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Fearlessness About Death is Related to Diminished Late Positive Potential Responses When Viewing Threatening and Mutilation Images in Suicidal Ideators

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Abstract

Background

Very few people who desire death by suicide ever make a suicide attempt, highlighting the importance of determining factors that influence the capability to enact lethal self-harm. One such factor is fearlessness about death, which has been found to be an important predictor of suicide attempts. Recently, longitudinal evidence found that fearlessness about death is positively associated with fluctuations in suicidal ideation. Efforts exploring biophysical mechanisms of suicide have found diminished physiological responses to threat/mutilation-related images in suicide attempters and in individuals who report being less fearful of death. These studies suggest that an individual with greater fearlessness about death may demonstrate a blunted response to threat/mutilation stimuli; however, this hypothesis has yet to be directly tested.

Methods

This study used an electroencephalography/event-related potential paradigm to examine late positive potential (LPP) amplitude differences in an adult community sample (N = 280), as well as a subsample with current suicidal ideation (n = 62), with a high rate of psychopathology (90.1%). It was hypothesized that participants with higher fearlessness about death would show diminished responses (smaller LPP amplitude) when viewing threat/mutilation images.

Results

Results indicated that participants with suicidal ideation and elevated fearlessness about death demonstrated a blunted emotional response to threat/mutilation images but similar reactions to rewarding pleasant stimuli.

Conclusions

These results suggest blunted LPP responses to threat/mutilation stimuli may be a potential biophysical mechanism for fearless about death.

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Notes

  1. Threat/Mutilation images, male participants: 1050, 1120, 1300, 1525, 3000, 3010, 3030, 3053, 3060, 3068, 3069, 3071, 3080, 3120, 3130, 3400, 6200, 6210, 6230, 6243, 6250, 6260, 6300, 6510.

    Threat/Mutilation images, female participants: 1050, 1120, 1525, 3000, 3010, 3030, 3053, 3060, 3068, 3069, 3080, 3102, 3120, 3130, 3266, 6200, 6210,6230, 6243, 6250, 6260, 6300, 6510.

    Please images, male participants: 4002, 4141, 4142, 4180,4210, 4220,4232, 4240, 4250, 4290, 4300, 4310, 4607, 4608, 4651, 4652, 4658, 4659, 4660, 4664, 4670, 4681, 4683, 4800.

    Please images, female participants: 4470, 4490, 4503, 4510, 4531, 4538, 4550, 4572, 4599, 4608, 4609, 4623, 4656, 4658, 4659, 4660, 4670, 4679, 4677, 4680, 4681, 4687, 4689, 4690.

    Neutral images: 2102, 2190, 2200, 2210, 2214, 2215, 2385, 2393, 2440, 2480, 2493, 2495, 2499, 2512, 2516, 2570, 2850, 2870, 2890, 5390, 5395, 5471, 5731, 7000, 7004, 7006, 7010, 7020, 7025, 7031, 7035, 7036, 7037, 7039,7040, 7041, 7050, 7080, 7090, 7096, 7100, 7110, 7130, 7140, 7150, 7175, 7180, 7217, 7235, 7242, 7490, 7491, 7500, 7546, 7547, 7590, 7595, 7705, 7905, 9070.

  2. The proposed analyses were also conducted using the IAPS pleasant image decrease and IAPS threat/mutilation increase LPPs, which revealed no significant findings. Because these analyses were not theoretically or empirically supported, we did not include them in the present study.

  3. Results were consistent when analyses were conducted both with and without subjects for whom channels of interest were interpolated.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the Military Suicide Research Consortium (MSRC), an effort supported by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs under Award Nos. (W81XWH-10-2-0181, W81XWH-16-2-0003). Opinions, interpretations, conclusions and recommendations are those of the authors and are not necessarily endorsed by the MSRC or the Department of Defense. This work was also in part supported by the National Institute of Health Integrated Clinical Neuroscience Training for Translational Research (4T32MH093311-05). Opinions, interpretations, conclusions and recommendations are those of the authors and are not necessarily endorsed by the National Institute of Health.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Southern Mississippi, 118 College Drive #5025, Hattiesburg, MS, 39406, USA

    Brian W. Bauer & Daniel W. Capron

  2. Department of Psychology, Auburn University, Auburn, AL, USA

    Brian J. Albanese & Richard J. Macatee

  3. Department of Psychology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, USA

    Raymond P. Tucker

  4. Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

    Edward Bernat

  5. Department of Psychology, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA

    Norman B. Schmidt

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Correspondence to Brian W. Bauer.

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Brian W. Bauer, Brian J. Albanese, Richard J. Macatee, Raymond P. Tucker, Edward Bernat, Norman B. Schmidt and Daniel W. Capron declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Bauer, B.W., Albanese, B.J., Macatee, R.J. et al. Fearlessness About Death is Related to Diminished Late Positive Potential Responses When Viewing Threatening and Mutilation Images in Suicidal Ideators. Cogn Ther Res 44, 621–635 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-020-10094-4

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