Exploring the relationship between vagal tone and event-related potentials in response to an affective picture task

Abstract

The present study is the first to investigate the relationship between vagal tone level and event-related potentials (ERPs) in adults. Numerous studies have shown a relationship between vagal tone and the individual differences between a variety of psychophysiological, affective, and social outcomes. This suggests that vagal tone can be related to how people process relevant affective social information at the brain level. This study aimed to assess whether the ERP response varies between high and low vagal tone groups, in the face of salient affective information. In the experimental cohort, two groups were separated according to their vagal tone level. ERPs were recorded while individuals performed an affective picture task that included positive, neutral, and negative emotional stimuli. Differences between the high and low vagal tone groups were observed at the early posterior negativity for both positive and negative valences, and at the late positive potential for all the categories. It can be concluded that differences between high and low vagal tone levels are related to differences in the ERPs at early, middle, and late latencies. The results are discussed with respect to the effect of differences between the vagal tone conditions on various stages of information-processing.

Clinical effects of insular damage in humans

“…In addition, (e) temporal dynamics of action related to sympathetic and parasympathetic pathways during body homeostasis should be altered by insular lesions. This last process (relationship between autonomic body function and emotional action) has been recently highlighted by Craig (2005Craig ( , 2010; and emerging evidence of the relationship between peripheral and central systems in emotional processing has been described (Dufey et al 2010;Lane et al 1997). Table 2b summarizes the revised studies showing different alterations of these a-b-c-d-e components (perception, interoception, awareness, emotion, and sympathetic/parasympathetic involvement).…”

Neurodynamics of Mind: The Arrow Illusion of Conscious Intentionality as Downward Causation

“…Cognition, and especially consciousness, can be considered an emergent property of the organism and its environment. This ecological perspective allows for the placing of cognition in its context (see Barutta et al 2010;Cornejo et al 2007Cornejo et al , 2009Dufey et al 2010;Hurtado et al 2009;Ibáñez et al 2006Ibáñez et al , 2009Ibáñez et al , 2010Riveros et al 2010;San Martín et al 2010); at least in principle, and the analysis of cognition centered on the connection between the organism and its environment, and is not exclusively based on the internal mechanisms.…”

The Machine Paradigm and Alternative Approaches in Cognitive Science

“…Current mainstream cannot be characterized as being predominantly mechanistic and computational, while the concomitance of multiple paradigms competing with each another is clearly much more appropriate. The following paradigms challenge Kohler's definition of the computer metaphor: situated cognition (i.e., Brighton et al 2003;Clark 1997), embodied cognition (i.e., Anderson 2003;Haugeland 1995), cognitive linguistic (i.e., Johnson 1987;Lakoff and Johnson 1980), enaction (i.e., Varela et al 1991, Thompson andVarela 2001), extended mind (i.e., Clark and Chalmers 1998;Clark 2001), contextual cognition (Cornejo et al 2007(Cornejo et al , 2009Dufey et al 2010; Barutta et al 2010;Hurtado et al 2009;Ibañez et al 2006Ibañez et al , 2009Riveros et al 2010;San Martín et al 2010); distributed cognition (i.e., Cole and Engeströn 1991;Hutchins 1995), theory of activity (i.e., Bakhurst 1995;Engelsted 1993), dynamical approaches (Ibañez 2007a(Ibañez , b, 2008Tschacher and Dauwalder 2003), and synergetics (Haken 1997(Haken , 2003Haken et al 1985), among others. As a result, based on Kohler's definition of the machine paradigm, its application in contemporary work is considerably restricted.…”