Cooperative behavior in adolescents: a contribution of empathy and emotional regulation?

Aim

This study aims to identify different levels of empathy and emotional regulation along adolescent years and their relationship with cooperative behavior.

Methods

Eighty healthy males were divided into four age groups: 20 Early Adolescents, 20 Middle Adolescents, 20 Late Adolescents and 20 Adults. Participants responded to empathic and emotional regulation scales, then were assigned to an unknown partner to perform the prisoner's dilemma paradigm.

Results

The statistical analyses allowed to distinguish the groups on the basis of the components making up the two scales: scores on the Perspective Taking component were higher for Adults and Late Adolescents participants than for Middle Adolescents and Early Adolescents groups (p < 0.05); scores on the Personal Distress component were higher for Early Adolescents group than for Late Adolescents and Middle Adolescents groups (p < 0.05); scores on the Difficulties engaging in goal directed behavior component were higher for Middle Adolescents and Early Adolescents groups than for Adults group (p < 0.05). We observed differences between groups (p < 0.001) with higher number of cooperation responses in Adults compared to Middle Adolescents (p < 0.05) and Early Adolescents groups (p < 0.001).

Discussion

These findings suggest that the cooperative behavior changes during the different stages of adolescence seem to be related to the development of empathy and emotional regulation components.

The impact of attention bias modification training on behavioral and physiological responses

Attention bias modification training aims to alter attentional deployment to symptom-relevant emotionally salient stimuli. Such training has therapeutic applications in the management of disorders including anxiety, depression, addiction and chronic pain. In emotional reactions, attentional biases interact with autonomically-mediated changes in bodily arousal putatively underpinning affective feeling states. Here we examined the impact of attention bias modification training on behavioral and autonomic reactivity. Fifty-eight participants were divided into two groups. A training group (TR) received attention bias modification training to enhance attention to pleasant visual information, while a control group (CT) performed a procedure that did not modify attentional bias. After training, participants performed an evaluation task in which pairs of emotional and neutral images (unpleasant-neutral, pleasant-neutral, neutral-neutral) were presented, while behavioral (eye movements) and autonomic (skin conductance; heart rate) responses were recorded. At the behavioral level, trained participants were faster to orientate attention to pleasant images, and slower to orientate to unpleasant images. At the autonomic level, trained participants showed attenuated skin conductance responses to unpleasant images, while stronger skin conductance responses were generally associated with higher anxiety. These data argue for the use of attentional training to address both the attentional and the physiological sides of emotional responses, appropriate for anxious and depressive symptomatology, characterized by atypical attentional deployment and autonomic reactivity.

Correction: The psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in Portugal: The role of personality traits and emotion regulation strategies

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0269496.].

Corpus callosum damage to account for cognitive, affective, and social-cognitive dysfunctions in multiple sclerosis: A model of callosal disconnection syndrome?

The corpus callosum (CC) is the major commissure interconnecting the two hemispheres and is particularly affected in multiple sclerosis (MS). In the present review, we aimed to investigate the role played by callosal damages in the pathogenesis of MS-related dysfunctions and examine whether a model of callosal disconnection syndrome is a valid model for MS. For this purpose, we will first review structural and functional evidence of callosal pathology in MS. Second, we will account for the potential role of CC abnormalities in MS-related dysfunctions. Finally, we will report data concurring with a "multiple disconnection hypothesis" that has been proposed to explain those dysfunctions, and we will examine evidence pointing toward MS as a "callosal disconnection syndrome." We will end by discussing the contribution of this interpretation to the understanding of MS and MS-related deficits.

The psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in Portugal: The role of personality traits and emotion regulation strategies

Recent evidence suggests that both personality traits (PT) and emotion regulation (ER) strategies play an important role in the way people cope with the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of this study was two folded. First, to longitudinally investigate the psychological distress (depression, anxiety, and stress levels) taking in consideration PT and ER strategies in 3 different moments: during the first lockdown period (April/20), at the first deconfinement (May/20) and 1-month after the first deconfinement (Jun/20)-Experiment I. Second, to cross-sectionally evaluate the impact of the pandemic in psychological distress and the correlates with PT and ER 6-months after the first deconfinement November/20 to February/21 -Experiment II. A total of 722 volunteers (Experiment I = 180; Experiment II = 542) aged 18 years or older participated in this online survey. The findings from Experiment I show that psychological distress decreased after the lockdown period, however, neuroticism traits predicted higher levels of depression, anxiety and stress symptoms, while difficulties in ER strategies were identified as a risk factor for depression and stress. For experiment II, neuroticism traits and being infected with COVID-19 were associated to higher levels of symptomatology, while unemployment and the use of emotional suppression strategies to cope with emotional situations were associated to depressive and anxiety symptoms. Although the psychological impact of the COVID-19 outbreak decreased over time in our sample, the current findings suggest that difficulties in emotional regulation and high levels of neuroticism traits might be potential risk factors for psychiatric symptomatology during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, people with difficulties in ER and neuroticism traits would benefit from psychological interventions that provide personality-appropriate support and promote emotion regulation skills during stressful events, such as the case of the global pandemic.

Telling functional networks apart using ranked network features stability

Over the past few years, it has become standard to describe brain anatomical and functional organisation in terms of complex networks, wherein single brain regions or modules and their connections are respectively identified with network nodes and the links connecting them. Often, the goal of a given study is not that of modelling brain activity but, more basically, to discriminate between experimental conditions or populations, thus to find a way to compute differences between them. This in turn involves two important aspects: defining discriminative features and quantifying differences between them. Here we show that the ranked dynamical stability of network features, from links or nodes to higher-level network properties, discriminates well between healthy brain activity and various pathological conditions. These easily computable properties, which constitute local but topographically aspecific aspects of brain activity, greatly simplify inter-network comparisons and spare the need for network pruning. Our results are discussed in terms of microstate stability. Some implications for functional brain activity are discussed.

Attention orientation to pleasantness and depressive symptomatology predict autonomic reactivity

Depression is characterised by attentional bias to emotional information and dysregulated autonomic reactivity. Despite its relevance to understanding depressive mechanisms, the association between attentional bias and autonomic reactivity to emotional information remains poorly characterised. This study compared behavioural and autonomic responses to emotional images in 32 participants in whom subclinical depressive symptomatology was quantified using the Beck Depression Inventory. Pairs of emotional and neutral images (unpleasant-neutral, U-N; pleasant-neutral, P-N; neutral-neutral, N-N) were presented while attentional indices (eye movements) and autonomic activity (skin conductance responses, SCRs; heart rate, HR) were recorded. Results showed that all recorded ocular parameters indicated a preferential orientation and maintenance of attention to emotional images. SCRs were associated with a valence effect on fixation latency: lower fixation latency to pleasant stimuli leads to lower SCRs whereas the opposite was observed for unpleasant stimuli. Finally, stepwise linear regression analysis revealed that latency of fixation to pleasant images and scores of depression predicted SCRs of participants. Thus, our research reveals an association between autonomic reactivity and attentional bias to pleasant information, on the one hand, and depressive symptomatology on the other. Present findings therefore suggest that depressive individuals may benefit from attention training towards pleasant information in association with autonomic biofeedback procedures.

Autonomic reactivity to emotion: A marker of sub-clinical anxiety and depression symptoms?

Anxiety and depression are both characterized by dysregulated autonomic reactivity to emotion. However, most experiments until now have focused on autonomic reactivity to stimuli presented in central vision (CV) even if affective saliency is also observed in peripheral vision (PV). We compared autonomic reactivity to CV and PV emotional stimulation in 58 participants with high anxious (HA) or low anxious (LA) and high depressive (HD) or low depressive (LD) symptomatology, based on STAI-B and BDI scores, respectively. Unpleasant (U), pleasant (P), and neutral (N) pictures from IAPS were presented at three eccentricities (0°: CV; -12 and 12°: PV). Skin conductance (SC), skin temperature, pupillary diameter, and heart rate (HR) were recorded. First, HA participants showed greater pupil dilation to emotional than to neutral stimuli in PV than in CV. Second, in contrast to HD, the valence effect indexed by SC and emotional arousal effect indexed by skin temperature were observed in LD. Third, both anxiety and depression lead to a valence effect indexed by pupillary light reflex and heart rate. These results suggest a hyperreactivity to emotion and hypervigilance to PV in anxiety. Depression is associated with an attenuation of positive effect and a global blunted autonomic reactivity to emotion. Moreover, anxiety mostly modulates the early processes of autonomic reactivity whereas depression mainly affects the later processes. The differential impact of emotional information over the visual field suggests the use of new stimulation strategies in order to attenuate anxious and depressive symptoms.

The Influence of Empathy Trait and Gender on Empathic Responses. A Study With Dynamic Emotional Stimulus and Eye Movement Recordings

Previous studies have suggested that empathic process involve several components such as cognitive empathy, affective empathy, and prosocial concern. It has also been reported that gender and empathy trait can influence empathic responses such as emotional recognition, which requires an appropriate scanning of faces. However, the degree to which these factors influence the empathic responses, which include emotion recognition, affective empathy, and cognitive empathy, has not yet been specified. Aim: The aim of the present study was to identify the differences between individuals with high and low level of empathy trait, as well as differences between men and women, in an explicit task in order to evaluate the empathic responses. Methods: With this goal in mind, we recorded eye movements during the presentation of dynamic emotional stimuli (joy, anger, fear, and neutral videos). After watching each video, participants had to rate the valence and arousal dimensions of emotional content and explicit empathy responses were assessed. Thirty participants (15 women) were included in a High Empathy group (HE; mean age = 21.0) and 30 participants (16 women) in the Low Empathy group (LE; mean age = 21.2), according to their scores in the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) scale. Results: As expected, the HE group showed higher scores than the LE group in the explicit empathy responses. These differences, based on global scores, were mainly explained by affective empathy and cognitive empathy responses but not by emotional recognition one. No differences were observed by gender in these measures. Regarding eye movements in the dynamic emotional stimuli, HE group had longer fixation duration on the eyes area than LE group. In addition, women spent more time on the eyes area in comparison to men. Discussion: Our findings suggest that both men and women with high empathy trait are more accurate to empathizing but not on the basis of the emotional recognition response. The fact that women spent more time on the eyes area did not seem to affect the empathic responses to the dynamic emotional stimulus. Overall, empathic responses of both men and women are modulated by their empathic trait. In addition, empathic trait and gender seem to impact strategies to deal with emotional facial information.

Signatures of alcohol use in the structure and neurochemistry of insular cortex: a correlational study

RATIONALE

Insular cortex supports the representation of motivational feelings through the integration of interoceptive information concerning bodily physiology. Compromised insular integrity is implicated in alcohol and drug use disorders. Alcohol-associated insular dysfunction may arise through aberrant glutamatergic neurotransmission associated with selective neuronal death and atrophy.

OBJECTIVE

In a sample of alcohol users, we combined magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) with voxel and surface-based morphometry (VBM, SBM) to test the hypothesis that the neurochemical and structural properties of the insula relate to alcohol use.

METHODS

Twenty-three healthy individuals were characterized by measures of alcohol use and subjective craving. Right mid-insula glutamate/glutamine (Glx) and total N-acetylaspartate/N-acetyl-aspartylglutamate (TNAA) concentrations were measured using MRS. Right insular structure was quantified using VBM and SBM parameters. We tested for predictive associations between these neuroimaging and behavioral/psychometric measures using Bayesian statistics.

RESULTS

Reduced insular Glx concentration was associated with increased alcohol compulsions and, to a lesser extent, with greater alcohol use severity. Anecdotal evidence for a negative relationship between alcohol use severity and levels of insular gyrification was also observed.

CONCLUSIONS

This study is, to date, the first characterization of the neurochemical and morphological integrity of insular cortex in alcohol users. Our data seem to reveal a negative relationship between alcohol use and the neurochemical and structural integrity of the insula, a critical substrate for motivational behavior. These neurobiological characteristics might contribute to loss of control toward compulsive drinking with prolonged and excessive alcohol use.

Impact of intranasal oxytocin on interoceptive accuracy in alcohol users: an attentional mechanism?

Interoception, i.e. the perception and appraisal of internal bodily signals, is related to the phenomenon of craving, and is reportedly disrupted in alcohol use disorders. The hormone oxytocin influences afferent transmission of bodily signals and, through its potential modulation of craving, is proposed as a possible treatment for alcohol use disorders. However, oxytocin's impact on interoception in alcohol users remains unknown. Healthy alcohol users (n = 32) attended two laboratory sessions to perform tests of interoceptive ability (heartbeat tracking: attending to internal signals and, heartbeat discrimination: integrating internal and external signals) after intranasal administration of oxytocin or placebo. Effects of interoceptive accuracy, oxytocin administration and alcohol intake, were tested using mixed-effects models. On the tracking task, oxytocin reduced interoceptive accuracy, but did not interact with alcohol consumption. On the discrimination task, we found an interaction between oxytocin administration and alcohol intake: Oxytocin, compared with placebo, increased interoceptive accuracy in heavy drinkers, but not in light social drinkers. Our study does not suggest a pure interoceptive impairment in alcohol users but instead potentially highlights reduced flexibility of internal and external attentional resource allocation. Importantly, this impairment seems to be mitigated by oxytocin. This attentional hypothesis needs to be explicitly tested in future research.

Facial thermal variations: A new marker of emotional arousal

Functional infrared thermal imaging (fITI) is considered a promising method to measure emotional autonomic responses through facial cutaneous thermal variations. However, the facial thermal response to emotions still needs to be investigated within the framework of the dimensional approach to emotions. The main aim of this study was to assess how the facial thermal variations index the emotional arousal and valence dimensions of visual stimuli. Twenty-four participants were presented with three groups of standardized emotional pictures (unpleasant, neutral and pleasant) from the International Affective Picture System. Facial temperature was recorded at the nose tip, an important region of interest for facial thermal variations, and compared to electrodermal responses, a robust index of emotional arousal. Both types of responses were also compared to subjective ratings of pictures. An emotional arousal effect was found on the amplitude and latency of thermal responses and on the amplitude and frequency of electrodermal responses. The participants showed greater thermal and dermal responses to emotional than to neutral pictures with no difference between pleasant and unpleasant ones. Thermal responses correlated and the dermal ones tended to correlate with subjective ratings. Finally, in the emotional conditions compared to the neutral one, the frequency of simultaneous thermal and dermal responses increased while both thermal or dermal isolated responses decreased. Overall, this study brings convergent arguments to consider fITI as a promising method reflecting the arousal dimension of emotional stimulation and, consequently, as a credible alternative to the classical recording of electrodermal activity. The present research provides an original way to unveil autonomic implication in emotional processes and opens new perspectives to measure them in touchless conditions.

Autonomic Reactivity to Arousing Stimuli with Social and Non-social Relevance in Alexithymia

Emotional difficulties in alexithymia and their social consequences have been linked to alterations in autonomic nervous system. However, most of previous studies did not take into account the distinction between the affective and the cognitive dimensions of the alexithymia, leading to inconsistent results.

Aim: In this study, we compared the effects of both dimensions of alexithymia on the autonomic arousal to emotional and social visual stimulations.

Methods: Skin conductance responses (SCRs) to items of the International Affective Pictures System characterized by emotional (unpleasant, neutral, and pleasant), social (with humans) or non-social (without humans) content were recorded in non-alexithymic (NA), affective (AA) and cognitive alexithymic (CA) participants, selected on the basis of the Toronto Alexithymia Scale and the Bermond-Vorst Alexithymia Questionnaire. All participants responded to questionnaires of empathy, social phobia, depression, and anxiety before the experiment and evaluated the arousal of the pictures after it.

Results: Cognitive alexithymic group showed lower amplitudes of SCRs to pictures with social than without social relevance whereas the opposite pattern was observed for the NA group. Arousal emotional effects of the pictures on SCRs did not differ among groups. In addition, CA participants showed lower scores than NA in the Personal Taking sub-scale of the empathy questionnaire, while AA showed lower scores than NA in the fantasy sub-scale. The CA group showed higher social phobia, depression and anxiety scores, than the other two groups.

Conclusion: This work has two original outcomes: first, affective alexithymics expressed lower empathic affective scores than other groups; second, alexithymia modulated the impact of the social relevance of the stimuli on the autonomic reactivity, this impact vanishing in affective alexithymics and reversing in cognitive alexithymics. Thus, though the groups could not be distinguished on the basis of emotional effect on SCRs, they clearly differed when the empathic characteristics and the autonomic impact of social relevance were considered. Finally, the described autonomic signature to social relevant information could contribute to elucidate the difficulty of alexithymics to deal with emotions during social transactions.

Diurnal Emotional States Impact the Sleep Course

BACKGROUND

Diurnal emotional experiences seem to affect several characteristics of sleep architecture. However, this influence remains unclear, especially for positive emotions. In addition, electrodermal activity (EDA), a sympathetic robust indicator of emotional arousal, differs depending on the sleep stage. The present research has a double aim: to identify the specific effects of pre-sleep emotional states on the architecture of the subsequent sleep period; to relate such states to the sympathetic activation during the same sleep period.

METHODS

Twelve healthy volunteers (20.1 ± 1.0 yo.) participated in the experiment and each one slept 9 nights at the laboratory, divided into 3 sessions, one per week. Each session was organized over three nights. A reference night, allowing baseline pre-sleep and sleep recordings, preceded an experimental night before which participants watched a negative, neutral, or positive movie. The third and last night was devoted to analyzing the potential recovery or persistence of emotional effects induced before the experimental night. Standard polysomnography and EDA were recorded during all the nights.

RESULTS

Firstly, we found that experimental pre-sleep emotional induction increased the Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep rate following both negative and positive movies. While this increase was spread over the whole night for positive induction, it was limited to the second half of the sleep period for negative induction. Secondly, the valence of the pre-sleep movie also impacted the sympathetic activation during Non-REM stage 3 sleep, which increased after negative induction and decreased after positive induction.

CONCLUSION

Pre-sleep controlled emotional states impacted the subsequent REM sleep rate and modulated the sympathetic activity during the sleep period. The outcomes of this study offer interesting perspectives related to the effect of diurnal emotional influences on sleep regulation and open new avenues for potential practices designed to alleviate sleep disturbances.

[Craniomandibular relations and anti-gravity posture: stabilometric study disclusion wedges]

Cephalometric parameters are thought to influence static posture. The present work evaluates the relationships between skeletal class or facial divergency, on one hand, and body posture, on the other hand. ANB and FMA angles were measured from profile cephalograms in twenty healthy adults. From each, stabilograms were recorded, with eyes open or shut, and with or without disclusion splints. Without splints, ANB and FMA proved to correlate with the accuracy of postural control. Adding splints changes the average position of the center of pressure exerted on the ground by the body, the anterior-posterior axis, and this effect is consistent with that of the typology. It also alters the displacement of the center of pressure on the same axis. These effects depend on whether the eyes are open or closed. The data reinforces the notion of the impact of cephalometric parameters and their mechanical changes on the static posture. They invite us to take greater account of postural impact of splints used in orthodontic practice.

Arousal in response to neutral pictures is modified in temporal lobe epilepsy

The objectives of the present study were to (i) better characterize visual emotional experience in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), (ii) identify clinical risk factors that might be predictive of a change in emotional experience, and (iii) study the relationships between emotional experience and psychobehavioral/quality-of-life factors. Fifty patients with TLE and fifty matched controls evaluated the emotional content of unpleasant, pleasant, and neutral pictures with respect to their valence (unpleasant-to-pleasant) and arousal (low-to-high) levels. Demographic, cognitive, and psychobehavioral data were recorded for all participants, and clinical data and factors related to quality of life were also collected for patients with TLE. There were no significant differences between the group with TLE and the control group in terms of valence evaluations. However, arousal scores for neutral pictures were significantly higher in patients with TLE than in controls. There was also a nonsignificant trend towards lower arousal scores for pleasant pictures in patients with TLE than in controls. Although none of the recorded clinical factors were found to be related to emotional experience, the level of apathy was predictive of greater arousal experience for neutral pictures in patients with TLE. In conclusion, emotional experience appears to be modified in TLE and might be related to apathy. Changes in emotional experience should be taken into account in studies in which neutral stimuli are used to establish a baseline level when assessing emotional and cognitive processing.

Emotional content of stimuli improves visuospatial working memory

Processing and storage in visuospatial working memory (VSWM) seem to depend on attention-based mechanisms. In order to explore the effect of attention-attractive stimuli, such as emotional faces on VSWM performance, ERPs were obtained from 20 young adults while reproducing spatial sequences of six facial (happy and neutral) and non-facial control stimuli in inverse order. Behavioral performances revealed that trials with happy facial expressions resulted in a significantly higher amount of correct responses. For positive emotional facial stimuli, N170 amplitude was higher over right temporo-parietal regions, while P2 amplitude was higher over frontal and lower over parietal regions. In addition, LPP amplitude was also significantly higher for this type of stimuli. Both behavioral and electrophysiological results support the notion of the domain-general attention-based mechanism of VSWM maintenance, in which spatial to-be-remembered locations might be influenced by the emotional content of the stimuli.

State anxiety modulates the impact of peripherally presented affective stimuli on foveal processing

BACKGROUND

The priority processing of peripherally presented affective stimuli was recently shown in healthy individuals to divert attentional resources dedicated to foveal processing. Here we investigated the influence of sub-clinical levels of anxiety and depression on this bias.

METHODS

Eighty-four participants were submitted to psychological tests that evaluate anxiety and depression levels. Then, they had to make speeded responses to the direction of left- or right-oriented arrows that were presented foveally at fixation. Each arrow was preceded by a peripherally presented pair of pictures, one neutral and one emotional, unpleasant or pleasant. Thus, the direction of the foveal arrow was either congruent or not with the peripheral location of the previously presented emotional picture. Data analysis focused on the differences of reaction times between congruent and incongruent conditions, which assess the spatial response bias in the task.

RESULTS

A main effect of state-anxiety was observed suggesting that the higher the level of state-anxiety, the greater the congruence effect.

LIMITATIONS

Since the obtained result relates to subclinical anxiety levels, its generalization to anxiety disorders remains tentative.

CONCLUSIONS

State-anxiety appears to modulate the propensity to be influenced by emotionally salient information occurring in peripheral vision, independently of its relevance to the ongoing behavior. The long-term persistence of a high level of alertness for emotional cues in visual periphery could contribute to the causation and the maintenance of anxiety disorders.

Cognitive and physiological dissociations in response to emotional pictures in patients with anorexia

Recent studies suggest that patients with anorexia may express dissociated cognitive and physiological reactivities to emotional stimuli. The present research aimed to compare subjective and autonomic responses to pleasant, unpleasant and neutral scenes during a categorization task and an activation rating task in anorexic (AN), alexithymic (AL), depressed (DEP) and control participants (CONT). The participants first categorized pictures according to their emotional valence, followed by a rating of their activation level, concomitant with the recording of skin conductance responses (SCRs). Main findings showed that the AN patients presented major difficulty in categorizing pictures, particularly neutral ones. Contrary to the AL participants, this difficulty did not induce significant increases of SCR amplitude in the AN patients. In the second task, the AN patients rated the intensity of activation of unpleasant pictures higher than the AL participants and that of pleasant ones higher than the AL and CONT participants. In addition, no significant linear correlation was observed between the intensity of activation ratings and SCR amplitude in the AN, AL or DEP participants contrarily to what was observed for control participants. This lack of relation suggests a non-specific disconnection between physiological and cognitive self-reported responses to emotional stimuli. Our results highlight a specific form of emotional processing in the AN patients distinct from that observed in alexithymia or depression and characterized by a dissociation between cognitive and physiological responses. This kind of disconnection could be associated with emotional regulation processes and may benefit the AN patients by lowering the psychological stress response.

Early brain-body impact of emotional arousal

Current research in affective neuroscience suggests that the emotional content of visual stimuli activates brain–body responses that could be critical to general health and physical disease. The aim of this study was to develop an integrated neurophysiological approach linking central and peripheral markers of nervous activity during the presentation of natural scenes in order to determine the temporal stages of brain processing related to the bodily impact of emotions. More specifically, whole head magnetoencephalogram (MEG) data and skin conductance response (SCR), a reliable autonomic marker of central activation, were recorded in healthy volunteers during the presentation of emotional (unpleasant and pleasant) and neutral pictures selected from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS). Analyses of event-related magnetic fields (ERFs) revealed greater activity at 180 ms in an occipitotemporal component for emotional pictures than for neutral counterparts. More importantly, these early effects of emotional arousal on cerebral activity were significantly correlated with later increases in SCR magnitude. For the first time, a neuromagnetic cortical component linked to a well-documented marker of bodily arousal expression of emotion, namely, the SCR, was identified and located. This finding sheds light on the time course of the brain–body interaction with emotional arousal and provides new insights into the neural bases of complex and reciprocal mind–body links.