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On a recognition test, stimuli originally encoded in the context of shock threat show an enhanced late parietal positivity during later recognition compared to stimuli encoded during safety, particularly for emotionally arousing stimuli. The present study investigated whether this ERP old/new effect is further influenced when a threat context is reinstated during the recognition test. ERPs were measured in a yes-no recognition test for words rated high or low in emotional arousal that were encoded and recognized in the context of cues that signaled threat of shock or safety. Correct recognition of words encoded under threat, irrespective of reinstatement, was associated with an enhanced old-new ERP difference (500-700ms; centro-parietal), and this difference was only reliable for emotionally arousing words. Taken together, the data suggest that information processed in a stressful context are associated with better recollection on later recognition, an effect that was not modulated by reinstating the stressful context at retrieval., (Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Previous studies demonstrated that anxiety considerably impacts the reported perceptions of respiratory sensations. A novel feature of the current study is exploring the impact of anxiety on the neural processing of respiratory sensations elicited by short inspiratory occlusions during different affective contexts. Using high-density EEG, respiratory-related evoked potentials (RREP) were recorded in 23 low and 23 matched higher anxious individuals when viewing unpleasant or neutral picture series. Low anxious individuals showed the expected pattern of reduced magnitudes of later RREP components P2 and P3 during the unpleasant compared to the neutral affective context (p<0.05 and p<0.01). In contrast, higher anxious individuals showed greater magnitudes of P2 and P3 during the unpleasant compared to the neutral affective context (p's<0.05). Moreover, higher anxiety levels were correlated with greater magnitudes for P2 (r=0.44, p<0.01) and P3 (r=0.54, p<0.001) during the unpleasant relative to the neutral affective context. Earlier components of the RREP (Nf, P1, N1) were not affected by anxiety. This study demonstrates that anxiety affects the later, higher-order neural processing of respiratory sensations, but not its earlier, first-order sensory processing. These findings might represent a neural mechanism that underlies the increased perception of respiratory sensations in anxious individuals., (Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Much research demonstrates that emotional stimuli prompt increased amygdala and visual cortical activation. Here we measure functional activity in the visual cortex and amygdala with fMRI while selected fearful and control participants view a range of neutral, emotionally arousing, and fear-relevant pictures. BOLD signal in the amygdala and inferotemporal visual cortex closely covaried during emotional picture viewing, increasing systematically with rated picture arousal. Furthermore, fearful individuals reacting to specific fear cues show parallel, heightened activation in these two structures compared with non-fearful controls. The findings suggest an individually-sensitive, positive linear relationship between the arousing quality of visual stimuli and activation in amygdala and ventral visual cortex, supporting the hypothesized functional connectivity described in the animal model.