BACKGROUND The hypothesis that exaggerated startle in Vietnam veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) reflects an anxiogenic response to stressful contexts was tested. METHODS Thirty-four nonmedicated Vietnam veterans with PTSD, and 17 combat and 14 civilian non-PTSD controls participated in two testing sessions over separate days. Acoustic startle stimuli were delivered alone or i...

To study affect regulation in adults with unipolar (n=38) and bipolar (n=38) forms of childhood-onset depression (COD), as compared with adults with no history of psychiatric illness (n=60), we examined affective modulation of the startle eyeblink reflex. Participants were subjected to binaural bursts of white noise while viewing pictures designed to elicit pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant affe...

Aims: An assessment of the acoustic startle response (ASR) and prepulse inhibition (PPI) of ASR in laboratory animals is used to model human anxiety and psychotic states, respectively. The aim of the study was to evaluate ASR and PPI in alcoholnaive male and female Warsaw alcohol high-preferring (WHP) and Warsaw alcohol low-preferring (WLP) rats. Methods: ASR and PPI were assessed in two separa...

This study aimed to investigate affective modulation of eye blink startle by aversive visceral stimulation. Startle blink EMG responses were measured in 31 healthy participants receiving painful, intermittent balloon distentions in the distal esophagus during 4 blocks (positive, negative, neutral or no pictures), and compared with startles during 3 'safe' blocks without esophageal stimulations ...

The acoustic startle response is a protective response, elicited by a sudden and intense acoustic stimulus. Facial and skeletal muscles are activated within a few milliseconds, leading to a whole body flinch in rodents(1). Although startle responses are reflexive responses that can be reliably elicited, they are not stereotypic. They can be modulated by emotions such as fear (fear potentiated s...

For humans, the threat of painful shock greatly potentiates the reflexive startle blink. Moreover, viewing unpleasant, compared with pleasant, pictures also prompts heightened startle reflexes, suggesting that the startle reflex indexes general defensive activation. In this study, pleasant or unpleasant pictures were used to signal shock threat in order to explore how previous affective associa...

Abstract Objective The current study examines the associations between low resting heart rate (HR), electrodermal activity (EDA), and externalizing behavior (EB) in children 1–5 years old through following measures: baseline 1 (B1) HR, startle period recovery-stage HR EDA amplitude skin conductance responses (SCR). We also investigate whether in-utero stress (exposure to Hurricane Sandy) modera...

The goal of this work was to test the involvement, in fear conditioning, of afferents to the lateral nucleus of the amygdala originating from the auditory thalamus, auditory cortex, and perirhinal area. The acoustic startle reflex was used as the behavioral index of conditioning because it is reliably enhanced in the presence of a conditioned stimulus (CS) previously paired with a footshock. Au...

Aviation remains one of the safest modes transportation. However, an inappropriate response to unexpected event can lead flight incidents and accidents. Among several contributory factors, startle surprise, which or exacerbate pilot's state stress, are often cited. Unlike has been subject much study in context driving piloting, studies on surprise less numerous these concepts sometimes used int...

Prepulse inhibition (PPI) is typically associated with an attenuation of auditory startle behavior in mammals and is presumably mediated within the brainstem startle circuit. However, the inhibitory mechanisms underlying PPI are not yet clear. We addressed this question with complementary behavioral and in vivo electrophysiological experiments in the startle escape circuit of goldfish, the Maut...