Neurological Damage Disrupts Normal Sex Differences in Psychophysiological Responsiveness to Music

Abstract

Men and women often display different physiological responses to emotional stimuli, and these responses can be affected by brain damage. Here, we investigated how brain damage differentially affects electrodermal responses based on sex. We studied neurologically normal, healthy adults and a sample of neurological patients. Participants listened to music, an emotional stimulus that reliably elicits skin conductance responses (SCRs). Electrodermal activity was recorded while participants listened to musical clips. When analyzing the data without regard to sex, there were no differences between healthy and brain-damaged participants in their SCRs. However, we found a significant interaction between brain injury status and sex. For men, brain damage significantly reduced SCRs. For women, there were no differences between brain-damaged participants and neurologically healthy participants. These findings illustrate the importance of including demographic variables, such as sex, when investigating brain-behavior relationships with a psychophysiological dependent variable.

Department(s)

Psychological Science

Keywords and Phrases

Cognition; Electrodermal; Emotion; Neurological; Normal

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

0048-5772

Document Type

Article - Journal

Document Version

Citation

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2016 Society for Psychophysiological Research, All rights reserved.

Publication Date

01 Jan 2016

PubMed ID

26681613

Link to Full Text

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