Negative Attention Bias and Processing Deficits During the Cognitive Reappraisal of Unpleasant Emotions in HIV+ Women

Deficits in emotional processing may be attributed to HIV disease or comorbid psychiatric disorders. Electrocortical markers of emotional attention, i.e., amplitude of the P2 and late positive potential (LPP), were compared between 26 HIV+ women and 25 healthy controls during an emotional regulation paradigm. HIV+ women showed early attention bias to negative stimuli indexed by greater P2 amplitude. In contrast, compared with the passive viewing of unpleasant images, HIV+ women demonstrated attenuation of the early and late LPP during positive reappraisal. This interaction remained significant after adjusting for individual differences in apathy, anxiety, and depression. Post hoc analyses implicated time since HIV diagnosis with LPP attenuation during positive reappraisal. Advancing HIV disease may disrupt neural generators associated with the cognitive reappraisal of emotions independent of psychiatric function.