AUTHOR=Brown Stephen B., van Steenbergen Henk , Band Guido P., de Rover Mischa , Nieuwenhuis Sander TITLE=Functional significance of the emotion-related late positive potential JOURNAL=Frontiers in Human Neuroscience VOLUME=6 YEAR=2012 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/human-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2012.00033 DOI=10.3389/fnhum.2012.00033 ISSN=1662-5161 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.