Intimate Partner Violence: Psychophysiological sensibility threshold in a Visual Emotional Task’

Researches concerning the psychological and behavioral alterations following exposure to Intimate Partner Violence, associated with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as well, represent an interesting area of analyses. The aim of this work was to study the variations of event related brain potentials (ERPs), specifically N200 and P300, related to the establishment of visual emotional stimuli in women with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder due to IPV. We administered the Beck Depression Inventory II (BDI II), Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) and a PTSD questionnaire to select a group of women recruited in a Center against Family Violence. Two categories of visual stimuli, emotional pictures with negative valence (EP) and positive and neutral pictures (NP), were presented during a decisional task, utilizing an oddball paradigm. The task was to press a button when the subject saw an emotional image. The IPV group was composed of 14 women (mean age: 39). The Control Group was composed of 14 women (mean age: 33) without PTDS or IPV nor depressive/anxiety symptomatology (measured with BDI II and BAI). Univariate ANOVAs were computed separately for each ERP component in amplitude and latency for electrode and for Lateralization. Both N200 and P300 had shown significant differences in amplitude (p<,05) and only N2 in latency as well (p<,05). IPV Group had shown a decrement in Amplitude and Latency in P300 waves. The IPV group displayed an increase in latency of N200 (p<,05) in Occipital single channels and in Left (p<,05) and Right (p<,05) position for Lateralization analysis as well. The Behavioral Result confirms an increase of Latency in RT for IPV group. The possible interpretations for these findings is that IPV Group exhibits a lower sensitivity threshold when the stimuli in question relate to negative emotional valence to stimuli, that could be an habituation in elicitation of emotional arousal.