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Effects of oxazepam on affective perception, recognition, and event-related potentials

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Abstract

Background

Little is known about how rapid electrocortical responses (event-related potentials; ERPs) to affective pictures are modulated by benzodiazepine agonists. The present study investigated effects of oxazepam (20 mg p.o.) on behavioral measures and ERPs associated with affective picture processing during perception and recognition memory retrieval.

Methods

Forty-three healthy young adults were given oxazepam or placebo treatment under a double-blind experimental procedure. Affective pictures (negatively arousing or neutral) elicited ERP responses and participants rated pictures for emotionality (during incidental encoding) and recognition.

Results

Oxazepam did not affect perceptual (P1, P2) or emotional (early posterior negativity and late parietal positivity) ERPs or ratings during perception. However, oxazepam impaired recognition performance and decreased positive mid-frontal ERP component at 420–450 ms for old vs. new pictures. The memory impairment was retained at the delayed memory test.

Conclusions

Oxazepam does not selectively influence electrocortical or perceptual indexes of emotional perception or emotional memory. Rather, it blocks memory consolidation independent of valence category. These findings indicate that ERPs can be of use in assessing effects of benzodiazepines on memory-related processes.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Anders Sand for excellent assistance during the stimulus evaluation and data processing phases of the study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, 10691, Stockholm, Sweden

    Jonas K. Olofsson & Stefan Wiens

  2. Stockholm Brain Institute, Stockholm, Sweden

    Jonas K. Olofsson, Katarina Gospic, Predrag Petrovic, Martin Ingvar & Stefan Wiens

  3. Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden

    Katarina Gospic, Predrag Petrovic & Martin Ingvar

Authors
  1. Jonas K. Olofsson
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  2. Katarina Gospic
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  3. Predrag Petrovic
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  4. Martin Ingvar
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  5. Stefan Wiens
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jonas K. Olofsson.

Electronic supplementary material

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Supplementary Figure 1

ERP responses to IAPS pictures (negative and neutral) in participants treated with oxazepam (OX) and placebo (PL). Top panel shows EPN component and bottom panel shows LPP component (headplots show electrode clusters in purple). (DOC 1570 kb)

Supplementary Figure 1

Mean amplitudes (95% CI) of the EPN (upper panel) and LPP components (lower panel) during picture viewing and memory sessions (electrode cluster shown in green on headplots; note that component amplitudes are plotted as negative minus neutral condition and that components elicited by old and new stimuli are shown separately in graph). (DOC 1846 kb)

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Olofsson, J.K., Gospic, K., Petrovic, P. et al. Effects of oxazepam on affective perception, recognition, and event-related potentials. Psychopharmacology 215, 301–309 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-010-2141-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-010-2141-z

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