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Tomasino B, Maggioni E, Piani MC, Bonivento C, D'Agostini S, Balestrieri M, Brambilla P. The mental simulation of state/psychological stimuli in anxiety disorders: A 3T fMRI study. J Affect Disord 2024; 345:435-442. [PMID: 37852592 DOI: 10.1016/j.jad.2023.10.079] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/23/2023] [Revised: 09/08/2023] [Accepted: 10/09/2023] [Indexed: 10/20/2023]
Abstract
Mental imagery plays an important role in cognitive and emotional processes, therefore it might contribute to psychopathology in affective disorders. Distressive intrusive imagery is a core feature of anxiety disorders, but the underlying neurobiology remains unexplored. Here, we examined the functional brain mechanisms involved in state/psychological imagery in individuals with anxiety disorders. Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) was used to assess the brain circuits involved in state/psychological (vs. action) imagery controlled by letter detection on the same stimuli in 33 individuals with anxiety disorders relative to 33 healthy controls. Patients were faster than controls in processing state/psychological stimuli and in general in the imagery task. We found that the left superior frontal gyrus was differentially activated by the state/psychological (vs. action) imagery (vs. letter detection) in the anxious individuals vs. healthy controls. We suggest that this area, which is involved in processing of state/psychological semantic information, appears deregulated during imagery in subjects with anxiety disorders. Our study provided the first evidence of both behavioral and brain functional alterations during imagery, highlighting a key role of the left superior frontal gyrus.
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Affiliation(s)
- Barbara Tomasino
- Scientific Institute IRCCS "Eugenio Medea", Dipartimento/Unità Operativa Pasian di Prato, Udine, Italy.
| | - Eleonora Maggioni
- Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy; Dept. of Neurosciences and Mental Health, Fondazione IRCCS Ca' Granda Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico, Milan, Italy
| | - Maria Chiara Piani
- Translational Research Center, University Hospital of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy Bern UPD, Bern, Switzerland; Graduate School of Health Sciences, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
| | - Carolina Bonivento
- Scientific Institute IRCCS "Eugenio Medea", Dipartimento/Unità Operativa Pasian di Prato, Udine, Italy
| | - Serena D'Agostini
- Neuroradiology, Azienda Sanitaria Universitaria Friuli Centrale, ASU FC, Italy
| | - Matteo Balestrieri
- Psychiatry Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Udine, 33100 Udine, Italy
| | - Paolo Brambilla
- Dept. of Neurosciences and Mental Health, Fondazione IRCCS Ca' Granda Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico, Milan, Italy; Dept. of Pathophysiology and Transplantation, University of Milan, Milan, Italy
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2
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Shen J, Kim WS, Tsogt U, Odkhuu S, Liu C, Kang NI, Lee KH, Sui J, Kim SW, Chung YC. Neuronal signatures of anger and fear in patients with psychosis. Psychiatry Res Neuroimaging 2023; 333:111658. [PMID: 37192564 DOI: 10.1016/j.pscychresns.2023.111658] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/24/2022] [Revised: 03/08/2023] [Accepted: 04/27/2023] [Indexed: 05/18/2023]
Abstract
The present study investigated the functional neuroanatomy in response to sentence stimuli related to anger-provoking situations and fear of negative evaluation in patients with psychosis. The tasks consisted of four active conditions, Self-Anger (SA), Self-Fear, Other-Anger (OA), and Other-Fear (OF), and two neutral conditions, Neutral-Anger (NA) and Neutral-Fear (NF). Several relevant clinical measures were obtained. Under all contrasts, significantly higher activation in the left inferior parietal gyrus or superior parietal gyrus and the left middle occipital gyrus or superior occipital gyrus was observed in patients compared to healthy controls (HCs). However, we observed significantly lower activation in the left angular gyrus (AG) and left middle temporal gyrus (MTG) under the OA vs. NA contrast, as well as in the left precuneus and left posterior cingulate gyrus (PCG) under the OF vs. NF contrast in patients. The mean beta values for the significant regions under the SA vs. NA and OF vs. NF contrasts were significantly associated with the total PI and PANSS scores, respectively. These findings indicate that patients with psychosis exhibit hypoactivation in the AG, MTG, precuneus, and PCG compared to HCs. The findings suggest that patients with psychosis are less efficient at recruiting neural responses in those regions for semantic processing and social evaluation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jie Shen
- Department of Psychiatry, Jeonbuk National University, Medical School, Jeonju, Korea
| | - Woo-Sung Kim
- Department of Psychiatry, Jeonbuk National University, Medical School, Jeonju, Korea
| | - Uyanga Tsogt
- Department of Psychiatry, Jeonbuk National University, Medical School, Jeonju, Korea
| | - Soyolsaikhan Odkhuu
- Department of Psychiatry, Jeonbuk National University, Medical School, Jeonju, Korea
| | - Congcong Liu
- Center for Mental Health Education, Qingdao Institute of Technology, Shandong, China
| | - Nam-In Kang
- Department of Psychiatry, Maeumsarang Hospital, Wanju, Jeollabuk-do, Korea
| | - Keon-Hak Lee
- Department of Psychiatry, Maeumsarang Hospital, Wanju, Jeollabuk-do, Korea
| | - Jing Sui
- State Key Lab of Brain Science and Learning at Beijing Normal University, China
| | - Sung-Wan Kim
- Department of Psychiatry, Chonnam National University Medical School, Gwangju, Republic of Korea
| | - Young-Chul Chung
- Department of Psychiatry, Jeonbuk National University Hospital, Jeonju, Republic of Korea; Research Institute of Clinical Medicine of Jeonbuk National University-Biomedical Research Institute of Jeonbuk National University Hospital, Jeonju, Korea.
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3
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Ghomroudi PA, Scaltritti M, Grecucci A. Decoding reappraisal and suppression from neural circuits: A combined supervised and unsupervised machine learning approach. COGNITIVE, AFFECTIVE & BEHAVIORAL NEUROSCIENCE 2023:10.3758/s13415-023-01076-6. [PMID: 36977965 PMCID: PMC10400700 DOI: 10.3758/s13415-023-01076-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 02/06/2023] [Indexed: 03/30/2023]
Abstract
Emotion regulation is a core construct of mental health and deficits in emotion regulation abilities lead to psychological disorders. Reappraisal and suppression are two widely studied emotion regulation strategies but, possibly due to methodological limitations in previous studies, a consistent picture of the neural correlates related to the individual differences in their habitual use remains elusive. To address these issues, the present study applied a combination of unsupervised and supervised machine learning algorithms to the structural MRI scans of 128 individuals. First, unsupervised machine learning was used to separate the brain into naturally grouping grey matter circuits. Then, supervised machine learning was applied to predict individual differences in the use of different strategies of emotion regulation. Two predictive models, including structural brain features and psychological ones, were tested. Results showed that a temporo-parahippocampal-orbitofrontal network successfully predicted the individual differences in the use of reappraisal. Differently, insular and fronto-temporo-cerebellar networks successfully predicted suppression. In both predictive models, anxiety, the opposite strategy, and specific emotional intelligence factors played a role in predicting the use of reappraisal and suppression. This work provides new insights regarding the decoding of individual differences from structural features and other psychologically relevant variables while extending previous observations on the neural bases of emotion regulation strategies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Parisa Ahmadi Ghomroudi
- Clinical and Affective Neuroscience Lab, Department of Psychology and Cognitive Sciences - DiPSCo, University of Trento, Rovereto, Italy.
| | - Michele Scaltritti
- Clinical and Affective Neuroscience Lab, Department of Psychology and Cognitive Sciences - DiPSCo, University of Trento, Rovereto, Italy
| | - Alessandro Grecucci
- Clinical and Affective Neuroscience Lab, Department of Psychology and Cognitive Sciences - DiPSCo, University of Trento, Rovereto, Italy
- Center for Medical Sciences - CISMed, University of Trento, Trento, Italy
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4
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Caballero C, Nook EC, Gee DG. Managing fear and anxiety in development: A framework for understanding the neurodevelopment of emotion regulation capacity and tendency. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 2023; 145:105002. [PMID: 36529313 DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2022.105002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/21/2022] [Revised: 11/23/2022] [Accepted: 12/12/2022] [Indexed: 12/16/2022]
Abstract
How we manage emotional responses to environmental threats is central to mental health, as difficulties regulating threat-related distress can blossom into symptoms of anxiety disorders. Given that anxiety disorders emerge early in the lifespan, it is crucial we understand the multi-level processes that support effective regulation of distress. Scholars have given increased attention to behavioral and neural development of emotion regulation abilities, particularly cognitive reappraisal capacity (i.e., how strongly one can down-regulate negative affect by reinterpreting a situation to change one's emotions). However, this work has not been well integrated with research on regulatory tendency (i.e., how often one spontaneously regulates emotion in daily life). Here, we review research on the development of both emotion regulation capacity and tendency. We then propose a framework for testing hypotheses and eventually constructing a neurodevelopmental model of both dimensions of emotion regulation. Clarifying how the brain supports both effective and frequent regulation of threat-related distress across development is crucial to identifying multi-level signs of dysregulation and developing interventions that support youth mental health.
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Affiliation(s)
- Camila Caballero
- Department of Psychology, Yale University, Kirtland Hall, 2 Hillhouse Ave, New Haven, CT 06520, USA
| | - Erik C Nook
- Department of Psychology, Yale University, Kirtland Hall, 2 Hillhouse Ave, New Haven, CT 06520, USA
| | - Dylan G Gee
- Department of Psychology, Yale University, Kirtland Hall, 2 Hillhouse Ave, New Haven, CT 06520, USA.
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5
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Alexandra Kredlow M, Fenster RJ, Laurent ES, Ressler KJ, Phelps EA. Prefrontal cortex, amygdala, and threat processing: implications for PTSD. Neuropsychopharmacology 2022; 47:247-259. [PMID: 34545196 PMCID: PMC8617299 DOI: 10.1038/s41386-021-01155-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 73] [Impact Index Per Article: 36.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/16/2021] [Revised: 08/03/2021] [Accepted: 08/06/2021] [Indexed: 02/08/2023]
Abstract
Posttraumatic stress disorder can be viewed as a disorder of fear dysregulation. An abundance of research suggests that the prefrontal cortex is central to fear processing-that is, how fears are acquired and strategies to regulate or diminish fear responses. The current review covers foundational research on threat or fear acquisition and extinction in nonhuman animals, healthy humans, and patients with posttraumatic stress disorder, through the lens of the involvement of the prefrontal cortex in these processes. Research harnessing advances in technology to further probe the role of the prefrontal cortex in these processes, such as the use of optogenetics in rodents and brain stimulation in humans, will be highlighted, as well other fear regulation approaches that are relevant to the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder and involve the prefrontal cortex, namely cognitive regulation and avoidance/active coping. Despite the large body of translational research, many questions remain unanswered and posttraumatic stress disorder remains difficult to treat. We conclude by outlining future research directions related to the role of the prefrontal cortex in fear processing and implications for the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder.
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Affiliation(s)
- M. Alexandra Kredlow
- grid.38142.3c000000041936754XDepartment of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA USA
| | - Robert J. Fenster
- grid.38142.3c000000041936754XDivision of Depression and Anxiety, McLean Hospital; Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, MA USA
| | - Emma S. Laurent
- grid.38142.3c000000041936754XDepartment of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA USA
| | - Kerry J. Ressler
- grid.38142.3c000000041936754XDivision of Depression and Anxiety, McLean Hospital; Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, MA USA
| | - Elizabeth A. Phelps
- grid.38142.3c000000041936754XDepartment of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA USA
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6
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Desai RH, Reilly M, van Dam W. The multifaceted abstract brain. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2019; 373:rstb.2017.0122. [PMID: 29914991 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2017.0122] [Citation(s) in RCA: 58] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 05/11/2018] [Indexed: 12/13/2022] Open
Abstract
concepts play a central role in human behaviour and constitute a critical component of the human conceptual system. Here, we investigate the neural basis of four types of abstract concepts, examining their similarities and differences through neuroimaging meta-analyses. We examine numerical and emotional concepts, and two higher-order abstract processes, morality judgements and theory of mind. Three main findings emerge. First, representation of abstract concepts is more widespread than is often assumed. Second, representations of different types of abstract concepts differ in important respects. Each of the domains examined here was associated with some unique areas. Third, some areas were commonly activated across domains and included inferior parietal, posterior cingulate and medial prefrontal cortex. We interpret these regions in terms of their role in episodic recall, event representation and social-emotional processing. We suggest that different types of abstract concepts can be represented and grounded through differing contributions from event-based, interoceptive, introspective and sensory-motor representations. The results underscore the richness and diversity of abstract concepts, argue against single-mechanism accounts for representation of all types of abstract concepts and suggest mechanisms for their direct and indirect grounding.This article is part of the theme issue 'Varieties of abstract concepts: development, use and representation in the brain'.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rutvik H Desai
- Department of Psychology, Institute for Mind and Brain, University of South Carolina, 220 Discovery Building, 915 Greene St., Columbia, SC 29208, USA
| | - Megan Reilly
- Department of Psychology, Institute for Mind and Brain, University of South Carolina, 220 Discovery Building, 915 Greene St., Columbia, SC 29208, USA
| | - Wessel van Dam
- Department of Psychology, Institute for Mind and Brain, University of South Carolina, 220 Discovery Building, 915 Greene St., Columbia, SC 29208, USA
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7
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Auditory attention enhances processing of positive and negative words in inferior and superior prefrontal cortex. Cortex 2017; 96:31-45. [PMID: 28961524 DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2017.08.018] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/05/2016] [Revised: 03/07/2017] [Accepted: 08/08/2017] [Indexed: 11/20/2022]
Abstract
Visually presented emotional words are processed preferentially and effects of emotional content are similar to those of explicit attention deployment in that both amplify visual processing. However, auditory processing of emotional words is less well characterized and interactions between emotional content and task-induced attention have not been fully understood. Here, we investigate auditory processing of emotional words, focussing on how auditory attention to positive and negative words impacts their cerebral processing. A Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study manipulating word valence and attention allocation was performed. Participants heard negative, positive and neutral words to which they either listened passively or attended by counting negative or positive words, respectively. Regardless of valence, active processing compared to passive listening increased activity in primary auditory cortex, left intraparietal sulcus, and right superior frontal gyrus (SFG). The attended valence elicited stronger activity in left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and left SFG, in line with these regions' role in semantic retrieval and evaluative processing. No evidence for valence-specific attentional modulation in auditory regions or distinct valence-specific regional activations (i.e., negative > positive or positive > negative) was obtained. Thus, allocation of auditory attention to positive and negative words can substantially increase their processing in higher-order language and evaluative brain areas without modulating early stages of auditory processing. Inferior and superior frontal brain structures mediate interactions between emotional content, attention, and working memory when prosodically neutral speech is processed.
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8
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Hardee JE, Cope LM, Munier EC, Welsh RC, Zucker RA, Heitzeg MM. Sex differences in the development of emotion circuitry in adolescents at risk for substance abuse: a longitudinal fMRI study. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 2017; 12:965-975. [PMID: 28338724 PMCID: PMC5472107 DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsx021] [Citation(s) in RCA: 31] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/07/2016] [Revised: 01/24/2017] [Accepted: 02/13/2017] [Indexed: 01/09/2023] Open
Abstract
There is substantial evidence for behavioral sex differences in risk trajectories for alcohol and substance use, with internalizing factors such as negative affectivity contributing more to female risk. Because the neural development of emotion circuitry varies between males and females across adolescence, it represents a potential mechanism by which underlying neurobiology contributes to risk for substance use. Longitudinal functional magnetic resonance imaging was conducted in males and females (n = 18 each) with a family history of alcohol use disorders starting at ages 8-13 years. Participants performed an affective word task during functional magnetic resonance imaging at 1- to 2-year intervals, covering the age range of 8.5-17.6 years (3-4 scans per participant). Significant age-related sex differences were found in the right amygdala and right precentral gyrus for the negative vs neutral word condition. Males showed a significant decrease in both amygdala and precentral gyrus activation with age, whereas the response in females persisted. The subjective experience of internalizing symptomatology significantly increased with age for females but not for males. Taken together, these results reveal sex differences in negative affect processing in at-risk adolescents, and offer longitudinal neural evidence for female substance use risk through internalizing pathways.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jillian E. Hardee
- Department of Psychiatry
- Addiction Center, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
| | - Lora M. Cope
- Department of Psychiatry
- Addiction Center, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
| | - Emily C. Munier
- Department of Psychiatry
- Addiction Center, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
| | - Robert C. Welsh
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA
| | - Robert A. Zucker
- Department of Psychiatry
- Addiction Center, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
| | - Mary M. Heitzeg
- Department of Psychiatry
- Addiction Center, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
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9
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Gawda B, Szepietowska E, Soluch P, Wolak T. Valence of Affective Verbal Fluency: fMRI Studies on Neural Organization of Emotional Concepts Joy and Fear. JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLINGUISTIC RESEARCH 2017; 46:731-746. [PMID: 27885501 DOI: 10.1007/s10936-016-9462-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/06/2023]
Abstract
The present study was designed to examine the underlying brain mechanisms of positive and negative emotional verbal fluency. Three verbal fluency tasks (one non-emotional phonemic task, two emotional tasks: Joy and Fear) were used in this study. The results were analyzed for 35 healthy, Polish-speaking, right-handed adults aged 20-35. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (3T) was used to show brain activity during active participation in emotional verbal fluency tasks. The results reported for emotional fluency confirmed activation of different brain regions for the negative and positive emotional verbal fluency: in positive emotional verbal fluency Joy elicits greater activation in the frontal regions and the cingulate cortex, while in negative verbal fluency Fear is reflected in activation of parietal and temporal areas. The study provides an evidence for differentiation in neural mechanisms between positive and negative emotional verbal fluency and/or positive and negative retrieving processes, and differentiation in brain-related determinants of the emotional concepts organization.
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Affiliation(s)
- Barbara Gawda
- Department of Psychology of Emotion and Cognition, Institute of Psychology, University of Maria Curie Sklodowska, Plac Litewski 5, 20-080, Lublin, Poland.
| | - Ewa Szepietowska
- Department of Clinical Psychology and Neuropsychology, University of Maria Curie-Sklodowska, Plac Litewski 5, 20-080, Lublin, Poland
| | - Pawel Soluch
- Neuro Device Group Ltd, Plowiecka Street 1, 94-501, Warsaw, Poland
| | - Tomasz Wolak
- Institute of Physiology and Pathology of Hearing, Bioimaging Research Center, Mokra street 17, 05-830, Kajetany, Poland
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10
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Song S, Zilverstand A, Song H, d'Oleire Uquillas F, Wang Y, Xie C, Cheng L, Zou Z. The influence of emotional interference on cognitive control: A meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies using the emotional Stroop task. Sci Rep 2017; 7:2088. [PMID: 28522823 PMCID: PMC5437037 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-02266-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 57] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/30/2016] [Accepted: 04/10/2017] [Indexed: 12/15/2022] Open
Abstract
The neural correlates underlying the influence of emotional interference on cognitive control remain a topic of discussion. Here, we assessed 16 neuroimaging studies that used an emotional Stroop task and that reported a significant interaction effect between emotion (stimulus type) and cognitive conflict. There were a total of 330 participants, equaling 132 foci for an activation likelihood estimation (ALE) analysis. Results revealed consistent brain activation patterns related to emotionally-salient stimuli (as compared to emotionally-neutral trials) during cognitive conflict trials [incongruent trials (with task-irrelevant information interfering), versus congruent/baseline trials (less disturbance from task-irrelevant information)], that span the lateral prefrontal cortex (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and inferior frontal gyrus), the medial prefrontal cortex, and the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex. Comparing mild emotional interference trials (without semantic conflict) versus intense emotional interference trials (with semantic conflict), revealed that while concurrent activation in similar brain regions as mentioned above was found for intense emotional interference trials, activation for mild emotional interference trials was only found in the precentral/postcentral gyrus. These data provide evidence for the potential neural mechanisms underlying emotional interference on cognitive control, and further elucidate an important distinction in brain activation patterns for different levels of emotional conflict across emotional Stroop tasks.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sensen Song
- Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, 400715, China
| | - Anna Zilverstand
- Department of Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, 10029, USA
| | - Hongwen Song
- School of Humanities and Social Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, China
| | | | - Yongming Wang
- Sino-Danish College, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Chao Xie
- Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, 400715, China
| | - Li Cheng
- Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China.
| | - Zhiling Zou
- Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, 400715, China.
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Castelluccio BC, Myers EB, Schuh JM, Eigsti IM. Neural Substrates of Processing Anger in Language: Contributions of Prosody and Semantics. JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLINGUISTIC RESEARCH 2016; 45:1359-1367. [PMID: 26645465 DOI: 10.1007/s10936-015-9405-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/05/2023]
Abstract
Emotions are conveyed primarily through two channels in language: semantics and prosody. While many studies confirm the role of a left hemisphere network in processing semantic emotion, there has been debate over the role of the right hemisphere in processing prosodic emotion. Some evidence suggests a preferential role for the right hemisphere, and other evidence supports a bilateral model. The relative contributions of semantics and prosody to the overall processing of affect in language are largely unexplored. The present work used functional magnetic resonance imaging to elucidate the neural bases of processing anger conveyed by prosody or semantic content. Results showed a robust, distributed, bilateral network for processing angry prosody and a more modest left hemisphere network for processing angry semantics when compared to emotionally neutral stimuli. Findings suggest the nervous system may be more responsive to prosodic cues in speech than to the semantic content of speech.
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Affiliation(s)
- Brian C Castelluccio
- Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Connecticut, 406 Babbidge Road, Unit 1020, Storrs, CT, 06269-1020, USA.
| | - Emily B Myers
- Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Connecticut, 406 Babbidge Road, Unit 1020, Storrs, CT, 06269-1020, USA
- Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA
- Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, CT, USA
| | - Jillian M Schuh
- Department of Neurology, Division of Neuropsychology, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI, USA
| | - Inge-Marie Eigsti
- Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Connecticut, 406 Babbidge Road, Unit 1020, Storrs, CT, 06269-1020, USA
- Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, CT, USA
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12
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Abeare CA, Freund S, Kaploun K, McAuley T, Dumitrescu C. The Emotion Word Fluency Test (EWFT): Initial psychometric, validation, and physiological evidence in young adults. J Clin Exp Neuropsychol 2016; 39:738-752. [DOI: 10.1080/13803395.2016.1259396] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/06/2023]
Affiliation(s)
| | - Sabrina Freund
- Department of Psychology, University of Windsor, Windsor, ON, Canada
| | - Kristen Kaploun
- Department of Psychology, University of Windsor, Windsor, ON, Canada
| | - Tara McAuley
- Department of Psychology, University of Windsor, Windsor, ON, Canada
| | - Claudiu Dumitrescu
- Department of Psychology Canandaigua Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Canandaigua, NY, USA
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13
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Temporospatial analysis of explicit and implicit processing of negative content during word comprehension. Brain Cogn 2014; 87:109-21. [DOI: 10.1016/j.bandc.2014.03.008] [Citation(s) in RCA: 31] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/24/2013] [Revised: 02/21/2014] [Accepted: 03/17/2014] [Indexed: 11/21/2022]
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14
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Talkington WJ, Taglialatela JP, Lewis JW. Using naturalistic utterances to investigate vocal communication processing and development in human and non-human primates. Hear Res 2013; 305:74-85. [PMID: 23994296 PMCID: PMC3839530 DOI: 10.1016/j.heares.2013.08.009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/08/2012] [Revised: 08/07/2013] [Accepted: 08/19/2013] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
Humans and several non-human primates possess cortical regions that are most sensitive to vocalizations produced by their own kind (conspecifics). However, the use of speech and other broadly defined categories of behaviorally relevant natural sounds has led to many discrepancies regarding where voice-sensitivity occurs, and more generally the identification of cortical networks, "proto-networks" or protolanguage networks, and pathways that may be sensitive or selective for certain aspects of vocalization processing. In this prospective review we examine different approaches for exploring vocal communication processing, including pathways that may be, or become, specialized for conspecific utterances. In particular, we address the use of naturally produced non-stereotypical vocalizations (mimicry of other animal calls) as another category of vocalization for use with human and non-human primate auditory systems. We focus this review on two main themes, including progress and future ideas for studying vocalization processing in great apes (chimpanzees) and in very early stages of human development, including infants and fetuses. Advancing our understanding of the fundamental principles that govern the evolution and early development of cortical pathways for processing non-verbal communication utterances is expected to lead to better diagnoses and early intervention strategies in children with communication disorders, improve rehabilitation of communication disorders resulting from brain injury, and develop new strategies for intelligent hearing aid and implant design that can better enhance speech signals in noisy environments. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled "Communication Sounds and the Brain: New Directions and Perspectives".
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Affiliation(s)
- William J. Talkington
- Department of Neurobiology & Anatomy, Sensory Neuroscience Research Center, and Center for Advanced Imaging, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV26506, USA
| | - Jared P. Taglialatela
- Department of Biology and Physics, Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, Georgia, USA
| | - James W. Lewis
- Department of Neurobiology & Anatomy, Sensory Neuroscience Research Center, and Center for Advanced Imaging, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV26506, USA
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Buhle JT, Silvers JA, Wager TD, Lopez R, Onyemekwu C, Kober H, Weber J, Ochsner KN. Cognitive reappraisal of emotion: a meta-analysis of human neuroimaging studies. Cereb Cortex 2013; 24:2981-90. [PMID: 23765157 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bht154] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1081] [Impact Index Per Article: 98.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/11/2022] Open
Abstract
In recent years, an explosion of neuroimaging studies has examined cognitive reappraisal, an emotion regulation strategy that involves changing the way one thinks about a stimulus in order to change its affective impact. Existing models broadly agree that reappraisal recruits frontal and parietal control regions to modulate emotional responding in the amygdala, but they offer competing visions of how this is accomplished. One view holds that control regions engage ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), an area associated with fear extinction, that in turn modulates amygdala responses. An alternative view is that control regions modulate semantic representations in lateral temporal cortex that indirectly influence emotion-related responses in the amygdala. Furthermore, while previous work has emphasized the amygdala, whether reappraisal influences other regions implicated in emotional responding remains unknown. To resolve these questions, we performed a meta-analysis of 48 neuroimaging studies of reappraisal, most involving downregulation of negative affect. Reappraisal consistently 1) activated cognitive control regions and lateral temporal cortex, but not vmPFC, and 2) modulated the bilateral amygdala, but no other brain regions. This suggests that reappraisal involves the use of cognitive control to modulate semantic representations of an emotional stimulus, and these altered representations in turn attenuate activity in the amygdala.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jason T Buhle
- Department of Psychology, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
| | | | - Tor D Wager
- Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA
| | - Richard Lopez
- Department of Psychology, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA and
| | | | - Hedy Kober
- Department of Psychiatry, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA
| | - Jochen Weber
- Department of Psychology, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
| | - Kevin N Ochsner
- Department of Psychology, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
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Ofek E, Pratt H. The effects of subjectively significant stimuli on subsequent cognitive brain activity. Physiol Behav 2012; 105:428-42. [PMID: 21689672 DOI: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2011.06.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/09/2011] [Revised: 04/24/2011] [Accepted: 06/02/2011] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
OBJECTIVE To study brain activity modulation by preceding subjectively significant stimuli. Brain activity related to emotional and cognitive processing has been typically traced with fMRI's temporal resolution of seconds. In this study, the time course of activation in the brain areas involved was traced with millisecond temporal resolution. METHODS Electrophysiological brain activity was recorded while 12 normal subjects performed an auditory cued attention task, with subjectively significant verbal distracters. Verbal distracters, administered at different times between the cue and the target in one third of the trials, were first names, whose subjective significance was individually assessed after the experiment using a validated questionnaire. Intracranial sources of scalp-recorded electrical activity were estimated and statistical comparisons were conducted to assess the effects and interactions of (1) cue validity; and (2) subjective significance of distracters, on brain activity evoked by the targets. RESULTS Significant cue validity effects were found. Language-related areas were most involved following neutral distracters. Emotion-related areas were most involved following subjectively significant distracters. Thus, cue validity and distracter effects seem to have distinct effects. SIGNIFICANCE The results indicate an effect of subjectively significant distracters on subsequent brain activity with an interaction between cognitive and emotional processes.
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Affiliation(s)
- E Ofek
- Evoked Potentials Laboratory, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 32000, Israel.
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17
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Moseley R, Carota F, Hauk O, Mohr B, Pulvermüller F. A role for the motor system in binding abstract emotional meaning. ACTA ACUST UNITED AC 2011; 22:1634-47. [PMID: 21914634 PMCID: PMC3377965 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhr238] [Citation(s) in RCA: 115] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
Abstract
Sensorimotor areas activate to action- and object-related words, but their role in abstract meaning processing is still debated. Abstract emotion words denoting body internal states are a critical test case because they lack referential links to objects. If actions expressing emotion are crucial for learning correspondences between word forms and emotions, emotion word–evoked activity should emerge in motor brain systems controlling the face and arms, which typically express emotions. To test this hypothesis, we recruited 18 native speakers and used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging to compare brain activation evoked by abstract emotion words to that by face- and arm-related action words. In addition to limbic regions, emotion words indeed sparked precentral cortex, including body-part–specific areas activated somatotopically by face words or arm words. Control items, including hash mark strings and animal words, failed to activate precentral areas. We conclude that, similar to their role in action word processing, activation of frontocentral motor systems in the dorsal stream reflects the semantic binding of sign and meaning of abstract words denoting emotions and possibly other body internal states.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rachel Moseley
- Medical Research Council, Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge, CB2 7EF, UK.
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18
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Ćurčić-Blake B, Swart M, Aleman A. Bidirectional Information Flow in Frontoamygdalar Circuits in Humans: A Dynamic Causal Modeling Study of Emotional Associative Learning. Cereb Cortex 2011; 22:436-45. [DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhr124] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/22/2022] Open
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19
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Sass K, Habel U, Sachs O, Huber W, Gauggel S, Kircher T. The influence of emotional associations on the neural correlates of semantic priming. Hum Brain Mapp 2011; 33:676-94. [PMID: 21520342 DOI: 10.1002/hbm.21241] [Citation(s) in RCA: 25] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/01/2010] [Revised: 11/24/2010] [Accepted: 12/02/2010] [Indexed: 12/25/2022] Open
Abstract
Emotions influence our everyday life in several ways. With the present study, we wanted to examine the impact of emotional information on neural correlates of semantic priming, a well-established technique to investigate semantic processing. Stimuli were presented with a short SOA of 200 ms as subjects performed a lexical decision task during fMRI measurement. Seven experimental conditions were compared: positive/negative/neutral related, positive/negative/neutral unrelated, nonwords (all words were nouns). Behavioral data revealed a valence specific semantic priming effect (i.e., unrelated > related) only for neutral and positive related word pairs. On a neural level, the comparison of emotional over neutral relations showed activation in left anterior medial frontal cortex, superior frontal gyrus, and posterior cingulate. Interactions for the different relations were located in left anterior part of the medial frontal cortex, cingulate regions, and right hippocampus (positive > neutral + negative) and left posterior part of medial frontal cortex (negative > neutral + positive). The results showed that emotional information have an influence on semantic association processes. While positive and neutral information seem to share a semantic network, negative relations might induce compensatory mechanisms that inhibit the spread of activation between related concepts. The neural correlates highlighted a distributed neural network, primarily involving attention, memory and emotion related processing areas in medial fronto-parietal cortices. The differentiation between anterior (positive) and posterior part (negative) of the medial frontal cortex was linked to the type of affective manipulation with more cognitive demands being involved in the automatic processing of negative information.
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Affiliation(s)
- Katharina Sass
- Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, RWTH Aachen University, Pauwelsstr. 30, Aachen 52074, Germany.
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20
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Ochsner KN, Hughes B, Robertson ER, Cooper JC, Gabrieli JDE. Neural systems supporting the control of affective and cognitive conflicts. J Cogn Neurosci 2009; 21:1842-55. [PMID: 18823233 DOI: 10.1162/jocn.2009.21129] [Citation(s) in RCA: 135] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/05/2023]
Abstract
Although many studies have examined the neural bases of controlling cognitive responses, the neural systems for controlling conflicts between competing affective responses remain unclear. To address the neural correlates of affective conflict and their relationship to cognitive conflict, the present study collected whole-brain fMRI data during two versions of the Eriksen flanker task. For these tasks, participants indicated either the valence (affective task) or the semantic category (cognitive task) of a central target word while ignoring flanking words that mapped onto either the same (congruent) or a different (incongruent) response as the target. Overall, contrasts of incongruent > congruent trials showed that bilateral dorsal ACC, posterior medial frontal cortex, and dorsolateral pFC were active during both kinds of conflict, whereas rostral medial pFC and left ventrolateral pFC were differentially active during affective or cognitive conflict, respectively. Individual difference analyses showed that separate regions of rostral cingulate/ventromedial pFC and left ventrolateral pFC were positively correlated with the magnitude of response time interference. Taken together, the findings that controlling affective and cognitive conflicts depends upon both common and distinct systems have important implications for understanding the organization of control systems in general and their potential dysfunction in clinical disorders.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kevin N Ochsner
- Department of Psychology, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA.
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21
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Demirakca T, Herbert C, Kissler J, Ruf M, Wokrina T, Ende G. Overlapping neural correlates of reading emotionally positive and negative adjectives. Open Neuroimag J 2009; 3:54-7. [PMID: 19641618 PMCID: PMC2713415 DOI: 10.2174/1874440000903010054] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/26/2008] [Revised: 08/15/2008] [Accepted: 05/18/2009] [Indexed: 11/22/2022] Open
Abstract
Comparison of positive and negative naturally read adjectives to neutral adjectives yielded an overlapping higher BOLD response in the occipital and the orbitofrontal cortex (gyrus rectus). Superior medial frontal gyrus and posterior cingulate gyrus showed higher BOLD response to negative adjectives and inferior frontal gyrus to positive adjectives. The overlap of activated regions and lack of pronounced distinct regions supports the assumption that the processing of negative and positive words mainly takes place in overlapping brain regions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Traute Demirakca
- Heidelberg Academy of Science, Department Neuroimaging, J5, 68159 Mannheim, Germany
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22
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Herbert C, Ethofer T, Anders S, Junghofer M, Wildgruber D, Grodd W, Kissler J. Amygdala activation during reading of emotional adjectives--an advantage for pleasant content. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 2008; 4:35-49. [PMID: 19015080 DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsn027] [Citation(s) in RCA: 106] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
Abstract
This event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study investigated brain activity elicited by emotional adjectives during silent reading without specific processing instructions. Fifteen healthy volunteers were asked to read a set of randomly presented high-arousing emotional (pleasant and unpleasant) and low-arousing neutral adjectives. Silent reading of emotional in contrast to neutral adjectives evoked enhanced activations in visual, limbic and prefrontal brain regions. In particular, reading pleasant adjectives produced a more robust activation pattern in the left amygdala and the left extrastriate visual cortex than did reading unpleasant or neutral adjectives. Moreover, extrastriate visual cortex and amygdala activity were significantly correlated during reading of pleasant adjectives. Furthermore, pleasant adjectives were better remembered than unpleasant and neutral adjectives in a surprise free recall test conducted after scanning. Thus, visual processing was biased towards pleasant words and involved the amygdala, underscoring recent theoretical views of a general role of the human amygdala in relevance detection for both pleasant and unpleasant stimuli. Results indicate preferential processing of pleasant information in healthy young adults and can be accounted for within the framework of appraisal theory.
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Affiliation(s)
- Cornelia Herbert
- Department of Psychology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
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23
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Ochsner KN. The social-emotional processing stream: five core constructs and their translational potential for schizophrenia and beyond. Biol Psychiatry 2008; 64:48-61. [PMID: 18549876 PMCID: PMC2453243 DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2008.04.024] [Citation(s) in RCA: 226] [Impact Index Per Article: 14.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/29/2008] [Revised: 03/21/2008] [Accepted: 04/21/2008] [Indexed: 02/07/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Cognitive neuroscience approaches to translational research have made great strides toward understanding basic mechanisms of dysfunction and their relation to cognitive deficits, such as thought disorder in schizophrenia. The recent emergence of Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience has paved the way for similar progress to be made in explaining the mechanisms underlying the social and emotional dysfunctions (i.e., negative symptoms) of schizophrenia and that characterize virtually all DSM Axis I and II disorders more broadly. METHODS This article aims to provide a roadmap for this work by distilling from the emerging literature on the neural bases of social and emotional abilities a set of key constructs that can be used to generate questions about the mechanisms of clinical dysfunction in general and schizophrenia in particular. RESULTS To achieve these aims, the first part of this article sketches a framework of five constructs that comprise a social-emotional processing stream. The second part considers how future basic research might flesh out this framework and translational work might relate it to schizophrenia and other clinical populations. CONCLUSIONS Although the review suggests there is more basic research needed for each construct, two in particular--one involving the bottom-up recognition of social and emotional cues, the second involving the use of top-down processes to draw mental state inferences--are most ready for translational work.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kevin N Ochsner
- Department of Psychology, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027, USA.
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24
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Ofek E, Pratt H. A questionnaire for quantifying subjective significance of names: Physiological validation with PAT. Physiol Behav 2008; 94:368-73. [DOI: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2008.01.025] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/14/2006] [Revised: 01/28/2008] [Accepted: 01/31/2008] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
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Goldstein M, Brendel G, Tuescher O, Pan H, Epstein J, Beutel M, Yang Y, Thomas K, Levy K, Silverman M, Clarkin J, Posner M, Kernberg O, Stern E, Silbersweig D. Neural substrates of the interaction of emotional stimulus processing and motor inhibitory control: An emotional linguistic go/no-go fMRI study. Neuroimage 2007; 36:1026-40. [PMID: 17509899 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2007.01.056] [Citation(s) in RCA: 136] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/12/2006] [Revised: 12/25/2006] [Accepted: 01/24/2007] [Indexed: 10/23/2022] Open
Abstract
Neural substrates of behavioral inhibitory control have been probed in a variety of animal model, physiologic, behavioral, and imaging studies, many emphasizing the role of prefrontal circuits. Likewise, the neurocircuitry of emotion has been investigated from a variety of perspectives. Recently, neural mechanisms mediating the interaction of emotion and behavioral regulation have become the focus of intense study. To further define neurocircuitry specifically underlying the interaction between emotional processing and response inhibition, we developed an emotional linguistic go/no-go fMRI paradigm with a factorial block design which joins explicit inhibitory task demand (i.e., go or no-go) with task-unrelated incidental emotional stimulus valence manipulation, to probe the modulation of the former by the latter. In this study of normal subjects focusing on negative emotional processing, we hypothesized activity changes in specific frontal neocortical and limbic regions reflecting modulation of response inhibition by negative stimulus processing. We observed common fronto-limbic activations (including orbitofrontal cortical and amygdalar components) associated with the interaction of emotional stimulus processing and response suppression. Further, we found a distributed cortico-limbic network to be a candidate neural substrate for the interaction of negative valence-specific processing and inhibitory task demand. These findings have implications for elucidating neural mechanisms of emotional modulation of behavioral control, with relevance to a variety of neuropsychiatric disease states marked by behavioral dysregulation within the context of negative emotional processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Martin Goldstein
- Department of Neurology, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, One Gustave L. Levy Place, New York, NY 10021, USA.
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26
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Mitchell RLC. fMRI delineation of working memory for emotional prosody in the brain: commonalities with the lexico-semantic emotion network. Neuroimage 2007; 36:1015-25. [PMID: 17481919 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2007.03.016] [Citation(s) in RCA: 25] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/03/2006] [Revised: 03/15/2007] [Accepted: 03/19/2007] [Indexed: 10/23/2022] Open
Abstract
Decoding emotional prosody is crucial for successful social interactions, and continuous monitoring of emotional intent via prosody requires working memory. It has been proposed by Ross and others that emotional prosody cognitions in the right hemisphere are organized in an analogous fashion to propositional language functions in the left hemisphere. This study aimed to test the applicability of this model in the context of prefrontal cortex working memory functions. BOLD response data were therefore collected during performance of two emotional working memory tasks by participants undergoing fMRI. In the prosody task, participants identified the emotion conveyed in pre-recorded sentences, and working memory load was manipulated in the style of an N-back task. In the matched lexico-semantic task, participants identified the emotion conveyed by sentence content. Block-design neuroimaging data were analyzed parametrically with SPM5. At first, working memory for emotional prosody appeared to be right-lateralized in the PFC, however, further analyses revealed that it shared much bilateral prefrontal functional neuroanatomy with working memory for lexico-semantic emotion. Supplementary separate analyses of males and females suggested that these language functions were less bilateral in females, but their inclusion did not alter the direction of laterality. It is concluded that Ross et al.'s model is not applicable to prefrontal cortex working memory functions, that evidence that working memory cannot be subdivided in prefrontal cortex according to material type is increased, and that incidental working memory demands may explain the frontal lobe involvement in emotional prosody comprehension as revealed by neuroimaging studies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rachel L C Mitchell
- School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading, Reading, Berkshire, RG6 6AL, UK.
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27
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Abstract
Experiences of emotion are content-rich events that emerge at the level of psychological description, but must be causally constituted by neurobiological processes. This chapter outlines an emerging scientific agenda for understanding what these experiences feel like and how they arise. We review the available answers to what is felt (i.e., the content that makes up an experience of emotion) and how neurobiological processes instantiate these properties of experience. These answers are then integrated into a broad framework that describes, in psychological terms, how the experience of emotion emerges from more basic processes. We then discuss the role of such experiences in the economy of the mind and behavior.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lisa Feldman Barrett
- Department of Psychology, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts 02467 and Psychiatric Neuroimaging Research Program, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, Massachusetts 02129;
| | - Batja Mesquita
- Department of Psychology, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina 27109;
| | - Kevin N. Ochsner
- Department of Psychology, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027;
| | - James J. Gross
- Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305;
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Malhi GS, Lagopoulos J, Owen AM, Ivanovski B, Shnier R, Sachdev P. Reduced activation to implicit affect induction in euthymic bipolar patients: an fMRI study. J Affect Disord 2007; 97:109-22. [PMID: 16837058 DOI: 10.1016/j.jad.2006.06.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 94] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/06/2005] [Revised: 05/31/2006] [Accepted: 06/02/2006] [Indexed: 12/22/2022]
Abstract
OBJECTIVE To examine whether euthymic bipolar patients engage similar or contrasting brain regions as healthy subjects when responding to implicit affect induction. METHODS The study examined 10 euthymic patients with bipolar I disorder, and 10 age- and gender-matched healthy subjects using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while subjects engaged in a modified word-based memory task designed to implicitly evoke negative, positive or no affective change. The activation paradigm involved nominating whether a target word was contained within a previously presented word list using specified response keys. RESULTS The fMRI task produced significantly greater activation in healthy subjects as compared to patients in response to both negative and positive affect in the anterior and posterior cingulate, medial prefrontal cortex, middle frontal and right parahippocampal gyri. Only negative affect produced significantly greater activation in the postcentral gyrus, inferior parietal lobule, thalamus and putamen and only positive affect achieved the same in the precentral, superior temporal and lingual gyri, precuneus, cuneus, caudate, pons, midbrain and cerebellum. There were no brain regions in which responses were greater in patients as compared to healthy subjects. There were no statistically significant differences between the groups with respect to speed or accuracy. CONCLUSIONS Diminished prefrontal, cingulate, limbic and subcortical neural activity in euthymic bipolar patients as compared to healthy subjects is suggestive of emotional compromise that is independent of cognitive and executive functioning. This finding is of clinical importance and has implications both for the diagnosis and treatment of bipolar disorder. Future studies should aim to replicate these findings and examine the development of bipolar disorder, investigating in particular the effects of medication.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gin S Malhi
- School of Psychiatry, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
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Ethofer T, Anders S, Erb M, Herbert C, Wiethoff S, Kissler J, Grodd W, Wildgruber D. Cerebral pathways in processing of affective prosody: A dynamic causal modeling study. Neuroimage 2006; 30:580-7. [PMID: 16275138 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2005.09.059] [Citation(s) in RCA: 195] [Impact Index Per Article: 10.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/19/2005] [Revised: 08/05/2005] [Accepted: 09/19/2005] [Indexed: 11/26/2022] Open
Abstract
This study was conducted to investigate the connectivity architecture of neural structures involved in processing of emotional speech melody (prosody). 24 subjects underwent event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while rating the emotional valence of either prosody or semantics of binaurally presented adjectives. Conventional analysis of fMRI data revealed activation within the right posterior middle temporal gyrus and bilateral inferior frontal cortex during evaluation of affective prosody and left temporal pole, orbitofrontal, and medial superior frontal cortex during judgment of affective semantics. Dynamic causal modeling (DCM) in combination with Bayes factors was used to compare competing neurophysiological models with different intrinsic connectivity structures and input regions within the network of brain regions underlying comprehension of affective prosody. Comparison on group level revealed superiority of a model in which the right temporal cortex serves as input region as compared to models in which one of the frontal areas is assumed to receive external inputs. Moreover, models with parallel information conductance from the right temporal cortex were superior to models in which the two frontal lobes accomplish serial processing steps. In conclusion, connectivity analysis supports the view that evaluation of affective prosody requires prior analysis of acoustic features within the temporal and that transfer of information from the temporal cortex to the frontal lobes occurs via parallel pathways.
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Affiliation(s)
- Thomas Ethofer
- Section of Experimental MR of the CNS, Department of Neuroradiology, Otfried-Mueller-Strasse 51, University of Tuebingen, 72076 Tuebingen, Germany.
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Malhi GS, Lagopoulos J, Sachdev PS, Ivanovski B, Shnier R. An emotional Stroop functional MRI study of euthymic bipolar disorder. Bipolar Disord 2006; 7 Suppl 5:58-69. [PMID: 16225562 DOI: 10.1111/j.1399-5618.2005.00255.x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 139] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Abstract
OBJECTIVE To identify the brain regions associated with emotional processing in euthymic bipolar patients. METHODS The study examined 12 euthymic bipolar patients using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while performing an emotional Stroop (eStroop) task. The task comprised emotionally valent and neutral words presented in alternating blocks that was designed to implicitly induce affect. In conjunction with fMRI, galvanic skin responses (GSR) were measured to monitor arousal. RESULTS Euthymic bipolar patients had diminished activation in response to the affective stimuli in both cortical and subcortical brain regions when compared with healthy subjects. In particular, patients had less activation in the left ventral prefrontal cortex suggesting a potential trait deficit. Patients were slower to react than healthy controls, but did not differ with respect to accuracy. CONCLUSIONS Euthymic bipolar patients are perhaps constrained in their ability to engage affective processing. Diminished ventral prefrontal cortex activation corroborates previous reports of a potential trait deficit, suggesting that 'all is not well in euthymia', although the effects of medication cannot be overlooked.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gin S Malhi
- School of Psychiatry, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
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Jackson MAC, Crosson B. Emotional connotation of words: role of emotion in distributed semantic systems. PROGRESS IN BRAIN RESEARCH 2006; 156:205-16. [PMID: 17015081 DOI: 10.1016/s0079-6123(06)56010-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/12/2023]
Abstract
One current doctrine regarding lexical-semantic functions asserts separate input and output lexicons with access to a central semantic core. In other words, processes related to word form have separate representations for input (comprehension) vs. output (expression), while processes related to meaning are not split along the input-output dimension. Recent evidence from our laboratory suggests that semantic processes related to emotional connotation may be an exception to this rule. The ability to distinguish among different emotional connotations may be linked distinctly both to attention systems that select specific sensory input for further processing and to intention systems that select specific actions for output. In particular, the neuroanatomic substrates for emotional connotation on the input side of the equation appear to differ from the substrates on the output side of the equation. Implications for semantic processing of emotional connotation and its relationship to attention and motivation systems are discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
- M Allison Cato Jackson
- Nemours Children's Clinic, Neurology Division, 807 Children's Way, Jacksonville, FL 32207, USA.
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Ofek E, Pratt H. Neurophysiological correlates of subjective significance. Clin Neurophysiol 2005; 116:2354-62. [PMID: 16126003 DOI: 10.1016/j.clinph.2005.05.021] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/20/2004] [Revised: 05/06/2005] [Accepted: 05/29/2005] [Indexed: 11/21/2022]
Abstract
OBJECTIVE The neural substrates of emotional response have traditionally been studied using universal sets of emotionally loaded stimuli, regardless of their subjective significance for the individual subject. Related brain activity has been typically traced with fMRI's temporal resolution of seconds. In this study, unique brain responses to subjectively significant stimuli were analyzed and traced with millisecond temporal resolution. METHODS Electrical brain activity (event related potentials) was recorded from 16 normal subjects, to subjectively significant auditory stimuli and its brain sources were imaged. Subjective significance of the stimuli was individually assessed for each subject. RESULTS Unique and significant brain activity to subjectively significant stimuli began as early as 200 ms after stimulus onset, with increased brain activity in the vicinity of several brain areas, including frontal gyri, Broca's area, Wernicke's area, insula, precuneus and cingulate gyri. The time course of activity in these areas was traced and found concurrent. CONCLUSIONS Although the subjectively significant stimuli of this study were not divided according to their positive or negative affective valence, they elicited a distinct brain response compared to neutral stimuli, with a uniform pattern across subjects. SIGNIFICANCE These results demonstrate that subjectively significant stimuli are associated with characteristic brain activity, that studying the neural substrate and time course of processing subjectively significant stimuli is feasible and that the neurophysiological manifestations of emotions are attainable.
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Affiliation(s)
- E Ofek
- Evoked Potentials Laboratory, Technion Israel Institute of Technology, Gutwirth Building, Technion City, Haifa 32000, Israel.
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Heekeren HR, Wartenburger I, Schmidt H, Prehn K, Schwintowski HP, Villringer A. Influence of bodily harm on neural correlates of semantic and moral decision-making. Neuroimage 2005; 24:887-97. [PMID: 15652323 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2004.09.026] [Citation(s) in RCA: 83] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/01/2004] [Revised: 09/06/2004] [Accepted: 09/17/2004] [Indexed: 10/26/2022] Open
Abstract
Moral decision-making is central to everyday social life because the evaluation of the actions of another agent or our own actions made with respect to the norms and values guides our behavior in a community. There is previous evidence that the presence of bodily harm--even if irrelevant for a decision--may affect the decision-making process. While recent neuroimaging studies found a common neural substrate of moral decision-making, the role of bodily harm has not been systematically studied so far. Here we used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate how behavioral and neural correlates of semantic and moral decision-making processes are modulated by the presence of direct bodily harm or violence in the stimuli. Twelve participants made moral and semantic decisions about sentences describing actions of agents that either contained bodily harm or not and that could easily be judged as being good or bad or correct/incorrect, respectively. During moral and semantic decision-making, the presence of bodily harm resulted in faster response times (RT) and weaker activity in the temporal poles relative to trials devoid of bodily harm/violence, indicating a processing advantage and reduced processing depth for violence-related linguistic stimuli. Notably, there was no increase in activity in the amygdala and the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) in response to trials containing bodily harm. These findings might be a correlate of limited generation of the semantic and emotional context in the anterior temporal poles during the evaluation of actions of another agent related to violence that is made with respect to the norms and values guiding our behavior in a community.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hauke R Heekeren
- Berlin NeuroImaging Center, Charité, Humboldt-University, Berlin, Germany.
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Ortigue S, Michel CM, Murray MM, Mohr C, Carbonnel S, Landis T. Electrical neuroimaging reveals early generator modulation to emotional words. Neuroimage 2004; 21:1242-51. [PMID: 15050552 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2003.11.007] [Citation(s) in RCA: 127] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/06/2003] [Revised: 11/03/2003] [Accepted: 11/03/2003] [Indexed: 10/26/2022] Open
Abstract
Functional electrical neuroimaging investigated incidental emotional word processing. Previous research suggests that the brain may differentially respond to the emotional content of linguistic stimuli pre-lexically (i.e., before distinguishing that these stimuli are words). We investigated the spatiotemporal brain mechanisms of this apparent paradox and in particular whether the initial differentiation of emotional stimuli is marked by different brain generator configurations using high-density, event-related potentials. Such would support the existence of specific cerebral resources dedicated to emotional word processing. A related issue concerns the possibility of right-hemispheric specialization in the processing of emotional stimuli. Thirteen healthy men performed a go/no-go lexical decision task with bilateral word/non-word or non-word/non-word stimulus pairs. Words included equal numbers of neutral and emotional stimuli, but subjects made no explicit discrimination along this dimension. Emotional words appearing in the right visual field (ERVF) yielded the best overall performance, although the difference between emotional and neutral words was larger for left than for right visual field presentations. Electrophysiologically, ERVF presentations were distinguished from all other conditions over the 100-140 ms period by a distinct scalp topography, indicative of different intracranial generator configurations. A distributed linear source estimation (LAURA) of this distinct scalp potential field revealed bilateral lateral-occipital sources with a right hemisphere current density maximum. These data support the existence of a specialized brain network triggered by the emotional connotation of words at a very early processing stage.
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Affiliation(s)
- Stephanie Ortigue
- The Functional Brain Mapping Laboratory, The Neurology Clinic, University Hospital of Geneva, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland.
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Cato MA, Crosson B, Gökçay D, Soltysik D, Wierenga C, Gopinath K, Himes N, Belanger H, Bauer RM, Fischler IS, Gonzalez-Rothi L, Briggs RW. Processing words with emotional connotation: an FMRI study of time course and laterality in rostral frontal and retrosplenial cortices. J Cogn Neurosci 2004; 16:167-77. [PMID: 15068589 DOI: 10.1162/089892904322984481] [Citation(s) in RCA: 79] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/04/2022]
Abstract
Responses of rostral frontal and retrosplenial cortices to the emotional significance of words were measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Twenty-six strongly right-handed participants engaged in a language task that alternated between silent word generation to categories with positive, negative, or neutral emotional connotation and a baseline task of silent repetition of emotionally neutral words. Activation uniquely associated with word generation to categories with positive or negative versus neutral emotional connotation occurred bilaterally in rostral frontal and retrosplenial cortices. Furthermore, the time courses of activity in these areas differed, indicating that they subserve different functions in processing the emotional connotation of words. Namely, the retrosplenial cortex appears to be involved in evaluating the emotional salience of information from external sources, whereas the rostral frontal cortex also plays a role in internal generation of words with emotional connotation. In both areas, activity associated with positive or negative emotional connotation was more extensive in the left hemisphere than the right, regardless of valence, presumably due to the language demands of word generation. The present findings localize specific areas in the brain that are involved in processing emotional meaning of words within the brain's distributed semantic system. In addition, time course analysis reveals diverging mechanisms in anterior and posterior cortical areas during processing of words with emotional significance.
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Current awareness in NMR in biomedicine. NMR IN BIOMEDICINE 2003; 16:56-65. [PMID: 12619641 DOI: 10.1002/nbm.799] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/24/2023]
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Lu LH, Crosson B, Nadeau SE, Heilman KM, Gonzalez-Rothi LJ, Raymer A, Gilmore RL, Bauer RM, Roper SN. Category-specific naming deficits for objects and actions: semantic attribute and grammatical role hypotheses. Neuropsychologia 2002; 40:1608-21. [PMID: 11985843 DOI: 10.1016/s0028-3932(02)00014-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 67] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
Abstract
Research on category-specific naming deficits and on noun and verb naming has raised questions about how organization of knowledge in the brain impacts word retrieval. The semantic attribute hypothesis posits that lexical access is mediated by brain systems that process the most definitive attributes of specific concepts. For example, it has been suggested that the most definitive attribute of living things is their visual form, whereas the most definitive attribute of non-living things is their function. The competing grammatical role hypothesis posits that access to a word depends on the grammatical role it plays in a sentence. Since nouns and verbs have different roles, it is assumed that the brain uses different systems to process them. These two hypotheses were tested in experimental subjects who had undergone left anterior temporal lobectomy (LATL) or right anterior temporal lobectomy (RATL) by assessing confrontation naming of living things, tools/implements, non-human actions, and human actions. The names of living things and implements are nouns and the names of actions are verbs. Within each grammatical class, items were characterized either predominantly by visual attributes (living things and non-human actions) or by attributes related to human activity (implements and human actions). Our results support the semantic attribute hypothesis. Patients with LATL were worse at naming tools/implements and human actions than RATL patients. Dysfunction in or removal of the left anterior temporal lobe disrupts fronto-temporal connections from the uncinate fasciculus. These connections may mediate activation of action-related information (i.e. movement plan and/or motor use) that facilitates the retrieval of names for tools/implements and human actions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lisa H Lu
- Department of Psychology, Chung Yuan Christian University, Chung-Li, Taiwan, TOC
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