3463 Frontal Alpha Asymmetry in Alcohol-Related Intimate Partner Violence
Authors: Fink Brandi C 
Published: March 2019

OBJECTIVES/SPECIFIC AIMS: The current study is the first investigation of frontal alpha asymmetry in distressed violent (DV) and distressed nonviolent (DNV) partners during a placebo-controlled alcohol administration and emotion-regulation study. Because this is the first study of the pharmacological effects of alcohol on FAA, the first portion of the study was conducted to characterize alcohol effects in DV and DNV partners during the baseline condition. The subsequent portions of the study were conducted to characterize the effects of alcohol and evocative stimuli on FAA in DV and DNV partners. We hypothesized that DV partners would demonstrated greater left frontal alpha asymmetry when intoxicated and viewing evocative partner stimuli than DNV partners. Lastly, we attempted to replicate previous research that has found associations between baseline measures of FAA and the State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory – 2 (Spielberger, 1999) subscales of Trait Anger, Anger Expression-Out, Anger Expression-In, Anger Control-Out, Anger Control-In (Hewig, Hagemann, Seifert, Naumann, & Bartussek, 2004). METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: Partners in the present study were drawn from a larger study investigating over-arousal as a mechanism between alcohol use and intimate partner violence (AA022367). Couples were recruited from the community via radio, television and newspaper advertisements, and eligibility screening occurred at the couple level. Participants included in the present analysis were 23 DV partners (12 female, 11 male), and 15 DNV partners (7 female, 9 male). The mean age of the sample was 32 (SD 4.8 years, range 23-40 years). Data from two DV partners were not included in the analyses of the FAA in the emotion-regulation tasks due to movement artifacts during the alcohol condition leaving too little data for analysis. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: The expected beverage by couple type interaction did not reach significance [F (1, 36) = 3.93, p = .055], but the between-subjects effects of couple type revealed a significant difference [F (1, 36) = 4.425, p = .042]. Contrary to our hypothesis, however, these results suggest that under conditions of alcohol, DV partners evidenced significantly greater relative right frontal alpha power asymmetry whereas DNV partners evidenced greater relative left frontal alpha power asymmetry. Although there was no significant between-subjects effect, there was a nearly significant interaction between beverage type and emotion regulation condition [F = (1, 36) = 4.032, p = .052] and a significant main effect of emotion regulation condition [F (1, 36) = 7.579, p = .009]. It appears that asking the participants to “not react” to their partners’ evocative stimuli caused significantly greater right frontal alpha asymmetry. Because intimate partner violence is best understood in the context of conflict between two partners, we also examined partner-reported experiences of anger as predictors of DV participant’s FAA. The model as a whole predicted 67.4% of the variance in DV partner FAA, R squared change =.674, F Change (5, 15) = 6.21, p = .003. Three anger experience scales were statistically significant. The partner Anger Control-Out (B = -1.23, p =.001) scale recorded a higher standardized beta value and accounted for 40% of the variance in this model. Anger Control-In (B = .63, p = .022) accounted for 14% of the variance in the model, and Anger Expression-Out scale (B = .57, p = .024) accounted for 13.7% of the variance in the model. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF IMPACT: The current study is the first pharmacological study of the effects of alcohol on frontal alpha asymmetry in distressed violent and distressed nonviolent partners. Contrary to our hypothesis, under acute alcohol intoxication during the baseline condition, DV partners exhibited significantly greater relative right FAA compared to DNV partners who exhibited significantly greater relative left FAA. Because intimate partner violence is best understood in the context of couple conflict, we examined the ability of partners’ anger experiences to predict DV and DNV partners’ FAA, and a very interesting pattern emerged among our DV participants and their partners. The anger experiences of our DV participants’ partners accounted for 67% of the variance in the FAA of our DV participants when they were intoxicated and viewing evocative stimuli.