Effect of Emotional Valence on Working Memory of Psychogenic Non-Epileptic Seizures (PNES) Patients

Priyesh K Singh; Rameshwar Nath Chaurasia; Sujeet Pratap; Trayambak Tiwari; Vijay N Mishra; Tara Singh

doi:10.1055/s-0042-1744557

Effect of Emotional Valence on Working Memory of Psychogenic Non-Epileptic Seizures (PNES) Patients

J Neurosci Rural Pract. 2022 Aug 7;13(3):521-524. doi: 10.1055/s-0042-1744557. eCollection 2022 Jul.

Authors

Priyesh K Singh¹, Rameshwar Nath Chaurasia², Sujeet Pratap³, Trayambak Tiwari³, Vijay N Mishra², Tara Singh³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychology, Banasthali Vidyapith, Tonk, Rajasthan, India.
² Department of Neurology, Institute of Medical Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India.
³ Department of Psychology, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India.

Abstract

Background The present study investigated how emotional valence influenced the working memory of patients with psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES) as compared to healthy individuals. Methods Emotional-N-Back task (E-N-back task) was administered to 15 PNES patients and equal number of healthy individuals. A 2 × 3 one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used. Correct detection (accuracy) and reaction (RT) time were recorded as behavioral performance measures. Results The ANOVA result of correct detection (accuracy) measure revealed significant difference in the performance of patients with PNES as compared with healthy individual, F (2, 48) = 17.08, p = 0.001. However, on the measure of reaction time (RT), both groups performed equally and there was no significant difference, F (2, 48) = 1.13, p = 0.33. Also the results of present study showed that patients with PNES are quicker in identifying unpleasant picture stimuli, which is evident from their mean comparison: unpleasant ( M = 65.55, SD = 15.66), pleasant ( M = 58.22, SD = 20.03), and neutral ( M = 45.11, SD = 23.13). Conclusion Conclusively, the finding of the present study shows a significant effect of emotional valence on working memory of patients with PNES on the measure of correct detection (accuracy), but not for second measure, i.e., reaction time this clearly reveals that patients with PNES are poor at emotional-cognitive integration, specifically at working memory level.

Keywords: E-N-back task; PNES; valence; working memory.

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Grants and funding

Funding This study was funded by the UGC Research Fellowship. The Authors wish to acknowledge the partial financial support received from the Banaras Hindu University an Institution of Eminence vide Development Scheme No.6031 towards conducting this research.