Early ERPs (N170) measures of valence, interference and stimulus type discrimination: Association to executive function and social cognition

AGUSTÍN PETRONI; HUGO URQUINA; MARIANO SIGMAN; FACUNDO MANES; AGUSTÍN IBÁÑEZ

Budapest

Encuentro; The Olympics of the Brain; 2010

International Organization of Psychophysiology (I.O.P.)

The cortical activity in response to different stimulus type and stimulus emotional valence has been studied extensively by neuroscientists. There is a substantial amount of literature describing how early cortical activity is finely modulated by changes in stimulus properties, including its emotional content. Despite this appreciable effort to understand changes in cortical activity, there is a limited knowledge about how early cortical modulations are related to more complex cognitive process. Specifically, its relation to “everyday life” cognition or measures of cognition that reflex more ecological cognitive tasks, like neuropsychological evaluation. The aim of this work is to study the association between early brain correlates of stimulus and emotional valence discrimination, and related cognitive process measured with neuropsychology; general neuropsychology, executive functions and social cognition. N170 is a neural marker of early face-selective processing modulated by emotional context, affective valence, contextual cues and emotional conflict.