INDIVIDUAL PRECONSCIOUS AFFECTIVE BIASES TO THREATENING AND APPETITIVE FACIAL STIMULI AND CARDIOVASCULAR STRESS-REACTIVITY

Aim: to investigate cardiovascular stress-reactivity in association with individual preconscious affective biases to threatening and appetitive facial stimuli. Patients and methods: preconscious affective biases were assessed in healthy individuals (n =38, mean age M =28,10 years, 1SD =8,64) using a modified (masked) version of a pictorial emotional Stroop task (backward masking of the angry, fearful and joyful faces). Results: it was revealed that individual preconscious bias to speeded up perception of angry faces correlates significantly with heightened anxiety, lowered platelet serotonin (5-HT) levels, sustained central overactivation of at rest (as indexed by lowered delta, theta, and beta-1 EEG power over frontal, central and posterior cortical areas) and exaggerated arterial blood pressure stress-reactivity during re-experiencing of personally relevant anger. Conclusions: considering uncovered associations, individuals with preconscious bias to speeded up perception of angry faces may be regarded as having enhanced risk to fall sick with essential hypertension, yet this perceptive bias could be seen as a putative neurobehavioral predictor of the risk.