title: Functional significance of the emotion-related late positive potential.
abstract: The late positive potential (LPP) is an event-related potential (ERP) component over visual cortical areas that is modulated by the emotional intensity of a stimulus. However, the functional significance of this neural modulation remains elusive. We conducted two experiments in which we studied the relation between LPP amplitude, subsequent perceptual sensitivity to a non-emotional stimulus (Experiment 1) and visual cortical excitability, as reflected by P1/N1 components evoked by this stimulus (Experiment 2). During the LPP modulation elicited by unpleasant stimuli, perceptual sensitivity was not affected. In contrast, we found some evidence for a decreased N1 amplitude during the LPP modulation, a decreased P1 amplitude on trials with a relatively large LPP, and consistent negative (but non-significant) across-subject correlations between the magnitudes of the LPP modulation and corresponding changes in d-prime or P1/N1 amplitude. The results provide preliminary evidence that the LPP reflects a global inhibition of activity in visual cortex, resulting in the selective survival of activity associated with the processing of the emotional stimulus.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Cognitive Psychology Unit, Institute of Psychology, Leiden University Leiden, Netherlands.
authors.forename: Stephen B R E
authors.initials: SB
authors.lastname: Brown
authors.forename: Henk
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: van Steenbergen
authors.forename: Guido P H
authors.initials: GP
authors.lastname: Band
authors.forename: Mischa
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: de Rover
authors.forename: Sander
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Nieuwenhuis