Neurocognitive correlates of psychological resilience: Event-related potential studies

There is a growing interest in exploring the neurocognitive mechanisms that may underlie psychological resilience. However, how the bottom-up automatic information processing relates to trait resilience has received less attention. We aimed to explore the relationship between trait resilience and trait-like automatic information processing in healthy adults.

Eighty-four healthy adults were recruited to explore whether and how resilience was related to sensory sensitivity by event-related potentials (ERPs). Resilience was measured by Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC). Sensory sensitivity, more specifically, sensitivity of automatic mismatch detection was measured by two ERPs components, i.e., the mismatch negativity (MMN) with a passive auditory oddball paradigm and the error-related negativity (ERN) with an auditory Go/NoGo task. Using the multiple linear regression analyses, the relationship between self-reported resilience and the sensitivity of automatic mismatch detection (MMN/ERN amplitude/latency) was explored.

The results showed that psychological resilience was positively correlated with both MMN and ERN latencies, i.e., higher resilience scores were associated with delayed MMN and ERN latencies. However, resilience was not significantly correlated with MMN and ERN amplitudes.

Our results suggested that relatively higher resilience might link with less sensory sensitivity as reflected by slower automatic detection to mismatch information in the environment.