not asked to attend to rare stimuli).…”

Is two better than one? A cross-modal oddball paradigm reveals greater sensitivity of the P300 to emotional face-voice associations

“…Moreover, this is also true in the visual domain, as a study of ours confirmed earlier results obtained by Foxe et al (2001) showing that early visual components, such as the P100, the N100 and the N170, displayed reduced amplitude and longer latencies in schizophrenic patients. However, in many of these studies, the primary and most reported finding is P300 abnormalities (see Hansenne, 2006 for a review). P300 (or P3) is a long-lasting positive component that occurs between 300 and 700 ms after the onset of stimulation (Sutton et al, 1965;Desmedt et al, 1965).…”