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Electrical shocks to the arm elicit and inhibit startle eyeblinks

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 February 2002

TERRY D. BLUMENTHAL  and
CHARLES D. SWERDLOW
TERRY D. BLUMENTHAL
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA
CHARLES D. SWERDLOW
Affiliation:
Cedars Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, California, USA
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Abstract

The present study evaluated the ability of a weak electrical prepulse to modify startle caused by a more intense shock. Painful electrical shocks (150 V, 0.5 ms duration) were presented to the upper arm of college student participants, preceded on some trials by a weaker shock (0.5 ms duration, at perceptual threshold) at the same location. Intense shocks elicited eyeblink reflexes, and these eyeblinks were inhibited by weak electrical prepulses. These data suggest that the inclusion of prepulses immediately preceding painful therapeutic shocks, such as those generated by an implanted cardioverter-defibrillator, might be capable of reducing the startle response generated by that therapeutic shock.

Keywords

StartlePrepulseShockDefibrillator
Type
Research Article
Information
Psychophysiology , Volume 39 , Issue 2 , March 2002 , pp. 218 - 221
Copyright
2002 Society for Psychophysiological Research

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