Trujillo Sandra P, Valencia Stella, Trujillo Natalia, Ugarriza Juan E, Rodríguez Mónica V, Rendón Jorge, Pineda David A, López José D, Ibañez Agustín, Parra Mario A
Doctoral Program in Psychology, Department of Experimental Psychology, Universidad de GranadaGranada, Spain.
GISAME, Facultad Nacional de Salud Pública, Universidad de Antioquia (UdeA),Medellín, Colombia.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2017 May 23;11:244. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2017.00244. eCollection 2017.
Emotional processing (EP) is crucial for the elaboration and implementation of adaptive social strategies. EP is also necessary for the expression of social cognition and behavior (SCB) patterns. It is well-known that war contexts induce socio-emotional atypical functioning, in particular for those who participate in combats. Thus, ex-combatants represent an ideal non-clinical population to explore EP modulation and to evaluate its relation with SCB. The aim of this study was to explore EP and its relation with SCB dimensions such as empathy, theory of mind and social skills in a sample of 50 subjects, of which 30 were ex-combatants from illegally armed groups in Colombia, and 20 controls without combat experience. We adapted an Emotional Recognition Task for faces and words and synchronized it with electroencephalographic recording. Ex-combatants presented with higher assertion skills and showed more pronounced brain responses to faces than Controls. They did not show the bias toward anger observed in control participants whereby the latter group was more likely to misclassify neutral faces as angry. However, ex-combatants showed an atypical word valence processing. That is, words with different emotions yielded no differences in N170 modulations. SCB variables were successfully predicted by neurocognitive variables. Our results suggest that in ex-combatants the links between EP and SCB functions are reorganized. This may reflect neurocognitive modulations associated to chronic exposure to war experiences.
情绪加工（EP）对于适应性社会策略的制定和实施至关重要。EP对于社会认知和行为（SCB）模式的表达也是必要的。众所周知，战争环境会引发社会情绪功能异常，尤其是对于参战人员而言。因此，退伍军人是探索EP调节及其与SCB关系的理想非临床人群。本研究的目的是在50名受试者样本中探索EP及其与SCB维度（如同感、心理理论和社交技能）的关系，其中30名是来自哥伦比亚非法武装组织的退伍军人，20名是没有战斗经验的对照组。我们改编了一项面部和文字情绪识别任务，并将其与脑电图记录同步。退伍军人表现出更高的表达技能，并且与对照组相比，对人脸表现出更明显的大脑反应。他们没有表现出对照组参与者中观察到的对愤怒的偏向，即后者更有可能将中性面孔误分类为愤怒面孔。然而，退伍军人表现出非典型的词汇效价加工。也就是说，具有不同情绪的词汇在N170调制上没有差异。SCB变量可以通过神经认知变量成功预测。我们的结果表明，在退伍军人中，EP和SCB功能之间的联系被重新组织。这可能反映了与长期接触战争经历相关的神经认知调节。
