Autistic traits and event-related potentials in the general population: A scoping review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: Differences in short and long-latency Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) can help us infer abnormalities in brain processing, considering early and later stages of stimuli processing across tasks and conditions. In autism research, the adult population remains largely understudied compared to samples at early stages of development. In this context, this scoping review briefly summarises what has been described in community and subclinical adult samples of autism. METHOD: The current scoping review and meta-analysis includes 50 records (N = 1652) and comprehensively explores short and long-latency ERP amplitudes and their relationship with autistic traits in adult community samples. RESULTS: This meta-analysis identified, with small to medium effect sizes, distinctive patterns in late ERP amplitudes, indicating enhanced responses to visual stimuli and the opposite patterns to auditory tasks in the included sample. Additionally, a pattern of higher amplitudes was also found for the component P3b in autistic traits. DISCUSSION: Differential effects in visual and auditory domains are explored in light of the predictive processing framework for Autism. It remains possible that different brain mechanisms operate to explain symptoms related with different sensory modalities. P3b is discussed as a possible component of interest in future studies as it revealed a more robust effect for differentiating severity in the expression of autistic traits in adulthood.

Uncertainty deconstructed: conceptual analysis and state-of-the-art review of the ERP correlates of risk and ambiguity in decision-making.

Risk and uncertainty are central concepts of decision neuroscience. However, a comprehensive review of the literature shows that most studies define risk and uncertainty in an unclear fashion or use both terms interchangeably, which hinders the integration of the existing findings. We suggest uncertainty as an umbrella term that comprises scenarios characterized by outcome variance where relevant information about the type and likelihood of outcomes may be somewhat unavailable (ambiguity) and scenarios where the likelihood of outcomes is known (risk).These conceptual issues are problematic for studies on the temporal neurodynamics of decision-making under risk and ambiguity, because they lead to heterogeneity in task design and the interpretation of the results. To assess this problem, we conducted a state-of-the-art review of ERP studies on risk and ambiguity in decision-making. By employing the above definitions to 16 reviewed studies, our results suggest that: (a) research has focused more on risk than ambiguity processing; (b) studies assessing decision-making under risk often implemented descriptive-based paradigms, whereas studies assessing ambiguity processing equally implemented descriptive- and experience-based tasks; (c) descriptive-based studies link risk processing to increased frontal negativities (e.g., N2, N400) and both risk and ambiguity to reduced parietal positivities (e.g., P2, P3); (d) experience-based studies link risk to increased P3 amplitudes and ambiguity to increased frontal negativities and the LPC component; (e) both risk and ambiguity processing seem to be related with cognitive control, conflict monitoring, and increased cognitive demand; (f) further research and improved tasks are needed to dissociate risk and ambiguity processing.

Awareness to utilitarian responses in later life: An ERP study with moral dilemmas.

The current study aims to provide the first insights into the neural correlates of utilitarian and deontological responses to moral dilemmas across the lifespan. To this purpose, younger (n = 30), middle-aged (n = 29), and older adults (n = 29) completed moral dilemmas during an EEG recording. Behaviorally, groups did not differ in the number of utilitarian responses and reaction times. However, at the neural level, older adults had higher Error Positivity (Pe) amplitudes than younger adults after utilitarian responses. As this effect was specific to utilitarian responses, it suggests that utilitarian decisions may induce increased conflict in the older group. These findings highlight that older adults may be more aware of the harmful outcomes of utilitarian decisions during moral decision-making.

Effects of Concomitant Benzodiazepines and Antidepressants Long-Term Use on Social Decision-Making: Results From the Ultimatum Game.

Benzodiazepines and antidepressants have been shown to change responses to unfairness; however, the effects of their combined use on unfairness evaluation are unknown. This study examines the effects of concomitant benzodiazepines and antidepressants long-term use on the evaluation of fair and unfair offers. To analyze behavioral changes on responses to unfairness, we compared the performance of medicated participants and healthy controls in the Ultimatum Game (UG), both in the proposer and in the respondent role. The results showed that long-term psychotropic users had the worse economic strategy by accepting less offers than control subjects. However, in the proposer role, the unfair offers made by participants were similar between groups. The present results suggest that long-term use of psychotropic medication, specifically the combination of benzodiazepines and antidepressants, may increase the sensitivity to unfairness, resulting in higher rejection rates in conditions where this strategy is the most disadvantageous.

Effects of benzodiazepines administration on identification of facial expressions of emotion: a meta-analysis.

RATIONALE: Benzodiazepines, a class of commonly prescribed drugs, were shown to cause cognitive impairments in several domains. However, the effect of benzodiazepines on social cognition is still unclear. OBJECTIVES: In order to clarify how benzodiazepines administration affects the identification of facial expressions of emotion (FEE), we conducted a meta-analysis of 8 empirical studies (N = 153 benzodiazepines, N = 153 placebo). RESULTS: Results showed that participants receiving benzodiazepines were less accurate at identifying facial expressions of anger compared with those receiving placebo (M = - 0.52). Regarding the remaining facial expressions, the meta-analysis did not reveal significant differences between the groups. CONCLUSIONS: We discuss several factors that may explain the differences in the identification of emotions in facial expressions associated with benzodiazepines administration. Additionally, the relevance of assessing the effects of benzodiazepines when used on a long-term basis is addressed.

N2 amplitude modulation across the antisocial spectrum: a meta-analysis.

Despite the accumulated knowledge on antisocial behavior and the positive event-related potential peaking around 300 ms (P3), less is known about the preceding negative electrophysiological response around 200 ms (N2). A systematic search of the literature was conducted to analyze the N2 modulation across the antisocial spectrum. Thirty-seven studies (n = 1199) were retrieved to the quantitative analysis. Reduced N2 amplitudes were found in the more severe antisocial manifestations (violent behavior and antisocial personality disorder), which is consistent with previous findings on P3 alterations and N2 reduced amplitudes in externalizing disorders. Findings on psychopathy were mixed, also in accordance with previous P3 results. From a dimensional lens, this supports the heterogeneity of the psychopathic personality structure: impulsivity features are a closer attribute of antisocial behavior and thus may be associated with N2 reduction, while adaptive psychopathic traits may be associated with intact (or even increased) N2 amplitude. The increased N2 amplitudes observed in impulsive behavior challenge, however, the previous meta-analytic findings. As most of the studies on impulsivity include subclinical samples, it leads to the hypothesis that some compensatory mechanisms can still occur at a subclinical level, reflecting the need for heightened allocation of brain resources to yield similar performances. Importantly, inhibition was the core deficit to explain N2 blunted amplitudes, alongside with deficits in the frontal brain region. From our findings, the reduction in P3 amplitude across the antisocial spectrum may be detected in the previous N2 time window.