Latency changes in somatosensory evoked potentials related to the contextualization of hypnotic suggestions.
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Abstract
OBJECTIVE
The evaluation of the difference in latency of two somatosensory evoked potentials (SEPs) of two different verbal suggestions:
- situations where relaxation is induced by a simple verbal suggestion not described as “hypnotic” (control group, IMC).
- situations where relaxation is induced by hypnotic suggestions explicitly described as such (experimental group, IPN), is the goal on which the present study has been focused.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
A pool of participants (N=28; Male =15; Female =13) was randomly divided into two groups (IMC and IPN). After the electrodes placement (EEG montage), all participants received 200 somatosensory electrical stimulations on the left or right wrists, in two conditions, a Baseline and a Test. Before the Test condition, participants of the IMC group received suggestions related to the reduction of the somatosensory perception not explicitly contextualized as “hypnotic”, while participants of the IPN group received the same suggestions contextualized as hypnotic suggestions. Valuation of the latency of P1 and N2 potentials was made, for both phases and both sides.
RESULTS
The data collected showed that only in the IPN group, where relaxation was obtained through hypnotic techniques described and contextualized as such, was possible to observe a significantly slower latency for both potentials (P1 and N2), after stimulation of the right wrist.
CONCLUSIONS
The study results seem to suggest that the efficacy related to hypnotic suggestions significantly relies on the contextualization of the situation, where suggestions are given as “hypnotic”. This contextualization is measurable through electrophysiological dimensions such as evoked potentials’ latency.
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