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Effects of prepulse format and lead interval on the assessment of automatic and attention-modulated prepulse inhibition

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Abstract

Prepulse inhibition (PPI) of the acoustic startle response can index automatic and attention-modulated aspects of sensorimotor gating. Automatic sensorimotor gating is typically assessed by a no-task PPI protocol in which participants are presented with discrete white noise prepulse and startle stimuli over continuous background broadband noise at brief short-lead intervals (e.g., 60–120 ms). In contrast, attention-modulated sensorimotor gating is typically assessed through a task-based PPI protocol using continuous format pure tone prepulses and white noise startle stimuli presented over an ambient background at a lead interval of 120 ms. The present study sought to test the extent that the assessment of attention-modulated PPI is dependent on prepulse type and lead interval across two experiments. Experiment 1 assessed attention effects on PPI produced by discrete prepulses at lead intervals of 60 and 120 ms. Experiment 2 examined attention effects on PPI with matched stimulus conditions apart from continuous prepulses. Results indicated that the use of discrete prepulses failed to elicit attentional-modulation of PPI and that assessment therein was dependent on the use of continuous prepulses at a lead interval of 120 ms. These results highlight additional methods to concurrently assess automatic and attention-modulated PPI in a single testing session using a task-based tone counting task.

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Funding

This study was not externally funded.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Psychology, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Kansas Medical Center, 3901 Rainbow Blvd., Kansas City, KS, 66160, USA

    Albert B. Poje

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Missouri - Kansas City, Kansas City, MO, 64110, USA

    Diane L. Filion

Authors
  1. Albert B. Poje
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  2. Diane L. Filion
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Correspondence to Albert B. Poje.

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Conflict of Interest

Authors Albert B Poje and Diane L Filion declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Handling editor: Cees van Leeuwen (KU Leuven); Reviewers: Liang Li (Peking University), Susanne Schmid (Western University).

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Poje, A.B., Filion, D.L. Effects of prepulse format and lead interval on the assessment of automatic and attention-modulated prepulse inhibition. Cogn Process 22, 559–567 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-021-01023-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-021-01023-8

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