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. 2021 Jan 12:11:576852.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.576852. eCollection 2020.

Violence Exposure Is Associated With Atypical Appraisal of Threat Among Women: An EEG Study

Virginie Chloé Perizzolo Pointet  1 , Dominik Andrea Moser  2   3 , Marylène Vital  4 , Sandra Rusconi Serpa  5 , Alexander Todorov  6 , Daniel Scott Schechter  1   2   7
Affiliations

Violence Exposure Is Associated With Atypical Appraisal of Threat Among Women: An EEG Study

Virginie Chloé Perizzolo Pointet et al. Front Psychol. .

Abstract

Introduction: The present study investigates the association of lifetime interpersonal violence (IPV) exposure, related posttraumatic stress disorder (IPV-PTSD), and appraisal of the degree of threat posed by facial avatars.

Methods: We recorded self-rated responses and high-density electroencephalography (HD-EEG) among women, 16 of whom with lifetime IPV-PTSD and 14 with no PTSD, during a face-evaluation task that displayed male face avatars varying in their degree of threat as rated along dimensions of dominance and trustworthiness.

Results: The study found a significant association between lifetime IPV exposure, under-estimation of dominance, and over-estimation of trustworthiness. Characterization of EEG microstates supported that lifetime IPV-PTSD modulates emotional appraisal, specifically in encoding and decoding processing associated with N170 and LPP evoked potentials. EEG source localization demonstrated an overactivation of the limbic system, in particular the parahippocampal gyrus, in response to non-threatening avatars. Additionally, dysfunctional involvement of attention-related processing anterior prefrontal cortex (aPFC) was found in response to relatively trustworthy avatars in IPV-PTSD individuals compared with non-PTSD controls.

Discussion: This study showed that IPV exposure and related PTSD modulate individuals' evaluation of facial characteristics suggesting threat. Atypical processing of these avatar characteristics was marked by group differences in brain regions linked to facial processing, emotion regulation, and memory.

Keywords: EEG neuroimaging; IPV-PTSD; face evaluation; microstates; source localization.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
The evaluation task of avatars’ faces. The task required participants to attribute a value as to how dominant/trustworthy the avatar was, on a scale from -2 to + 2. This paradigm was adapted for EEG.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Mean evaluation of avatars regarding dominance (Dominance = 1–5) (A) and trustworthiness (Trust = 1–5) (B) for each group (IPV-PTSD vs non-PTSD controls).
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Cluster analysis of the grand mean ERPs where microstates are presented in different colors, as well as their corresponding cluster-maps. (A) Microstates of the five degrees of the dominance dimension (Dominance = 1–5) and for each group, as well as corresponding topographical maps. Each evoked potential was represented by specific microstates and topographical maps (P1 = microstate Class A; N170 = microstate Classes B, C, D, E, and F; LPP = microstate Classes G and H). (B) Microstates of the five degrees of the trustworthiness dimension (Trust = 1–5) and for each group, as well as corresponding topographical maps. Each evoked potential was represented by specific microstates and topographical maps (P1 = microstate Class A; N170 = microstate Classes B, C, D, and E; LPP = microstate Classes G and H).
FIGURE 4
FIGURE 4
Fitting statistics using independent sample t-tests on number of time-frames and global explained variance (GEV) parameters. Fitting statistics were run on each degree of dominance (Dominance = 1–5) (A) and trustworthiness (Trust = 1–5) (B) dimensions and regarding each group (IPV-PTSD vs non-PTSD controls).
FIGURE 5
FIGURE 5
Source localizations analysis. (A,B) Inverse solutions conducted for non-dominant (Dominance = 1) avatars, measured in evoked potentials N170 and LPP, respectively. (C,D) Inverse solutions conducted for relatively trustworthy (Trust = 4) avatars, measured in evoked potentials N170 and LPP, respectively.
FIGURE 6
FIGURE 6
Scatter plots rank-based Spearman’s correlations between participants’ evaluation of non-dominant avatars and exposure to violent events (A) and between evaluation of relatively untrustworthy avatars and witnessing domestic violence as a child (B).
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