Investigating the effect of respiratory bodily threat on the processing of emotional pictures

•We conducted an ERP study on the influence of breathlessness on the processing of emotional pictures.•Emotional/neutral picture series were presented during resistive-load-induced breathlessness.•Auditory noise of matched intensity and an unloaded baseline served as control conditions.•Breathlessness only attenuated early ERP deflections (P1, EPN).•Breathlessness captures attention early, but does not influence later emotional processing.

It has been demonstrated that emotions can substantially impact the perception and neural processing of breathlessness, but little is known about the reverse interaction. Here, we examined the impact of breathlessness on emotional picture processing. The continuous EEG was recorded while volunteers viewed positive/neutral/negative emotional pictures under conditions of resistive-load-induced breathlessness, auditory noise, and an unloaded baseline. Breathlessness attenuated P1 and early posterior negativity (EPN) ERP amplitudes, irrespective of picture valence. Moreover, as expected, larger amplitudes for positive and negative pictures relative to neutral pictures were found for EPN and the late positive potential (LPP) ERPs, which were not affected by breathlessness. The results suggest that breathlessness impacts on the early attention-related neural processing of picture stimuli without influencing the later cognitive processing of emotional contents.