Mistakes that Harm Others: Error-Related Brain Activations of Healthy Individuals with High and Low Obsessive-Compulsive Symptoms

Humans are equipped with performance monitoring mechanisms rooted at the neural levels that allow monitoring actions and correcting deviations from intended states. One performance monitoring process, the error-related negativity (ERN), consists of a negative deflection that peaks around 50-70ms after a mistake is made. ERN abnormalities have been observed in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Hence, enhanced ERN amplitudes have been proposed as an endophenotype for OCD. The present study consists of a between- and within-groups design aimed to investigate the relationship between obsessive-compulsive symptoms (OC; as measured by the OCI-R questionnaire) and the ERN amplitudes of healthy participants while immersed in two different social contexts (i.e., harmful vs. non-harmful condition). The experiment utilizes a novel social variant of the Flanker’s task, the error responsibility task (ERT), where the participants were informed that a confederate would hear either...Show moreHumans are equipped with performance monitoring mechanisms rooted at the neural levels that allow monitoring actions and correcting deviations from intended states. One performance monitoring process, the error-related negativity (ERN), consists of a negative deflection that peaks around 50-70ms after a mistake is made. ERN abnormalities have been observed in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Hence, enhanced ERN amplitudes have been proposed as an endophenotype for OCD. The present study consists of a between- and within-groups design aimed to investigate the relationship between obsessive-compulsive symptoms (OC; as measured by the OCI-R questionnaire) and the ERN amplitudes of healthy participants while immersed in two different social contexts (i.e., harmful vs. non-harmful condition). The experiment utilizes a novel social variant of the Flanker’s task, the error responsibility task (ERT), where the participants were informed that a confederate would hear either a harmful or non-harmful sound when they commit a mistake. 24 healthy participants (N=24) with high (n=11) and low OC (n=13) symptoms performed the ERT while their event-related potentials were measured. A general linear repeated measures model was utilized for analysis. Three hypotheses were studied: (1) the high OC trait group will exhibit enhanced ERNs overall (p=.975), (2) enhanced ERNs will be observed for harmful vs. non-harmful mistakes (p=.057), (3) high scorers will display enhanced ERNs from non-harmful to harmful mistakes (p=.706). The findings highlight the importance of conducting ERN research in social contexts and methodological limitations and future directions are discussed.Show less

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Mistakes that Harm Others: Error-Related Brain Activations of Healthy Individuals with High and Low Obsessive-Compulsive Symptoms