Emotional and Attentional Bias in Fibromyalgia: A Pilot ERP Study of the Dot-Probe Task

Introduction: The present research investigates the neural correlates of attentional bias in fibromyalgia (FM) with a dot-probe task performed during an electroencephalogram (EEG) recording. Methods: For this purpose, 30 female participants were recruited, divided into two groups: a group of patients with FM (FM, n = 15, M = 51.87) and a healthy control group (HC) (HC, n = 15, M = 46.13). Results: The results did not show behavioral differences between groups, but the EEG results showed that healthy controls had larger P300 amplitudes than patients with FM. Regarding late positive potentials (LPP), we found that patients with FM had larger amplitudes than healthy controls in a later time window. Conclusion: In summary, while the P300 results suggest that patients allocate less attentional resources to the task, the increased amplitudes of their LPP suggest augmented emotional processing of the target stimuli. Altogether, our results seem to support the thesis of generalized attentional deficits in FM.