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Related Experiment Video

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Using the Threat Probability Task to Assess Anxiety and Fear During Uncertain and Certain Threat
11:18

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Published on: September 12, 2014

The brain network of expectancy and uncertainty processing.

Andrés Catena1, José C Perales, Alberto Megías

  • 1Departamento de Psicología Experimental, Universidad de Granada, Granada, Spain. acatena@ugr.es

Plos One
|July 7, 2012
PubMed
Summary

The Stimulus Preceding Negativity (SPN) brain response is larger for uncertain outcomes, reflecting attempts to predict events when expectancy fails. This suggests uncertainty has a distinct physiological basis.

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Neurophysiology
  • Brain Imaging

Background:

  • The Stimulus Preceding Negativity (SPN) is a slow cortical potential linked to expectancy.
  • It's traditionally viewed as reflecting anticipatory mental representations of expected events.
  • The uncertainty hypothesis proposes SPN relates to prefrontal cortex activity during uncertain outcomes.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To test the uncertainty hypothesis regarding the SPN.
  • To investigate the relationship between stimulus predictability and SPN amplitude.
  • To explore the neural correlates of uncertainty using source localization.

Main Methods:

  • A repeated measures design was employed.
  • A Human Contingency Learning task with high and mid uncertainty conditions was used.
  • sLORETA was used for estimating brain activity.

Main Results:

  • The SPN was significantly larger for unpredictable (uncertain) outcomes compared to predictable ones.
  • sLORETA indicated involvement of prefrontal (ACC, DLPFC) and parietal areas.
  • Prefrontal activation correlated with the degree of uncertainty, while parietal activation did not.

Conclusions:

  • The SPN reflects the brain's attempt to predict outcomes when stable expectancy cannot be formed.
  • Uncertainty is proposed to be a distinct psychological and physiological state, not merely an absence of expectancy.
  • Prefrontal cortex activity is crucial for processing outcome uncertainty.