Award Date
5-15-2026
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Psychology
First Committee Member
Stephen Benning
Second Committee Member
Kimberly Barchard
Third Committee Member
Joel Snyder
Fourth Committee Member
Jing Nong Liang
Number of Pages
108
Abstract
Prepulse inhibition is a neurological pre-conscious sensorimotor gating mechanism by which a softer auditory sound (or prepulse) preceding a startle probe (or pulse) and subsequently reduce the magnitude of the startle blink reflex. Prepulse inhibition is deficient in many psychological disorders where emotion is a central component; however, emotion has been scarcely examined with prepulse inhibition in human studies. The current study is a systematic review that examines three databases (APA PSYCInfo, Pub Med, and CINAHL) to examine how state and trait emotion (such as happiness, sadness, anger, disgust) is related to prepulse inhibition within human subjects. The initial search yielded 3,285 records; 22 records were included, consisting of 12 experimental and 6 non-experimental studies. Experimental studies included emotional manipulations of stress, psychopharmacological manipulations, direct emotional modulation using affective images and videos, and conditioning of the prepulse. Non-experimental studies primarily consisted of trait anxiety groups. Active emotional manipulations (psychological and physical stress induction) were more efficient in changing emotion and prepulse inhibition compared to passive emotional manipulation (observation of images and pictures). A meta-analysis of the non-experimental studies demonstrated that prepulse inhibition is reduced in high trait anxiety groups compared to low trait anxiety groups.
Keywords
prepulse inhibition; sensorimotor gating; startle blink reflex; emotion
Disciplines
Applied Behavior Analysis | Psychology | Social and Behavioral Sciences
File Format
File Size
823 KB
Degree Grantor
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Language
English
Repository Citation
Le, Jennifer U., "Prepulse Inhibition and Emotion: A Systematic Review" (2026). UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones. 5573.
https://oasis.library.unlv.edu/thesesdissertations/5573
Rights
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