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CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 · International Journal of Epilepsy 2025; 11(01): 033-039
DOI: 10.1055/s-0045-1802599
Original Article

Perceptual Sensitivity of Psychogenic Nonepileptic Seizure (PNES) Patients

Priyesh Kumar Singh 
1   Department of Cognitive Sciences and Psychology, School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Kollam, Kerala, India
› Author Affiliations
Funding This study was funded by the UGC Research Fellowship. The author wish to acknowledge the partial financial support received from the Banaras Hindu University an Institution of Eminence vide Development Scheme No. 6031 toward conducting this research.
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Abstract

Aim The aim of the present study was assess the perceptual sensitivity of psychogenic nonepileptic seizure (PNES) patients. Secondarily, we also aimed to replicate previous findings and explore whether PNES patients exhibit tendencies of preattentiveness in response to unpleasant stimulus.

Materials and Methods A total of 56 individuals were selected for the present research, from which 28 were PNES patients and 28 healthy individuals. A 2 × 3 design was used for the present study. The emotional-N-back paradigm was used for presenting stimuli. Perceptual sensitivity (d') was calculated on the basis of hits and false positives.

Result The result of analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed significant distinction between PNES and healthy individuals on perceptual sensitivity (d') measure (F(1, 50) = 19.11, p = 0.000). Similarly, result of ANOVA (F(2, 100) = 63.64, p = 0.000) for within-group valence showed a significant difference between pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral stimuli among PNES and healthy individuals ensuring a clear distinction between them.

Conclusion These findings suggest a notable disparity in perceptual sensitivity between PNES and healthy individuals, supporting the notion that individual with PNES experience emotional disturbance and possess a dysfunctional cognitive-affective system. Moreover, the result lends credence to the hypothesis that PNES patients are more responsive to unpleasant emotions than to pleasant or neutral ones.

Keywords

PNES - perceptual sensitivity - valence - pathology - IAPS

Biographical Statement

Dr. Priyesh Kumar Singh has been working as an Assistant Professor in Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham and is a registered counselor at the National Career Service (NCS), MHRD Government of India. His doctoral research work has been a collaborative study with Department of Neurology, Institute of Medical Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India. He has published several articles in journal of repute. His research area includes health psychology and cognitive psychology. He has more than 10 publications to his name indexed in Scopus and Web of Science. Link of his two best publications are provided below:


Paper 1: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2772632024000242


Paper 2: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9357501/#:~:text=Conclusion%20Conclusively%2C%20the%20finding%20of,are%20poor%20at%20emotional%E2%80%93cognitive




Publication History

Article published online:
12 February 2025

© 2025. Indian Epilepsy Society. This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

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