Copyright
©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
Event-related potentials reveal hypnotherapy's impact on attention bias in social anxiety disorder
Han Zhang, Mi Zhang, Ni Li, Wen-Zhuo Wei, Lin-Xi Yang, Yong-Yi Li, Zhen-Yue Zu, Li-Jun Ma, Hui-Xue Wang, Kai Wang, Xiao-Ming Li
Han Zhang, Mi Zhang, Ni Li, Wen-Zhuo Wei, Lin-Xi Yang, Yong-Yi Li, Zhen-Yue Zu, Li-Jun Ma, Hui-Xue Wang, School of Mental Health and Psychological Science, Anhui Medical University, Hefei 230032, Anhui Province, China
Kai Wang, Institute of Artificial Intelligence, Hefei Comprehensive National Science Center, Hefei 230032, Anhui Province, China
Kai Wang, Anhui Provincial Institute of Translational Medicine, Anhui Medical University, Hefei 230032, Anhui Province, China
Xiao-Ming Li, Department of Psychiatry, Chaohu Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei 230032, Anhui Province, China
Xiao-Ming Li, Department of Medical Psychology, School of Mental Health and Psychological Science, Anhui Medical University, Hefei 230032, Anhui Province, China
Co-corresponding authors: Kai Wang and Xiao-Ming Li.
Author contributions: Wang K and Li XM contributed equally to this study as co-corresponding authors; Zhang H wrote the first draft of the manuscript; Zhang H, Zhang M, Li N, Li YY, Wei WZ, and Yang LX undertook the statistical analysis; Zhang H, Zu ZY, Ma LJ, and Wang HX collected the data; Wang K revised the manuscript; Li XM designed the study, revised the manuscript, and was responsible for management and oversight of the study; all authors contributed to and have approved the final manuscript.
Supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 82090034; the Key Laboratory of Philosophy and Social Science of Anhui Province on Adolescent Mental Health and Crisis Intelligence Intervention, No. SYS2023B08; and the Anhui Natural Science Foundation, No. 2023AH040086.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the Human Ethics Committee of the Anhui Medical University (Approval No. 2019H011).
Clinical trial registration statement: The clinical trial with the number ChiCTR1900022651 was registered in April 2019 on the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry platform, which can be accessed at the following URL:
http://www.chictr.org.cn/.
Informed consent statement: Written informed consent was obtained from all participants.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no competing interests to disclose.
CONSORT 2010 statement: The authors have read the CONSORT 2010 Statement, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the CONSORT 2010 Statement.
Data sharing statement: The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See:
https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/ Corresponding author: Xiao-Ming Li, PhD, Department of Psychiatry, Chaohu Hospital of Anhui Medical University, No. 81 Meishan Road, Shushan District, Hefei 230032, Anhui Province, China.
psyxiaoming@126.com
Received: October 22, 2024
Revised: December 24, 2024
Accepted: March 4, 2025
Published online: May 19, 2025
Processing time: 190 Days and 19.7 Hours
BACKGROUND
Exploring hypnotherapy's potential to modulate attention bias offers promising avenues for treating social anxiety disorder (SAD).
AIM
To determine if hypnotherapy can alleviate social anxiety by influencing attention bias, specifically identifying the aspects of attention processes affected by hypnosis.
METHODS
In this study, 69 SAD participants were divided into three groups based on their Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale scores: Experimental group, control group, and baseline group. The experimental group (n = 23) underwent six weekly hypnosis sessions, while the control (n = 23) and baseline groups (n = 23) received no treatment. To evaluate alterations in SAD severity and attention bias towards threatening stimuli following hypnotherapy, we employed a combination of self-report questionnaires, an odd-one-out task, and electroencephalography recordings.
RESULTS
The experimental group showed significant reductions in P1, N170, N2pc, and late positive potential (LPP) brain wave activities during attention sensitivity and disengagement conditions. This indicates that hypnotherapy modulates early-stage face processing and later-stage emotional evaluation of threat-related stimuli in SAD patients.
CONCLUSION
Our findings highlight P1, N170, N2pc, and LPP as key neural markers in SAD treatment. By identifying these neural markers influenced by hypnotherapy, we offer insight into the mechanisms by which this treatment modality impacts attentional processes, potentially easing SAD symptoms.
Core Tip: Our study rigorously investigates the utility of hypnotherapy in ameliorating the symptoms of social anxiety disorder (SAD) by focusing on the modulation of attention bias. Utilizing a rigorous methodological design, including a sample of 69 participants diagnosed with SAD, and employing electroencephalography measurements, we provide compelling evidence that hypnotherapy can significantly alter attentional processes. Specifically, we observed marked reductions in P1, N170, N2pc, and late positive potential components, which were positively correlated with symptom improvement. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first event-related potential study to investigate the effects of hypnosis on social anxiety.
