Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, University of Siegen, Siegen, Germany.
Department of Clinical Psychophysiology, Institute of Psychobiology, University of Trier, Trier, Germany.
Psychophysiology. 2023 Jul;60(7):e14254. doi: 10.1111/psyp.14254. Epub 2023 Jan 27.
Physical stress has been found to enhance arousability by visual sexual stimuli on a short-term basis, as reflected in higher phasic pupil dilation responses, probably mediated by sympathetic nervous system (SNS)-related processes. However, previous research has not addressed the specificity of this effect in terms of emotional valence, that is, whether it reflects an instance of general excitation transfer or a more specific mechanism. Thus, to further investigate changes in sexual processing after acute stress exposure, 40 male participants underwent either a predominantly sympathetic stressor (3 min sustained handgrip) or similar control procedure. After stress induction, pictures varying in valence as well as sexual versus non-sexual arousal were presented (for 5000 ms each). Using principal component analysis, pupillary responses during picture viewing were dissociated into fast and slow components (early vs. late response phases). In addition, startle eyeblink responses were elicited by bursts of white noise (50 ms, 105 dB) in half of the trials and recorded at the orbicularis oculi via electromyography. Skin conductance and heart rate were co-registered, as well. While affective startle modulation and skin conductance responses to emotional stimuli were unaffected by previous stress exposure, both evoked heart-rate deceleration (but not acceleration) and pupil responses were specifically enhanced with sexually arousing stimuli in stressed participants, and this effect was mediated by blood pressure reactivity as an index of preceding SNS activation. Taken together, our findings provide strong evidence for enhancement of sexual processing by acute stress exposure in men and suggest differential involvement of parasympathetic versus sympathetic mechanisms.
身体应激会在短期基础上增强视觉性刺激的唤起能力，这表现为更强烈的相位瞳孔扩张反应，可能是通过交感神经系统（SNS）相关过程介导的。然而，先前的研究并未涉及这种效应的情绪效价特异性，即它是否反映了一般兴奋转移的实例还是更具体的机制。因此，为了进一步研究急性应激暴露后性加工的变化，40 名男性参与者接受了主要是交感神经应激源（3 分钟持续紧握）或类似的对照程序。应激诱导后，呈现了不同效价的图片以及性唤起和非性唤起的图片（每个图片呈现 5000 毫秒）。使用主成分分析，将观看图片过程中的瞳孔反应分解为快速和慢速成分（早期和晚期反应阶段）。此外，在一半的试验中，通过白噪声（50 毫秒，105 分贝）爆发引发惊跳眨眼反应，并通过眼轮匝肌肌电图记录。皮肤电导和心率也同时记录。虽然先前的应激暴露对情感性惊跳调制和对情绪刺激的皮肤电导反应没有影响，但在应激参与者中，无论是诱发的心率减速（而非加速）还是瞳孔反应，都特别增强了性唤起刺激，并且这种效应是通过血压反应性作为先前 SNS 激活的指标来介导的。总之，我们的发现为男性急性应激暴露增强性加工提供了强有力的证据，并表明副交感神经与交感神经机制的不同参与。
