Emotional Information Processing and Assessment of Cognitive Functions in Social Anxiety Disorder: An Event-Related Potential Study


Tetik D., Gica S., Bestepe E. E., Buyukavsar A., Gulec H.

Clinical EEG and Neuroscience, vol.53, no.2, pp.104-113, 2022 (SCI-Expanded) identifier identifier

  • Publication Type: Article / Article
  • Volume: 53 Issue: 2
  • Publication Date: 2022
  • Doi Number: 10.1177/1550059420981506
  • Journal Name: Clinical EEG and Neuroscience
  • Journal Indexes: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Scopus, Biotechnology Research Abstracts, EMBASE, MEDLINE
  • Page Numbers: pp.104-113
  • Keywords: event-related potential, facial emotion recognition, social cognition, social phobia, sustained attention, theory of mind
  • Uşak University Affiliated: Yes

Abstract

The aim of our study was to determine deficits in cognitive areas, including social cognition such as emotion recognition capacity, theory of mind, and electrophysiological alterations in patients with social anxiety disorder (SAD) and to identify their effects on clinical severity of SAD. Enrolled in our study were 26 patients diagnosed with SAD and 26 healthy volunteers. They were administered the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (LSAS), Reading Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET), and Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery. EEG monitoring was performed for electrophsiologic investigation. In the patient group, total reading the mind scores were lower (P =.027) while P300 latencies and emotion recognition latency during the Emotion Recognition Task (ERT) were longer (P =.038 and P =.012, respectively). The false alarm scores in the Rapid Visual Information Processing Task (RVP) were higher in the patient group (P =.038). In a model created using multivariate linear regression analysis, an effect of ERT and RVP scores on LSAS scores was found. Results of our study confirm that particularly impairment of cognitive functions such as sustained attention and emotion recognition may seriously affect the clinical presentation negatively. P300 latency in the parietal region may has the potential to be a biological marker that can be used in monitoring treatment.