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Perkins AQ, Gillis ZS, Rich EL. Multiattribute Decision-making in Macaques Relies on Direct Attribute Comparisons. J Cogn Neurosci 2024; 36:1879-1897. [PMID: 38940740 DOI: 10.1162/jocn_a_02208] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/29/2024]
Abstract
In value-based decisions, there are frequently multiple attributes, such as cost, quality, or quantity, that contribute to the overall goodness of an option. Because one option may not be better in all attributes at once, the decision process should include a means of weighing relevant attributes. Most decision-making models solve this problem by computing an integrated value, or utility, for each option from a weighted combination of attributes. However, behavioral anomalies in decision-making, such as context effects, indicate that other attribute-specific computations might be taking place. Here, we tested whether rhesus macaques show evidence of attribute-specific processing in a value-based decision-making task. Monkeys made a series of decisions involving choice options comprising a sweetness and probability attribute. Each attribute was represented by a separate bar with one of two mappings between bar size and the magnitude of the attribute (i.e., bigger = better or bigger = worse). We found that translating across different mappings produced selective impairments in decision-making. Choices were less accurate and preferences were more variable when like attributes differed in mapping, suggesting that preventing monkeys from easily making direct attribute comparisons resulted in less accurate choice behavior. This was not the case when mappings of unalike attributes within the same option were different. Likewise, gaze patterns favored transitions between like attributes over transitions between unalike attributes of the same option, so that like attributes were sampled sequentially to support within-attribute comparisons. Together, these data demonstrate that value-based decisions rely, at least in part, on directly comparing like attributes of multiattribute options.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Zachary S Gillis
- Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, NY
- Wake Forest University School of Medicine, NC
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2
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Park C, Kim J. Taste the music: Modality-general representation of affective states derived from auditory and gustatory stimuli. Cognition 2024; 249:105830. [PMID: 38810426 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105830] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/04/2024] [Revised: 05/12/2024] [Accepted: 05/21/2024] [Indexed: 05/31/2024]
Abstract
Prior studies have extensively examined modality-general representation of affect across various sensory modalities, particularly focusing on auditory and visual stimuli. However, little research has explored the modality-general representation of affect between gustatory and other sensory modalities. This study aimed to investigate whether the affective responses induced by tastes and musical pieces could be predicted within and across modalities. For each modality, eight stimuli were chosen based on four basic taste conditions (sweet, bitter, sour, and salty). Participants rated their responses to each stimulus using both taste and emotion scales. The multivariate analyses including multidimensional scaling and classification analysis were performed. The findings revealed that auditory and gustatory stimuli in the sweet category were associated with positive valence, whereas those from the other taste categories were linked to negative valence. Additionally, auditory and gustatory stimuli in sour taste category were linked to high arousal, whereas stimuli in bitter taste category were associated with low arousal. This study revealed the potential mapping of gustatory and auditory stimuli onto core affect space in everyday experiences. Moreover, it demonstrated that emotions evoked by taste and music could be predicted across modalities, supporting modality-general representation of affect.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chaery Park
- Jeonbuk National University, Jeonsu-si, South Korea, 567 Baekje-daero, Deokjin-gu, Jeonju-si, Jeollabuk-do 54896, Republic of Korea
| | - Jongwan Kim
- Jeonbuk National University, Jeonsu-si, South Korea, 567 Baekje-daero, Deokjin-gu, Jeonju-si, Jeollabuk-do 54896, Republic of Korea.
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3
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Abdel-Ghaffar SA, Huth AG, Lescroart MD, Stansbury D, Gallant JL, Bishop SJ. Occipital-temporal cortical tuning to semantic and affective features of natural images predicts associated behavioral responses. Nat Commun 2024; 15:5531. [PMID: 38982092 PMCID: PMC11233618 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-49073-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/29/2019] [Accepted: 05/22/2024] [Indexed: 07/11/2024] Open
Abstract
In everyday life, people need to respond appropriately to many types of emotional stimuli. Here, we investigate whether human occipital-temporal cortex (OTC) shows co-representation of the semantic category and affective content of visual stimuli. We also explore whether OTC transformation of semantic and affective features extracts information of value for guiding behavior. Participants viewed 1620 emotional natural images while functional magnetic resonance imaging data were acquired. Using voxel-wise modeling we show widespread tuning to semantic and affective image features across OTC. The top three principal components underlying OTC voxel-wise responses to image features encoded stimulus animacy, stimulus arousal and interactions of animacy with stimulus valence and arousal. At low to moderate dimensionality, OTC tuning patterns predicted behavioral responses linked to each image better than regressors directly based on image features. This is consistent with OTC representing stimulus semantic category and affective content in a manner suited to guiding behavior.
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Affiliation(s)
- Samy A Abdel-Ghaffar
- Department of Psychology, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA
- Google LLC, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Alexander G Huth
- Centre for Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience, UT Austin, Austin, TX, 78712, USA
| | - Mark D Lescroart
- Department of Psychology University of Nevada Reno, Reno, NV, 89557, USA
| | - Dustin Stansbury
- Program in Vision Sciences, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA
| | - Jack L Gallant
- Department of Psychology, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA
- Program in Vision Sciences, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA
- Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA
| | - Sonia J Bishop
- Department of Psychology, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA.
- Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA.
- School of Psychology, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.
- Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, D02 PX31, Ireland.
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4
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Heidari F, Shiran MB, Kaheni H, Karami A, Zare-Sadeghi A. An fMRI-based investigation of the effects of odors on the functional connectivity network underlying the working memory. Exp Brain Res 2024; 242:1561-1571. [PMID: 38753044 DOI: 10.1007/s00221-024-06848-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/17/2024] [Accepted: 05/07/2024] [Indexed: 06/27/2024]
Abstract
In the human brain, the regions responsible for emotion processing, motivation, and memory are heavily influenced by olfaction, whose neural pathway is directly exposed to the outer world. In this study, we used fMRI to examine how different olfactory conditions might affect the functional connectivity circuit underlying working memory in the brain. To this end, 30 adults (aged 20-35), 13 males and 17 females, with high educational levels were chosen. Participants were screened for potential olfactory issues before undergoing the Sniffin' sticks test, which was part of the inclusion criteria. Before imaging, each participant was given the required level of training and was then asked to complete four olfactory tests involving pleasant and unpleasant odors, air, and null stimulation. The results of Seed-based analysis suggested a function connection between the inferior parietal region and the left frontal pole region upon olfactory stimulation with vanilla scent in contrast to null stimulation in this comparison, ROI-based analysis revealed an inverse synchronous among the entorhinal cortex, orbitofrontal cortex, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC). Both dlPFC and hippocampus were involved in olfactory discrimination between two different stimulants. Our findings indicate the presence of inverse correlations between several regions associated with olfaction and working memory, with pleasant scents leaving a stronger impact on the working memory-related areas, particularly the inferior parietal region.
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Affiliation(s)
- Faezeh Heidari
- Clinical Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, Department of Neurology, Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio, Finland
| | - Mohammad Bagher Shiran
- Finetech in Medicine Research Center, School of Medicine, Iran University of Medical Sciences (IUMS), Tehran, Iran
- Department of Medical Physics, School of Medicine, Iran University of Medical Science (IUMS), Tehran, Iran
| | - Haniyeh Kaheni
- Finetech in Medicine Research Center, School of Medicine, Iran University of Medical Sciences (IUMS), Tehran, Iran
- Department of Medical Physics, School of Medicine, Iran University of Medical Science (IUMS), Tehran, Iran
| | - Asra Karami
- Finetech in Medicine Research Center, School of Medicine, Iran University of Medical Sciences (IUMS), Tehran, Iran
- Department of Medical Physics, School of Medicine, Iran University of Medical Science (IUMS), Tehran, Iran
| | - Arash Zare-Sadeghi
- Finetech in Medicine Research Center, School of Medicine, Iran University of Medical Sciences (IUMS), Tehran, Iran.
- Department of Medical Physics, School of Medicine, Iran University of Medical Science (IUMS), Tehran, Iran.
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5
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Lee SA, Lee JJ, Han J, Choi M, Wager TD, Woo CW. Brain representations of affective valence and intensity in sustained pleasure and pain. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2024; 121:e2310433121. [PMID: 38857402 PMCID: PMC11194486 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2310433121] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/21/2023] [Accepted: 04/18/2024] [Indexed: 06/12/2024] Open
Abstract
Pleasure and pain are two fundamental, intertwined aspects of human emotions. Pleasurable sensations can reduce subjective feelings of pain and vice versa, and we often perceive the termination of pain as pleasant and the absence of pleasure as unpleasant. This implies the existence of brain systems that integrate them into modality-general representations of affective experiences. Here, we examined representations of affective valence and intensity in an functional MRI (fMRI) study (n = 58) of sustained pleasure and pain. We found that the distinct subpopulations of voxels within the ventromedial and lateral prefrontal cortices, the orbitofrontal cortex, the anterior insula, and the amygdala were involved in decoding affective valence versus intensity. Affective valence and intensity predictive models showed significant decoding performance in an independent test dataset (n = 62). These models were differentially connected to distinct large-scale brain networks-the intensity model to the ventral attention network and the valence model to the limbic and default mode networks. Overall, this study identified the brain representations of affective valence and intensity across pleasure and pain, promoting a systems-level understanding of human affective experiences.
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Affiliation(s)
- Soo Ahn Lee
- Center for Neuroscience Imaging Research, Institute for Basic Science, Suwon16419, Republic of Korea
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon16419, Republic of Korea
- Department of Intelligent Precision Healthcare Convergence, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon16419, Republic of Korea
| | - Jae-Joong Lee
- Center for Neuroscience Imaging Research, Institute for Basic Science, Suwon16419, Republic of Korea
| | - Jisoo Han
- Korea Brain Research Institute, Daegu41062, Republic of Korea
| | - Myunghwan Choi
- Center for Neuroscience Imaging Research, Institute for Basic Science, Suwon16419, Republic of Korea
- School of Biological Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul08826, Republic of Korea
| | - Tor D. Wager
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH03755
| | - Choong-Wan Woo
- Center for Neuroscience Imaging Research, Institute for Basic Science, Suwon16419, Republic of Korea
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon16419, Republic of Korea
- Department of Intelligent Precision Healthcare Convergence, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon16419, Republic of Korea
- Life-inspired Neural Network for Prediction and Optimization Research Group, Suwon16419, Republic of Korea
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6
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Xiao J, Adkinson JA, Allawala AB, Banks G, Bartoli E, Fan X, Mocchi M, Pascuzzi B, Pulapaka S, Franch MC, Mathew SJ, Mathura RK, Myers J, Pirtle V, Provenza NR, Shofty B, Watrous AJ, Pitkow X, Goodman WK, Pouratian N, Sheth S, Bijanki KR, Hayden BY. Insula uses overlapping codes for emotion in self and others. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2024:2024.06.04.596966. [PMID: 38895233 PMCID: PMC11185604 DOI: 10.1101/2024.06.04.596966] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/21/2024]
Abstract
In daily life, we must recognize others' emotions so we can respond appropriately. This ability may rely, at least in part, on neural responses similar to those associated with our own emotions. We hypothesized that the insula, a cortical region near the junction of the temporal, parietal, and frontal lobes, may play a key role in this process. We recorded local field potential (LFP) activity in human neurosurgical patients performing two tasks, one focused on identifying their own emotional response and one on identifying facial emotional responses in others. We found matching patterns of gamma- and high-gamma band activity for the two tasks in the insula. Three other regions (MTL, ACC, and OFC) clearly encoded both self- and other-emotions, but used orthogonal activity patterns to do so. These results support the hypothesis that the insula plays a particularly important role in mediating between experienced vs. observed emotions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jiayang Xiao
- Department of Neurosurgery, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, 77030
| | - Joshua A. Adkinson
- Department of Neurosurgery, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, 77030
| | | | - Garrett Banks
- Department of Neurosurgery, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, 77030
| | - Eleonora Bartoli
- Department of Neurosurgery, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, 77030
| | - Xiaoxu Fan
- Department of Neurosurgery, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, 77030
| | - Madaline Mocchi
- Department of Neurosurgery, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, 77030
| | - Bailey Pascuzzi
- Department of Neurosurgery, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, 77030
| | - Suhruthaa Pulapaka
- Department of Neurosurgery, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, 77030
| | - Melissa C. Franch
- Department of Neurosurgery, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, 77030
| | - Sanjay J. Mathew
- Department of Psychiatry, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, 77030
| | - Raissa K. Mathura
- Department of Neurosurgery, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, 77030
| | - John Myers
- Department of Neurosurgery, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, 77030
| | - Victoria Pirtle
- Department of Neurosurgery, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, 77030
| | - Nicole R Provenza
- Department of Neurosurgery, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, 77030
| | - Ben Shofty
- Department of Neurosurgery, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, 77030
| | - Andrew J. Watrous
- Department of Neurosurgery, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, 77030
| | - Xaq Pitkow
- Department of Neurosurgery, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, 77030
| | - Wayne K. Goodman
- Department of Psychiatry, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, 77030
| | - Nader Pouratian
- Department of Neurosurgery, University of Texas Southwestern, Dallas, TX, 75390
| | - Sameer Sheth
- Department of Neurosurgery, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, 77030
| | - Kelly R. Bijanki
- Department of Neurosurgery, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, 77030
| | - Benjamin Y. Hayden
- Department of Neurosurgery, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, 77030
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7
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Bo K, Kraynak TE, Kwon M, Sun M, Gianaros PJ, Wager TD. A systems identification approach using Bayes factors to deconstruct the brain bases of emotion regulation. Nat Neurosci 2024; 27:975-987. [PMID: 38519748 DOI: 10.1038/s41593-024-01605-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/15/2023] [Accepted: 02/15/2024] [Indexed: 03/25/2024]
Abstract
Cognitive reappraisal is fundamental to cognitive therapies and everyday emotion regulation. Analyses using Bayes factors and an axiomatic systems identification approach identified four reappraisal-related components encompassing distributed neural activity patterns across two independent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies (n = 182 and n = 176): (1) an anterior prefrontal system selectively involved in cognitive reappraisal; (2) a fronto-parietal-insular system engaged by both reappraisal and emotion generation, demonstrating a general role in appraisal; (3) a largely subcortical system activated during negative emotion generation but unaffected by reappraisal, including amygdala, hypothalamus and periaqueductal gray; and (4) a posterior cortical system of negative emotion-related regions downregulated by reappraisal. These systems covaried with individual differences in reappraisal success and were differentially related to neurotransmitter binding maps, implicating cannabinoid and serotonin systems in reappraisal. These findings challenge 'limbic'-centric models of reappraisal and provide new systems-level targets for assessing and enhancing emotion regulation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ke Bo
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA
| | - Thomas E Kraynak
- Department of Epidemiology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
| | - Mijin Kwon
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA
| | - Michael Sun
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA
| | - Peter J Gianaros
- Department of Psychology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
| | - Tor D Wager
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA.
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8
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Proverbio AM, Cesati F. Neural correlates of recalled sadness, joy, and fear states: a source reconstruction EEG study. Front Psychiatry 2024; 15:1357770. [PMID: 38638416 PMCID: PMC11024723 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1357770] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/18/2023] [Accepted: 03/18/2024] [Indexed: 04/20/2024] Open
Abstract
Introduction The capacity to understand the others' emotional states, particularly if negative (e.g. sadness or fear), underpins the empathic and social brain. Patients who cannot express their emotional states experience social isolation and loneliness, exacerbating distress. We investigated the feasibility of detecting non-invasive scalp-recorded electrophysiological signals that correspond to recalled emotional states of sadness, fear, and joy for potential classification. Methods The neural activation patterns of 20 healthy and right-handed participants were studied using an electrophysiological technique. Analyses were focused on the N400 component of Event-related potentials (ERPs) recorded during silent recall of subjective emotional states; Standardized weighted Low-resolution Electro-magnetic Tomography (swLORETA) was employed for source reconstruction. The study classified individual patterns of brain activation linked to the recollection of three distinct emotional states into seven regions of interest (ROIs). Results Statistical analysis (ANOVA) of the individual magnitude values revealed the existence of a common emotional circuit, as well as distinct brain areas that were specifically active during recalled sad, happy and fearful states. In particular, the right temporal and left superior frontal areas were more active for sadness, the left limbic region for fear, and the right orbitofrontal cortex for happy affective states. Discussion In conclusion, this study successfully demonstrated the feasibility of detecting scalp-recorded electrophysiological signals corresponding to internal and subjective affective states. These findings contribute to our understanding of the emotional brain, and have potential applications for future BCI classification and identification of emotional states in LIS patients who may be unable to express their emotions, thus helping to alleviate social isolation and sense of loneliness.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alice Mado Proverbio
- Cognitive Electrophysiology Lab, Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy
- NEURO-MI Milan Center for Neuroscience, Milan, Italy
| | - Federico Cesati
- Cognitive Electrophysiology Lab, Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy
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9
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Kim HJ, Lux BK, Lee E, Finn ES, Woo CW. Brain decoding of spontaneous thought: Predictive modeling of self-relevance and valence using personal narratives. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2024; 121:e2401959121. [PMID: 38547065 PMCID: PMC10998624 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2401959121] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/01/2024] [Accepted: 02/20/2024] [Indexed: 04/02/2024] Open
Abstract
The contents and dynamics of spontaneous thought are important factors for personality traits and mental health. However, assessing spontaneous thoughts is challenging due to their unconstrained nature, and directing participants' attention to report their thoughts may fundamentally alter them. Here, we aimed to decode two key content dimensions of spontaneous thought-self-relevance and valence-directly from brain activity. To train functional MRI-based predictive models, we used individually generated personal stories as stimuli in a story-reading task to mimic narrative-like spontaneous thoughts (n = 49). We then tested these models on multiple test datasets (total n = 199). The default mode, ventral attention, and frontoparietal networks played key roles in the predictions, with the anterior insula and midcingulate cortex contributing to self-relevance prediction and the left temporoparietal junction and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex contributing to valence prediction. Overall, this study presents brain models of internal thoughts and emotions, highlighting the potential for the brain decoding of spontaneous thought.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hong Ji Kim
- Center for Neuroscience Imaging Research, Institute for Basic Science, Suwon16419, South Korea
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon16419, South Korea
- Department of Intelligent Precision Healthcare Convergence, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon16419, South Korea
| | - Byeol Kim Lux
- Center for Neuroscience Imaging Research, Institute for Basic Science, Suwon16419, South Korea
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon16419, South Korea
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, NH03755
| | - Eunjin Lee
- Center for Neuroscience Imaging Research, Institute for Basic Science, Suwon16419, South Korea
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon16419, South Korea
- Department of Intelligent Precision Healthcare Convergence, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon16419, South Korea
| | - Emily S. Finn
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, NH03755
| | - Choong-Wan Woo
- Center for Neuroscience Imaging Research, Institute for Basic Science, Suwon16419, South Korea
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon16419, South Korea
- Department of Intelligent Precision Healthcare Convergence, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon16419, South Korea
- Life-inspired Neural Network for Prediction and Optimization Research Group, Suwon16419, South Korea
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10
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Lettieri G, Handjaras G, Cappello EM, Setti F, Bottari D, Bruno V, Diano M, Leo A, Tinti C, Garbarini F, Pietrini P, Ricciardi E, Cecchetti L. Dissecting abstract, modality-specific and experience-dependent coding of affect in the human brain. SCIENCE ADVANCES 2024; 10:eadk6840. [PMID: 38457501 PMCID: PMC10923499 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adk6840] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/05/2023] [Accepted: 02/06/2024] [Indexed: 03/10/2024]
Abstract
Emotion and perception are tightly intertwined, as affective experiences often arise from the appraisal of sensory information. Nonetheless, whether the brain encodes emotional instances using a sensory-specific code or in a more abstract manner is unclear. Here, we answer this question by measuring the association between emotion ratings collected during a unisensory or multisensory presentation of a full-length movie and brain activity recorded in typically developed, congenitally blind and congenitally deaf participants. Emotional instances are encoded in a vast network encompassing sensory, prefrontal, and temporal cortices. Within this network, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex stores a categorical representation of emotion independent of modality and previous sensory experience, and the posterior superior temporal cortex maps the valence dimension using an abstract code. Sensory experience more than modality affects how the brain organizes emotional information outside supramodal regions, suggesting the existence of a scaffold for the representation of emotional states where sensory inputs during development shape its functioning.
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Affiliation(s)
- Giada Lettieri
- Crossmodal Perception and Plasticity Laboratory, Institute of Research in Psychology & Institute of Neuroscience, Université Catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
- Social and Affective Neuroscience Group, MoMiLab, IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, Lucca, Italy
| | - Giacomo Handjaras
- Social and Affective Neuroscience Group, MoMiLab, IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, Lucca, Italy
| | - Elisa M. Cappello
- Social and Affective Neuroscience Group, MoMiLab, IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, Lucca, Italy
| | - Francesca Setti
- Sensorimotor Experiences and Mental Representations Group, MoMiLab, IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, Lucca, Italy
| | - Davide Bottari
- Sensorimotor Experiences and Mental Representations Group, MoMiLab, IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, Lucca, Italy
- Sensory Experience Dependent Group, MoMiLab, IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, Lucca, Italy
| | | | - Matteo Diano
- Department of Psychology, University of Turin, Turin, Italy
| | - Andrea Leo
- Department of of Translational Research and Advanced Technologies in Medicine and Surgery, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy
| | - Carla Tinti
- Department of Psychology, University of Turin, Turin, Italy
| | | | - Pietro Pietrini
- Forensic Neuroscience and Psychiatry Group, MoMiLab, IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, Lucca, Italy
| | - Emiliano Ricciardi
- Sensorimotor Experiences and Mental Representations Group, MoMiLab, IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, Lucca, Italy
- Sensory Experience Dependent Group, MoMiLab, IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, Lucca, Italy
| | - Luca Cecchetti
- Social and Affective Neuroscience Group, MoMiLab, IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, Lucca, Italy
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11
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Bignardi G, Smit DJA, Vessel EA, Trupp MD, Ticini LF, Fisher SE, Polderman TJC. Genetic effects on variability in visual aesthetic evaluations are partially shared across visual domains. Commun Biol 2024; 7:55. [PMID: 38184755 PMCID: PMC10771521 DOI: 10.1038/s42003-023-05710-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/06/2023] [Accepted: 12/14/2023] [Indexed: 01/08/2024] Open
Abstract
The aesthetic values that individuals place on visual images are formed and shaped over a lifetime. However, whether the formation of visual aesthetic value is solely influenced by environmental exposure is still a matter of debate. Here, we considered differences in aesthetic value emerging across three visual domains: abstract images, scenes, and faces. We examined variability in two major dimensions of ordinary aesthetic experiences: taste-typicality and evaluation-bias. We build on two samples from the Australian Twin Registry where 1547 and 1231 monozygotic and dizygotic twins originally rated visual images belonging to the three domains. Genetic influences explained 26% to 41% of the variance in taste-typicality and evaluation-bias. Multivariate analyses showed that genetic effects were partially shared across visual domains. Results indicate that the heritability of major dimensions of aesthetic evaluations is comparable to that of other complex social traits, albeit lower than for other complex cognitive traits. The exception was taste-typicality for abstract images, for which we found only shared and unique environmental influences. Our study reveals that diverse sources of genetic and environmental variation influence the formation of aesthetic value across distinct visual domains and provides improved metrics to assess inter-individual differences in aesthetic value.
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Affiliation(s)
- Giacomo Bignardi
- Language and Genetics Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, the Netherlands.
- Max Planck School of Cognition, Stephanstrasse 1a, Leipzig, Germany.
| | - Dirk J A Smit
- Department of Psychiatry, Amsterdam UMC, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
| | - Edward A Vessel
- Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, Frankfurt, Germany
- Department of Psychology, City College, City University of New York, New York, NY, USA
| | - MacKenzie D Trupp
- Department of Cognition, Emotion, and Methods in Psychology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
- Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Luca F Ticini
- Department of Psychology, Webster Vienna Private University, Vienna, Austria
| | - Simon E Fisher
- Language and Genetics Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, the Netherlands
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Tinca J C Polderman
- Clinical Developmental Psychology, Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- VKC Psyche, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychosocial Care, Amsterdam UMC, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
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12
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Brewer AA, Barton B. Cortical field maps across human sensory cortex. Front Comput Neurosci 2023; 17:1232005. [PMID: 38164408 PMCID: PMC10758003 DOI: 10.3389/fncom.2023.1232005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/03/2023] [Accepted: 11/07/2023] [Indexed: 01/03/2024] Open
Abstract
Cortical processing pathways for sensory information in the mammalian brain tend to be organized into topographical representations that encode various fundamental sensory dimensions. Numerous laboratories have now shown how these representations are organized into numerous cortical field maps (CMFs) across visual and auditory cortex, with each CFM supporting a specialized computation or set of computations that underlie the associated perceptual behaviors. An individual CFM is defined by two orthogonal topographical gradients that reflect two essential aspects of feature space for that sense. Multiple adjacent CFMs are then organized across visual and auditory cortex into macrostructural patterns termed cloverleaf clusters. CFMs within cloverleaf clusters are thought to share properties such as receptive field distribution, cortical magnification, and processing specialization. Recent measurements point to the likely existence of CFMs in the other senses, as well, with topographical representations of at least one sensory dimension demonstrated in somatosensory, gustatory, and possibly olfactory cortical pathways. Here we discuss the evidence for CFM and cloverleaf cluster organization across human sensory cortex as well as approaches used to identify such organizational patterns. Knowledge of how these topographical representations are organized across cortex provides us with insight into how our conscious perceptions are created from our basic sensory inputs. In addition, studying how these representations change during development, trauma, and disease serves as an important tool for developing improvements in clinical therapies and rehabilitation for sensory deficits.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alyssa A. Brewer
- mindSPACE Laboratory, Departments of Cognitive Sciences and Language Science (by Courtesy), Center for Hearing Research, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, United States
| | - Brian Barton
- mindSPACE Laboratory, Department of Cognitive Sciences, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, United States
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13
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Perkins AQ, Gillis ZS, Rich EL. Multi-attribute decision-making in macaques relies on direct attribute comparisons. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2023:2023.10.22.563329. [PMID: 37961522 PMCID: PMC10634707 DOI: 10.1101/2023.10.22.563329] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/15/2023]
Abstract
In value-based decisions, there are frequently multiple attributes, such as cost, quality, or quantity, that contribute to the overall goodness of an option. Since one option may not be better in all attributes at once, the decision process should include a means of weighing relevant attributes. Most decision-making models solve this problem by computing an integrated value, or utility, for each option from a weighted combination of attributes. However, behavioral anomalies in decision-making, such as context effects, indicate that other attribute-specific computations might be taking place. Here, we tested whether rhesus macaques show evidence of attribute-specific processing in a value-based decision-making task. Monkeys made a series of decisions involving choice options comprising a sweetness and probability attribute. Each attribute was represented by a separate bar with one of two mappings between bar size and the magnitude of the attribute (i.e., bigger=better or bigger=worse). We found that translating across different mappings produced selective impairments in decision-making. When like attributes differed, monkeys were prevented from easily making direct attribute comparisons, and choices were less accurate and preferences were more variable. This was not the case when mappings of unalike attributes within the same option were different. Likewise, gaze patterns favored transitions between like attributes over transitions between unalike attributes of the same option, so that like attributes were sampled sequentially to support within-attribute comparisons. Together, these data demonstrate that value-based decisions rely, at least in part, on directly comparing like attributes of multi-attribute options. Significance Statement Value-based decision-making is a cognitive function impacted by a number of clinical conditions, including substance use disorder and mood disorders. Understanding the neural mechanisms, including online processing steps involved in decision formation, will provide critical insights into decision-making deficits characteristic of human psychiatric disorders. Using rhesus monkeys as a model species capable of complex decision-making, this study shows that decisions involve a process of comparing like features, or attributes, of multi-attribute options. This is contrary to popular models of decision-making in which attributes are first combined into an overall value, or utility, to make a choice. Therefore, these results serve as an important foundation for establishing a more complete understanding of the neural mechanisms involved in forming complex decisions.
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14
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Kryklywy JH, Forys BJ, Vieira JB, Quinlan DJ, Mitchell DGV. Dissociating representations of affect and motion in visual cortices. COGNITIVE, AFFECTIVE & BEHAVIORAL NEUROSCIENCE 2023; 23:1322-1345. [PMID: 37526901 PMCID: PMC10545642 DOI: 10.3758/s13415-023-01115-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 06/05/2023] [Indexed: 08/02/2023]
Abstract
While a delicious dessert being presented to us may elicit strong feelings of happiness and excitement, the same treat falling slowly away can lead to sadness and disappointment. Our emotional response to the item depends on its visual motion direction. Despite this importance, it remains unclear whether (and how) cortical areas devoted to decoding motion direction represents or integrates emotion with perceived motion direction. Motion-selective visual area V5/MT+ sits, both functionally and anatomically, at the nexus of dorsal and ventral visual streams. These pathways, however, differ in how they are modulated by emotional cues. The current study was designed to disentangle how emotion and motion perception interact, as well as use emotion-dependent modulation of visual cortices to understand the relation of V5/MT+ to canonical processing streams. During functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), approaching, receding, or static motion after-effects (MAEs) were induced on stationary positive, negative, and neutral stimuli. An independent localizer scan was conducted to identify the visual-motion area V5/MT+. Through univariate and multivariate analyses, we demonstrated that emotion representations in V5/MT+ share a more similar response profile to that observed in ventral visual than dorsal, visual structures. Specifically, V5/MT+ and ventral structures were sensitive to the emotional content of visual stimuli, whereas dorsal visual structures were not. Overall, this work highlights the critical role of V5/MT+ in the representation and processing of visually acquired emotional content. It further suggests a role for this region in utilizing affectively salient visual information to augment motion perception of biologically relevant stimuli.
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Affiliation(s)
- James H Kryklywy
- Department of Psychology, Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, Canada.
| | - Brandon J Forys
- Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
| | - Joana B Vieira
- Department of Psychology, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK
| | - Derek J Quinlan
- Department of Psychology, Huron University College, London, Canada
- Graduate Brain and Mind Institute, Brain and Mind Institute, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, N6A 5B7, Canada
| | - Derek G V Mitchell
- Graduate Brain and Mind Institute, Brain and Mind Institute, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, N6A 5B7, Canada
- Department of Anatomy & Cell Biology, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada
- Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada
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15
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Du C, Fu K, Wen B, He H. Topographic representation of visually evoked emotional experiences in the human cerebral cortex. iScience 2023; 26:107571. [PMID: 37664621 PMCID: PMC10470388 DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.107571] [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: 04/10/2023] [Revised: 07/03/2023] [Accepted: 08/07/2023] [Indexed: 09/05/2023] Open
Abstract
Affective neuroscience seeks to uncover the neural underpinnings of emotions that humans experience. However, it remains unclear whether an affective space underlies the discrete emotion categories in the human brain, and how it relates to the hypothesized affective dimensions. To address this question, we developed a voxel-wise encoding model to investigate the cortical organization of human emotions. Results revealed that the distributed emotion representations are constructed through a fundamental affective space. We further compared each dimension of this space to 14 hypothesized affective dimensions, and found that many affective dimensions are captured by the fundamental affective space. Our results suggest that emotional experiences are represented by broadly spatial overlapping cortical patterns and form smooth gradients across large areas of the cortex. This finding reveals the specific structure of the affective space and its relationship to hypothesized affective dimensions, while highlighting the distributed nature of emotional representations in the cortex.
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Affiliation(s)
- Changde Du
- Laboratory of Brain Atlas and Brain-Inspired Intelligence, State Key Laboratory of Multimodal Artificial Intelligence Systems, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing 100190, China
| | - Kaicheng Fu
- Laboratory of Brain Atlas and Brain-Inspired Intelligence, State Key Laboratory of Multimodal Artificial Intelligence Systems, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing 100190, China
- School of Artificial Intelligence, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
| | - Bincheng Wen
- Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Key Laboratory of Primate Neurobiology, Institute of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200031, China
- School of Artificial Intelligence, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
| | - Huiguang He
- Laboratory of Brain Atlas and Brain-Inspired Intelligence, State Key Laboratory of Multimodal Artificial Intelligence Systems, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing 100190, China
- School of Artificial Intelligence, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
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16
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Lee DH, Chikazoe J. A clearing in the objectivity of aesthetics? FRONTIERS IN NEUROIMAGING 2023; 2:1211801. [PMID: 37654975 PMCID: PMC10466419 DOI: 10.3389/fnimg.2023.1211801] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/25/2023] [Accepted: 07/21/2023] [Indexed: 09/02/2023]
Abstract
As subjective experiences go, beauty matters. Although aesthetics has long been a topic of study, research in this area has not resulted in a level of interest and progress commensurate with its import. Here, we briefly discuss two recent advances, one computational and one neuroscientific, and their pertinence to aesthetic processing. First, we hypothesize that deep neural networks provide the capacity to model representations essential to aesthetic experiences. Second, we highlight the principal gradient as an axis of information processing that is potentially key to examining where and how aesthetic processing takes place in the brain. In concert with established neuroimaging tools, we suggest that these advances may cultivate a new frontier in the understanding of our aesthetic experiences.
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17
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Kragel PA, Treadway MT, Admon R, Pizzagalli DA, Hahn EC. A mesocorticolimbic signature of pleasure in the human brain. Nat Hum Behav 2023; 7:1332-1343. [PMID: 37386105 DOI: 10.1038/s41562-023-01639-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/27/2022] [Accepted: 05/22/2023] [Indexed: 07/01/2023]
Abstract
Pleasure is a fundamental driver of human behaviour, yet its neural basis remains largely unknown. Rodent studies highlight opioidergic neural circuits connecting the nucleus accumbens, ventral pallidum, insula and orbitofrontal cortex as critical for the initiation and regulation of pleasure, and human neuroimaging studies exhibit some translational parity. However, whether activation in these regions conveys a generalizable representation of pleasure regulated by opioidergic mechanisms remains unclear. Here we use pattern recognition techniques to develop a human functional magnetic resonance imaging signature of mesocorticolimbic activity unique to states of pleasure. In independent validation tests, this signature is sensitive to pleasant tastes and affect evoked by humour. The signature is spatially co-extensive with mu-opioid receptor gene expression, and its response is attenuated by the opioid antagonist naloxone. These findings provide evidence for a basis of pleasure in humans that is distributed across brain systems.
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Affiliation(s)
- Philip A Kragel
- Department of Psychology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA.
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA.
| | - Michael T Treadway
- Department of Psychology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA
| | - Roee Admon
- Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School and McLean Hospital, Belmont, MA, USA
- School of Psychological Sciences, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel
| | - Diego A Pizzagalli
- Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School and McLean Hospital, Belmont, MA, USA
| | - Evan C Hahn
- Department of Psychology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA
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18
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Xiao C, Wei J, Zhang GW, Tao C, Huang JJ, Shen L, Wickersham IR, Tao HW, Zhang LI. Glutamatergic and GABAergic neurons in pontine central gray mediate opposing valence-specific behaviors through a global network. Neuron 2023; 111:1486-1503.e7. [PMID: 36893756 PMCID: PMC10164086 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2023.02.012] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/19/2022] [Revised: 01/23/2023] [Accepted: 02/07/2023] [Indexed: 03/11/2023]
Abstract
Extracting the valence of environmental cues is critical for animals' survival. How valence in sensory signals is encoded and transformed to produce distinct behavioral responses remains not well understood. Here, we report that the mouse pontine central gray (PCG) contributes to encoding both negative and positive valences. PCG glutamatergic neurons were activated selectively by aversive, but not reward, stimuli, whereas its GABAergic neurons were preferentially activated by reward signals. The optogenetic activation of these two populations resulted in avoidance and preference behavior, respectively, and was sufficient to induce conditioned place aversion/preference. Suppression of them reduced sensory-induced aversive and appetitive behaviors, respectively. These two functionally opponent populations, receiving a broad range of inputs from overlapping yet distinct sources, broadcast valence-specific information to a distributed brain network with distinguishable downstream effectors. Thus, PCG serves as a critical hub to process positive and negative valences of incoming sensory signals and drive valence-specific behaviors with distinct circuits.
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Affiliation(s)
- Cuiyu Xiao
- Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute, Department of Physiology and Neuroscience, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA
| | - Jinxing Wei
- Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute, Department of Physiology and Neuroscience, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA
| | - Guang-Wei Zhang
- Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute, Department of Physiology and Neuroscience, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA
| | - Can Tao
- Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute, Department of Physiology and Neuroscience, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA
| | - Junxiang J Huang
- Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute, Department of Physiology and Neuroscience, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA; Graduate Program in Biological and Biomedical Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA
| | - Li Shen
- Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute, Department of Physiology and Neuroscience, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA
| | - Ian R Wickersham
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
| | - Huizhong W Tao
- Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute, Department of Physiology and Neuroscience, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA; Center for Neural Circuits and Sensory Processing Disorders, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA.
| | - Li I Zhang
- Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute, Department of Physiology and Neuroscience, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA; Center for Neural Circuits and Sensory Processing Disorders, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA.
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19
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Klingner CM, Guntinas-Lichius O. Facial expression and emotion. Laryngorhinootologie 2023; 102:S115-S125. [PMID: 37130535 PMCID: PMC10171334 DOI: 10.1055/a-2003-5687] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/04/2023]
Abstract
Human facial expressions are unique in their ability to express our emotions and communicate them to others. The mimic expression of basic emotions is very similar across different cultures and has also many features in common with other mammals. This suggests a common genetic origin of the association between facial expressions and emotion. However, recent studies also show cultural influences and differences. The recognition of emotions from facial expressions, as well as the process of expressing one's emotions facially, occurs within an extremely complex cerebral network. Due to the complexity of the cerebral processing system, there are a variety of neurological and psychiatric disorders that can significantly disrupt the coupling of facial expressions and emotions. Wearing masks also limits our ability to convey and recognize emotions through facial expressions. Through facial expressions, however, not only "real" emotions can be expressed, but also acted ones. Thus, facial expressions open up the possibility of faking socially desired expressions and also of consciously faking emotions. However, these pretenses are mostly imperfect and can be accompanied by short-term facial movements that indicate the emotions that are actually present (microexpressions). These microexpressions are of very short duration and often barely perceptible by humans, but they are the ideal application area for computer-aided analysis. This automatic identification of microexpressions has not only received scientific attention in recent years, but its use is also being tested in security-related areas. This article summarizes the current state of knowledge of facial expressions and emotions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Carsten M Klingner
- Hans Berger Department of Neurology, Jena University Hospital, Germany
- Biomagnetic Center, Jena University Hospital, Germany
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20
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Kochs S, Franssen S, Pimpini L, van den Hurk J, Valente G, Roebroeck A, Jansen A, Roefs A. IT IS A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE: ATTENTIONAL FOCUS RATHER THAN DIETARY RESTRAINT DRIVES BRAIN RESPONSES TO FOOD STIMULI. Neuroimage 2023; 273:120076. [PMID: 37004828 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2023.120076] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/29/2022] [Revised: 03/16/2023] [Accepted: 03/30/2023] [Indexed: 04/03/2023] Open
Abstract
Brain responses to food are thought to reflect food's rewarding value and to fluctuate with dietary restraint. We propose that brain responses to food are dynamic and depend on attentional focus. Food pictures (high-caloric/low-caloric, palatable/unpalatable) were presented during fMRI-scanning, while attentional focus (hedonic/health/neutral) was induced in 52 female participants varying in dietary restraint. The level of brain activity was hardly different between palatable versus unpalatable foods or high-caloric versus low-caloric foods. Activity in several brain regions was higher in hedonic than in health or neutral attentional focus (p < 0.05, FWE-corrected). Palatability and calorie content could be decoded from multi-voxel activity patterns (p < 0.05, FDR-corrected). Dietary restraint did not significantly influence brain responses to food. So, level of brain activity in response to food stimuli depends on attentional focus, and may reflect salience, not reward value. Palatability and calorie content are reflected in patterns of brain activity.
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21
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Ballotta D, Maramotti R, Borelli E, Lui F, Pagnoni G. Neural correlates of emotional valence for faces and words. Front Psychol 2023; 14:1055054. [PMID: 36910761 PMCID: PMC9996044 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1055054] [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: 09/27/2022] [Accepted: 02/06/2023] [Indexed: 02/25/2023] Open
Abstract
Stimuli with negative emotional valence are especially apt to influence perception and action because of their crucial role in survival, a property that may not be precisely mirrored by positive emotional stimuli of equal intensity. The aim of this study was to identify the neural circuits differentially coding for positive and negative valence in the implicit processing of facial expressions and words, which are among the main ways human beings use to express emotions. Thirty-six healthy subjects took part in an event-related fMRI experiment. We used an implicit emotional processing task with the visual presentation of negative, positive, and neutral faces and words, as primary stimuli. Dynamic Causal Modeling (DCM) of the fMRI data was used to test effective brain connectivity within two different anatomo-functional models, for the processing of words and faces, respectively. In our models, the only areas showing a significant differential response to negative and positive valence across both face and word stimuli were early visual cortices, with faces eliciting stronger activations. For faces, DCM revealed that this effect was mediated by a facilitation of activity in the amygdala by positive faces and in the fusiform face area by negative faces; for words, the effect was mainly imputable to a facilitation of activity in the primary visual cortex by positive words. These findings support a role of early sensory cortices in discriminating the emotional valence of both faces and words, where the effect may be mediated chiefly by the subcortical/limbic visual route for faces, and rely more on the direct thalamic pathway to primary visual cortex for words.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daniela Ballotta
- Department of Biomedical, Metabolic and Neural Sciences, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Modena, Italy
| | - Riccardo Maramotti
- Department of Biomedical, Metabolic and Neural Sciences, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Modena, Italy
| | - Eleonora Borelli
- Department of Medical and Surgical, Maternal-Infantile and Adult Sciences, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Modena, Italy
| | - Fausta Lui
- Department of Biomedical, Metabolic and Neural Sciences, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Modena, Italy
| | - Giuseppe Pagnoni
- Department of Biomedical, Metabolic and Neural Sciences, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Modena, Italy
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22
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Decomposing Neural Representational Patterns of Discriminatory and Hedonic Information during Somatosensory Stimulation. eNeuro 2023; 10:ENEURO.0274-22.2022. [PMID: 36549914 PMCID: PMC9829099 DOI: 10.1523/eneuro.0274-22.2022] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/06/2022] [Revised: 12/06/2022] [Accepted: 12/07/2022] [Indexed: 12/24/2022] Open
Abstract
The ability to interrogate specific representations in the brain, determining how, and where, difference sources of information are instantiated can provide invaluable insight into neural functioning. Pattern component modeling (PCM) is a recent analytic technique for human neuroimaging that allows the decomposition of representational patterns in brain into contributing subcomponents. In the current study, we present a novel PCM variant that tracks the contribution of prespecified representational patterns to brain representation across areas, thus allowing hypothesis-guided employment of the technique. We apply this technique to investigate the contributions of hedonic and nonhedonic information to the neural representation of tactile experience. We applied aversive pressure (AP) and appetitive brush (AB) to stimulate distinct peripheral nerve pathways for tactile information (C-/CT-fibers, respectively) while patients underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanning. We performed representational similarity analyses (RSAs) with pattern component modeling to dissociate how discriminatory versus hedonic tactile information contributes to population code representations in the human brain. Results demonstrated that information about appetitive and aversive tactile sensation is represented separately from nonhedonic tactile information across cortical structures. This also demonstrates the potential of new hypothesis-guided PCM variants to help delineate how information is instantiated in the brain.
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23
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Investigation of Involvement between Specific Brain Regions and Evaluation Criteria Elements in a Two-Selections Task. COMPUTATIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND NEUROSCIENCE 2022; 2022:3999223. [PMID: 36582408 PMCID: PMC9794435 DOI: 10.1155/2022/3999223] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/21/2022] [Revised: 11/07/2022] [Accepted: 11/15/2022] [Indexed: 12/24/2022]
Abstract
It is essential to understand the neural mechanisms underlying human decision-making. Several studies using traditional analysis have attempted to explain the neural mechanisms associated with decision-making based on abstract rewards. However, brain-decoding research that utilizes the multivoxel pattern analysis (MVPA) method, especially research focusing on decision-making, remains limited. In brain analysis, decoding strategies for multivoxels are required for various decision-making evaluation criteria. This is because in daily life, the human decision-making process makes use of many evaluation criteria. In the present study, we investigated the representation of evaluation criterion categories in a decision-making process using functional magnetic resonance imaging and MVPA. Participants performed a decision-making task that involved choosing a smartphone by referring to four types of evaluation criteria. The regions of interest (ROIs) were the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), nucleus accumbens (NAcc), and insula. Each combination of the four evaluation criteria was analyzed based on a binary classification using MVPA. From the binary classification accuracy obtained from MVPA, the regions that reflected differences in the evaluation criteria among the ROIs were evaluated. The results of the binary classification in the vmPFC and NAcc indicated that these regions can express evaluation criteria in decision-making processes.
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24
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Ventura-Bort C, Wendt J, Weymar M. New insights on the correspondence between subjective affective experience and physiological responses from representational similarity analysis. Psychophysiology 2022; 59:e14088. [PMID: 35543530 DOI: 10.1111/psyp.14088] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/08/2021] [Revised: 04/04/2022] [Accepted: 04/05/2022] [Indexed: 01/09/2023]
Abstract
Classical views suggest that experienced affect is related to a specific bodily response, whereas recent perspectives challenge this view postulating that similar affective experiences rather evoke different physiological responses. To further advance this debate in the field, we used representational similarity analysis to investigate the correspondence between subjective affect (arousal and valence ratings) and physiological reactions (skin conductance response [SCR], startle blink response, heart rate, and corrugator activity) across various emotion induction contexts (picture viewing task, sound listening task, and imagery task). Significant similarities were exclusively observed between SCR and arousal in the picture viewing task. However, none of the other physiological measures showed a significant relation with valence and arousal ratings in any of the tasks. These findings are discussed within the framework of the Populations hypothesis, suggesting that physiological responses do not depend on the experienced affect but are directly associated with the context in which they are evoked.
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Affiliation(s)
- Carlos Ventura-Bort
- Faculty of Human Sciences, Department of Biological Psychology and Affective Science, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
| | - Julia Wendt
- Faculty of Human Sciences, Department of Biological Psychology and Affective Science, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
| | - Mathias Weymar
- Faculty of Human Sciences, Department of Biological Psychology and Affective Science, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
- Faculty of Health Sciences Brandenburg, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
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25
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Pimpini L, Kochs S, Franssen S, van den Hurk J, Valente G, Roebroeck A, Jansen A, Roefs A. More complex than you might think: Neural representations of food reward value in obesity. Appetite 2022; 178:106164. [PMID: 35863505 DOI: 10.1016/j.appet.2022.106164] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/04/2021] [Revised: 07/01/2022] [Accepted: 07/08/2022] [Indexed: 01/22/2023]
Abstract
Obesity reached pandemic proportions and weight-loss treatments are mostly ineffective. The level of brain activity in the reward circuitry is proposed to be proportionate to the reward value of food stimuli, and stronger in people with obesity. However, empirical evidence is inconsistent. This may be due to the double-sided nature of high caloric palatable foods: at once highly palatable and high in calories (unhealthy). This study hypothesizes that, viewing high caloric palatable foods, a hedonic attentional focus compared to a health and a neutral attentional focus elicits more activity in reward-related brain regions, mostly in people with obesity. Moreover, caloric content and food palatability can be decoded from multivoxel patterns of activity most accurately in people with obesity and in the corresponding attentional focus. During one fMRI-session, attentional focus (hedonic, health, neutral) was manipulated using a one-back task with individually tailored food stimuli in 32 healthy-weight people and 29 people with obesity. Univariate analyses (p < 0.05, FWE-corrected) showed that brain activity was not different for palatable vs. unpalatable foods, nor for high vs. low caloric foods. Instead, this was higher in the hedonic compared to the health and neutral attentional focus. Multivariate analyses (MVPA) (p < 0.05, FDR-corrected) showed that palatability and caloric content could be decoded above chance level, independently of either BMI or attentional focus. Thus, brain activity to visual food stimuli is neither proportionate to the reward value (palatability and/or caloric content), nor significantly moderated by BMI. Instead, it depends on people's attentional focus, and may reflect motivational salience. Furthermore, food palatability and caloric content are represented as patterns of brain activity, independently of BMI and attentional focus. So, food reward value is reflected in patterns, not levels, of brain activity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Leonardo Pimpini
- Department of Clinical Psychological Science, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands.
| | - Sarah Kochs
- Department of Clinical Psychological Science, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands
| | - Sieske Franssen
- Department of Clinical Psychological Science, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands; Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Netherlands
| | - Job van den Hurk
- Scannexus, Maastricht, Netherlands; Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Netherlands
| | - Giancarlo Valente
- Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Netherlands
| | - Alard Roebroeck
- Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Netherlands
| | - Anita Jansen
- Department of Clinical Psychological Science, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands
| | - Anne Roefs
- Department of Clinical Psychological Science, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands
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Kim B, Andrews-Hanna JR, Han J, Lee E, Woo CW. When self comes to a wandering mind: Brain representations and dynamics of self-generated concepts in spontaneous thought. SCIENCE ADVANCES 2022; 8:eabn8616. [PMID: 36044582 PMCID: PMC9432827 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abn8616] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/29/2021] [Accepted: 07/14/2022] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
Self-relevant concepts are major building blocks of spontaneous thought, and their dynamics in a natural stream of thought are likely to reveal one's internal states that are important for mental health. Here, we conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment (n = 62) to examine brain representations and dynamics of self-generated concepts in the context of spontaneous thought using a newly developed free association-based thought sampling task. The dynamics of conceptual associations were predictive of individual differences in general negative affectivity, replicating across multiple datasets (n = 196). Reflecting on self-generated concepts strongly engaged brain regions linked to autobiographical memory, conceptual processes, emotion, and autonomic regulation, including the medial prefrontal and medial temporal subcortical structures. Multivariate pattern-based predictive modeling revealed that the neural representations of valence became more person-specific as the level of perceived self-relevance increased. Overall, this study sheds light on how self-generated concepts in spontaneous thought construct inner affective states and idiosyncrasies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Byeol Kim
- Center for Neuroscience Imaging Research, Institute for Basic Science, Suwon, South Korea
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, South Korea
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA
| | - Jessica R. Andrews-Hanna
- Department of Psychology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA
- Cognitive Science, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA
| | - Jihoon Han
- Center for Neuroscience Imaging Research, Institute for Basic Science, Suwon, South Korea
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, South Korea
- Department of Intelligent Precision Healthcare Convergence, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, South Korea
| | - Eunjin Lee
- Center for Neuroscience Imaging Research, Institute for Basic Science, Suwon, South Korea
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, South Korea
- Department of Intelligent Precision Healthcare Convergence, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, South Korea
| | - Choong-Wan Woo
- Center for Neuroscience Imaging Research, Institute for Basic Science, Suwon, South Korea
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, South Korea
- Department of Intelligent Precision Healthcare Convergence, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, South Korea
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Suzuki S. Constructing value signals for food rewards: determinants and the integration. Curr Opin Behav Sci 2022. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cobeha.2022.101178] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
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Shany O, Gurevitch G, Gilam G, Dunsky N, Reznik Balter S, Greental A, Nutkevitch N, Eldar E, Hendler T. A corticostriatal pathway mediating self-efficacy enhancement. NPJ MENTAL HEALTH RESEARCH 2022; 1:6. [PMID: 38609484 PMCID: PMC10955890 DOI: 10.1038/s44184-022-00006-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/05/2021] [Accepted: 05/04/2022] [Indexed: 04/14/2024]
Abstract
Forming positive beliefs about one's ability to perform challenging tasks, often termed self-efficacy, is fundamental to motivation and emotional well-being. Self-efficacy crucially depends on positive social feedback, yet people differ in the degree to which they integrate such feedback into self-beliefs (i.e., positive bias). While diminished positive bias of this sort is linked to mood and anxiety, the neural processes by which positive feedback on public performance enhances self-efficacy remain unclear. To address this, we conducted a behavioral and fMRI study wherein participants delivered a public speech and received fictitious positive and neutral feedback on their performance in the MRI scanner. Before and after receiving feedback, participants evaluated their actual and expected performance. We found that reduced positive bias in updating self-efficacy based on positive social feedback associated with a psychopathological dimension reflecting symptoms of anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem. Analysis of brain encoding of social feedback showed that a positive self-efficacy update bias associated with a stronger reward-related response in the ventral striatum (VS) and stronger coupling of the VS with a temporoparietal region involved in self-processing. Together, our findings demarcate a corticostriatal circuit that promotes positive bias in self-efficacy updating based on social feedback, and highlight the centrality of such bias to emotional well-being.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ofir Shany
- School of Psychological Sciences, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel.
- Sagol Brain Institute, Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, Tel-Aviv, Israel.
| | - Guy Gurevitch
- Sagol Brain Institute, Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, Tel-Aviv, Israel
- Sackler School of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel
| | - Gadi Gilam
- The Institute of Biomedical and Oral Research, Faculty of Dental Medicine, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
| | - Netta Dunsky
- Sagol Brain Institute, Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, Tel-Aviv, Israel
- Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel
| | | | - Ayam Greental
- Sagol Brain Institute, Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, Tel-Aviv, Israel
- Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel
| | - Noa Nutkevitch
- Sagol Brain Institute, Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, Tel-Aviv, Israel
| | - Eran Eldar
- Psychology and Cognitive Sciences Departments, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
| | - Talma Hendler
- School of Psychological Sciences, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel.
- Sagol Brain Institute, Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, Tel-Aviv, Israel.
- Sackler School of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel.
- Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel.
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Thakral PP, Bottary R, Kensinger EA. Representing the Good and Bad: fMRI signatures during the encoding of multisensory positive, negative, and neutral events. Cortex 2022; 151:240-258. [PMID: 35462202 PMCID: PMC9124690 DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2022.02.014] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/15/2021] [Revised: 01/04/2022] [Accepted: 02/13/2022] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Abstract
Few studies have examined how multisensory emotional experiences are processed and encoded into memory. Here, we aimed to determine whether, at encoding, activity within functionally-defined visual- and auditory-processing brain regions discriminated the emotional category (i.e., positive, negative, or neutral) of the multisensory (audio-visual) events. Participants incidentally encoded positive, negative, and neutral multisensory stimuli during event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Following a 3-h post-encoding delay, their memory for studied stimuli was tested, allowing us to identify emotion-category-specific subsequent-memory effects focusing on medial temporal lobe regions (i.e., amygdala, hippocampus) and visual- and auditory-processing regions. We used a combination of univariate and multivoxel pattern fMRI analyses (MVPA) to examine emotion-category-specificity in mean activity levels and neural patterning, respectively. Univariate analyses revealed many more visual regions that showed negative-category-specificity relative to positive-category-specificity, and auditory regions only showed negative-category-specificity. These results suggest that negative emotion is more closely tied to information contained within sensory regions, a conclusion that was supported by the MVPA analyses. Functional connectivity analyses further revealed that the visual amplification of category-selective processing is driven, in part, by mean signal from the amygdala. Interestingly, while stronger representations in visuo-auditory regions were related to subsequent-memory for neutral multisensory stimuli, they were related to subsequent-forgetting of positive and negative stimuli. Neural patterning in the hippocampus and amygdala were related to memory for negative multisensory stimuli. These results provide new evidence that negative emotional stimuli are processed with increased engagement of visuosensory regions, but that this sensory engagement-that generalizes across the entire emotion category-is not the type of sensory encoding that is most beneficial for later retrieval.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Ryan Bottary
- Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Boston College, MA, USA; Division of Sleep Medicine, Harvard Medical School, MA, USA
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Common and stimulus-type-specific brain representations of negative affect. Nat Neurosci 2022; 25:760-770. [DOI: 10.1038/s41593-022-01082-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/24/2021] [Accepted: 04/25/2022] [Indexed: 01/16/2023]
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31
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Chikazoe J. Refining the negative into general and specific. Nat Neurosci 2022; 25:678-679. [DOI: 10.1038/s41593-022-01077-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/09/2022]
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32
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Teed AR, Feinstein JS, Puhl M, Lapidus RC, Upshaw V, Kuplicki RT, Bodurka J, Ajijola OA, Kaye WH, Thompson WK, Paulus MP, Khalsa SS. Association of Generalized Anxiety Disorder With Autonomic Hypersensitivity and Blunted Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex Activity During Peripheral Adrenergic Stimulation: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Psychiatry 2022; 79:323-332. [PMID: 35107563 PMCID: PMC8811711 DOI: 10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2021.4225] [Citation(s) in RCA: 28] [Impact Index Per Article: 14.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/11/2022]
Abstract
IMPORTANCE β-Adrenergic stimulation elicits heart palpitations and dyspnea, key features of acute anxiety and sympathetic arousal, yet no neuroimaging studies have examined how the pharmacologic modulation of interoceptive signals is associated with fear-related neurocircuitry in individuals with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). OBJECTIVE To examine the neural circuitry underlying autonomic arousal induced via isoproterenol, a rapidly acting, peripheral β-adrenergic agonist akin to adrenaline. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS This crossover randomized clinical trial of 58 women with artifact-free data was conducted from January 1, 2017, to November 31, 2019, at the Laureate Institute for Brain Research in Tulsa, Oklahoma. EXPOSURES Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to assess neural responses during randomized intravenous bolus infusions of isoproterenol (0.5 and 2.0 μg) and saline, each administered twice in a double-blind fashion. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Blood oxygen level-dependent responses across the whole brain during isoproterenol administration in patients with GAD vs healthy comparators. Cardiac and respiratory responses, as well as interoceptive awareness and anxiety, were also measured during the infusion protocol. RESULTS Of the 58 female study participants, 29 had GAD (mean [SD] age, 26.9 [6.8] years) and 29 were matched healthy comparators (mean [SD] age, 24.4 [5.0] years). During the 0.5-μg dose of isoproterenol, the GAD group exhibited higher heart rate responses (b = 5.34; 95% CI, 2.06-8.61; P = .002), higher intensity ratings of cardiorespiratory sensations (b = 8.38; 95% CI, 2.05-14.71; P = .01), higher levels of self-reported anxiety (b = 1.04; 95% CI, 0.33-1.76; P = .005), and significant hypoactivation in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) that was evident throughout peak response (Cohen d = 1.55; P < .001) and early recovery (Cohen d = 1.52; P < .001) periods. Correlational analysis of physiological and subjective indexes and percentage of signal change extracted during the 0.5-μg dose revealed that vmPFC hypoactivation was inversely correlated with heart rate (r56 = -0.51, adjusted P = .001) and retrospective intensity of both heartbeat (r56 = -0.50, adjusted P = .002) and breathing (r56 = -0.44, adjusted P = .01) sensations. Ventromedial prefrontal cortex hypoactivation correlated inversely with continuous dial ratings at a trend level (r56 = -0.38, adjusted P = .051), whereas anxiety (r56 = -0.28, adjusted P = .27) and chronotropic dose 25 (r56 = -0.14, adjusted P = .72) showed no such association. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE In this crossover randomized clinical trial, women with GAD exhibited autonomic hypersensitivity during low levels of adrenergic stimulation characterized by elevated heart rate, heightened interoceptive awareness, increased anxiety, and a blunted neural response localized to the vmPFC. These findings support the notion that autonomic hyperarousal may be associated with regulatory dysfunctions in the vmPFC, which could serve as a treatment target to help patients with GAD more appropriately appraise and regulate signals of sympathetic arousal. TRIAL REGISTRATION ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02615119.
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Affiliation(s)
- Adam R. Teed
- Laureate Institute for Brain Research, Tulsa, Oklahoma
| | | | - Maria Puhl
- Laureate Institute for Brain Research, Tulsa, Oklahoma
| | | | | | | | - Jerzy Bodurka
- Laureate Institute for Brain Research, Tulsa, Oklahoma,Stephenson School for Biomedical Engineering, University of Oklahoma, Norman
| | - Olujimi A. Ajijola
- Cardiac Arrhythmia Center, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, California
| | - Walter H. Kaye
- Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego
| | | | - Martin P. Paulus
- Laureate Institute for Brain Research, Tulsa, Oklahoma,Oxley College of Health Sciences, University of Tulsa, Tulsa, Oklahoma,Deputy Editor, JAMA Psychiatry
| | - Sahib S. Khalsa
- Laureate Institute for Brain Research, Tulsa, Oklahoma,Oxley College of Health Sciences, University of Tulsa, Tulsa, Oklahoma
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Lee KM, Lee S, Satpute AB. Sinful pleasures and pious woes? Using fMRI to examine evaluative and hedonic emotion knowledge. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 2022; 17:986-994. [PMID: 35348768 PMCID: PMC9629474 DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsac024] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/24/2021] [Revised: 02/24/2022] [Accepted: 03/22/2022] [Indexed: 01/12/2023] Open
Abstract
Traditionally, lust and pride have been considered pleasurable, yet sinful in the West. Conversely, guilt is often considered aversive, yet valuable. These emotions illustrate how evaluations about specific emotions and beliefs about their hedonic properties may often diverge. Evaluations about specific emotions may shape important aspects of emotional life (e.g. in emotion regulation, emotion experience and acquisition of emotion concepts). Yet these evaluations are often understudied in affective neuroscience. Prior work in emotion regulation, affective experience, evaluation/attitudes and decision-making point to anterior prefrontal areas as candidates for supporting evaluative emotion knowledge. Thus, we examined the brain areas associated with evaluative and hedonic emotion knowledge, with a focus on the anterior prefrontal cortex. Participants (N = 25) made evaluative and hedonic ratings about emotion knowledge during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We found that greater activity in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), ventromedial PFC (vmPFC) and precuneus was associated with an evaluative (vs hedonic) focus on emotion knowledge. Our results suggest that the mPFC and vmPFC, in particular, may play a role in evaluating discrete emotions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kent M Lee
- Correspondence should be addressed to Kent M. Lee, Department of Psychology, Northeastern University, 125 Nightingale Hall, Boston, MA, USA. E-mail:
| | - SuhJin Lee
- Department of Neurobiology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA
| | - Ajay B Satpute
- Department of Psychology, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115, USA
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Matsui T, Taki M, Pham TQ, Chikazoe J, Jimura K. Counterfactual Explanation of Brain Activity Classifiers Using Image-To-Image Transfer by Generative Adversarial Network. Front Neuroinform 2022; 15:802938. [PMID: 35369003 PMCID: PMC8966478 DOI: 10.3389/fninf.2021.802938] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/27/2021] [Accepted: 12/21/2021] [Indexed: 11/20/2022] Open
Abstract
Deep neural networks (DNNs) can accurately decode task-related information from brain activations. However, because of the non-linearity of DNNs, it is generally difficult to explain how and why they assign certain behavioral tasks to given brain activations, either correctly or incorrectly. One of the promising approaches for explaining such a black-box system is counterfactual explanation. In this framework, the behavior of a black-box system is explained by comparing real data and realistic synthetic data that are specifically generated such that the black-box system outputs an unreal outcome. The explanation of the system's decision can be explained by directly comparing the real and synthetic data. Recently, by taking advantage of advances in DNN-based image-to-image translation, several studies successfully applied counterfactual explanation to image domains. In principle, the same approach could be used in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data. Because fMRI datasets often contain multiple classes (e.g., multiple behavioral tasks), the image-to-image transformation applicable to counterfactual explanation needs to learn mapping among multiple classes simultaneously. Recently, a new generative neural network (StarGAN) that enables image-to-image transformation among multiple classes has been developed. By adapting StarGAN with some modifications, here, we introduce a novel generative DNN (counterfactual activation generator, CAG) that can provide counterfactual explanations for DNN-based classifiers of brain activations. Importantly, CAG can simultaneously handle image transformation among all the seven classes in a publicly available fMRI dataset. Thus, CAG could provide a counterfactual explanation of DNN-based multiclass classifiers of brain activations. Furthermore, iterative applications of CAG were able to enhance and extract subtle spatial brain activity patterns that affected the classifier's decisions. Together, these results demonstrate that the counterfactual explanation based on image-to-image transformation would be a promising approach to understand and extend the current application of DNNs in fMRI analyses.
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Affiliation(s)
- Teppei Matsui
- Department of Biology, Okayama University, Okayama, Japan
- JST-PRESTO, Japan Science and Technology Agency, Tokyo, Japan
| | - Masato Taki
- Graduate School of Artificial Intelligence and Science, Rikkyo University, Tokyo, Japan
| | - Trung Quang Pham
- Supportive Center for Brain Research, National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Okazaki, Japan
| | - Junichi Chikazoe
- Supportive Center for Brain Research, National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Okazaki, Japan
- Araya Inc., Tokyo, Japan
| | - Koji Jimura
- Department of Biosciences and Informatics, Keio University, Yokohama, Japan
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Yoshimoto T, Okazaki S, Sumiya M, Takahashi HK, Nakagawa E, Koike T, Kitada R, Okamoto S, Nakata M, Yada T, Kosaka H, Sadato N, Chikazoe J. Coexistence of sensory qualities and value representations in human orbitofrontal cortex. Neurosci Res 2022; 180:48-57. [PMID: 35218859 DOI: 10.1016/j.neures.2022.02.004] [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: 12/09/2021] [Revised: 02/07/2022] [Accepted: 02/20/2022] [Indexed: 10/19/2022]
Abstract
Despite the multiple regions and neural networks associated with value-based decision-making, the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is possible a particularly important one. Although the role of the OFC in reinforcer devaluation tasks, which assess the ability to represent identity, sensory qualities, and subjective values of the expected outcomes, has been established, the specific aspect represented in this area remains unclear. In this study, using functional magnetic resonance imaging, wherein participants rated the palatability of 128 food items using photographs, we investigated whether the human OFC represents object identity, sensory qualities, or value. Employing many items helped us dissociate object identity from sensory qualities and values; the inferred sensory qualities of identical items were manipulated by a change in metabolic state. Moreover, value differences between items were analytically controlled by employing a technique similar to age adjustment. The palatability ratings for food items significantly decreased after a meal. Using representational similarity analysis, we confirmed that the OFC represents value. Moreover, identical items were represented similarly in the lateral OFC in a given metabolic state; however, these representations were altered post-feeding. Importantly, this change was not explained by subjective value, suggesting that the OFC represents sensory quality and value, but not object identity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Takaaki Yoshimoto
- Division of Cerebral Integration, National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Okazaki, 444-8585, Japan
| | - Shuntaro Okazaki
- Division of Cerebral Integration, National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Okazaki, 444-8585, Japan
| | - Motofumi Sumiya
- Division of Cerebral Integration, National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Okazaki, 444-8585, Japan; Department of Physiological Sciences, SOKENDAI (The Graduate University for Advanced Studies), Hayama, 240-0193, Japan
| | | | - Eri Nakagawa
- Division of Cerebral Integration, National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Okazaki, 444-8585, Japan
| | - Takahiko Koike
- Division of Cerebral Integration, National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Okazaki, 444-8585, Japan; Department of Physiological Sciences, SOKENDAI (The Graduate University for Advanced Studies), Hayama, 240-0193, Japan
| | - Ryo Kitada
- Division of Psychology, School of Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 637332, Singapore
| | - Shiki Okamoto
- Second Department of Internal Medicine (Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, Hematology, Rheumatology), Graduate School of Medicine, University of the Ryukyus, Okinawa, 903-0215, Japan
| | - Masanori Nakata
- Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, Wakayama Medical University School of Medicine, Wakayama, 641-8509, Japan
| | - Toshihiko Yada
- Division of Integrative Physiology, Kansai Electric Power Medical Research Institute, Kobe, 650-0047, Japan; Division of System Neuroscience, Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine Kobe, 650-0017, Japan
| | - Hirotaka Kosaka
- Department of Neuropsychiatry, University of Fukui, Fukui, 910-1193, Japan
| | - Norihiro Sadato
- Division of Cerebral Integration, National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Okazaki, 444-8585, Japan; Department of Physiological Sciences, SOKENDAI (The Graduate University for Advanced Studies), Hayama, 240-0193, Japan.
| | - Junichi Chikazoe
- Department of Physiological Sciences, SOKENDAI (The Graduate University for Advanced Studies), Hayama, 240-0193, Japan; Section of Brain Function Information, Supportive Center for Brain Research, National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Okazaki, 444-8585, Japan; ARAYA Inc., Tokyo, 107-6024, Japan.
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Franssen S, Jansen A, van den Hurk J, Adam T, Geyskens K, Roebroeck A, Roefs A. Effects of mindset on hormonal responding, neural representations, subjective experience and intake. Physiol Behav 2022; 249:113746. [PMID: 35182553 DOI: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2022.113746] [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: 09/10/2021] [Revised: 02/10/2022] [Accepted: 02/14/2022] [Indexed: 10/19/2022]
Abstract
A person can alternate between food-related mindsets, which in turn may depend on one's emotional state or situation. Being in a certain mindset can influence food-related thoughts, but interestingly it might also affect eating-related physiological responses. The current study investigates the influence of an induced 'loss of control' mindset as compared to an 'in control' mindset on hormonal, neural and behavioural responses to chocolate stimuli. Mindsets were induced by having female chocolate lovers view a short movie during two sessions in a within-subjects design. Neural responses to visual chocolate stimuli were measured using an ultra-high field (7T) scanner. Momentary ghrelin and glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) levels were determined on five moments and were simultaneously assessed with self-reports on perceptions of chocolate craving, hunger and feelings of control. Furthermore, chocolate intake was measured using a bogus chocolate taste test. It was hypothesized that the loss of control mindset would lead to hormonal, neural and behavioural responses that prepare for ongoing food intake, even after eating, while the control mindset would lead to responses reflecting satiety. Results show that neural activity in the mesocorticolimbic system was stronger for chocolate stimuli than for neutral stimuli and that ghrelin and GLP-1 levels responded to food intake, irrespective of mindset. Self-reported craving and actual chocolate intake were affected by mindset, in that cravings and intake were higher with a loss of control mindset than with a control mindset. Interestingly, these findings suggest that physiology on the one hand (hormonal and neural responses) and behavior and subjective experience (food intake and craving) on the other hand are not in sync, are not equally affected by mindset.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sieske Franssen
- Department of Clinical Psychological Science, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands.
| | - Anita Jansen
- Department of Clinical Psychological Science, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands
| | | | - Tanja Adam
- Department of school of Nutrition and Translational Research in Metabolism (NUTRIM), Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, Maastricht UMC+, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands
| | - Kelly Geyskens
- Department of Marketing and Supply Chain Management, School of Business and Economics, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands
| | - Alard Roebroeck
- Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht
| | - Anne Roefs
- Department of Clinical Psychological Science, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands
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Kim MJ, Knodt AR, Hariri AR. Meta-Analytic Activation Maps Can Help Identify Affective Processes Captured by Contrast-Based Task fMRI: The Case of Threat-Related Facial Expressions. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 2022; 17:777-787. [PMID: 35137241 PMCID: PMC9433847 DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsac010] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/28/2019] [Revised: 10/30/2021] [Accepted: 02/07/2022] [Indexed: 12/02/2022] Open
Abstract
Meta-analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data is an effective method for capturing the distributed patterns of brain activity supporting discrete cognitive and affective processes. One opportunity presented by the resulting meta-analysis maps (MAMs) is as a reference for better understanding the nature of individual contrast maps (ICMs) derived from specific task fMRI data. Here, we compared MAMs from 148 neuroimaging studies representing emotion categories of fear, anger, disgust, happiness and sadness with ICMs from fearful > neutral and angry > neutral faces from an independent dataset of task fMRI (n = 1263). Analyses revealed that both fear and anger ICMs exhibited the greatest pattern similarity to fear MAMs. As the number of voxels included for the computation of pattern similarity became more selective, the specificity of MAM–ICM correspondence decreased. Notably, amygdala activity long considered critical for processing threat-related facial expressions was neither sufficient nor necessary for detecting MAM–ICM pattern similarity effects. Our analyses suggest that both fearful and angry facial expressions are best captured by distributed patterns of brain activity, a putative neural correlate of threat. More generally, our analyses demonstrate how MAMs can be leveraged to better understand affective processes captured by ICMs in task fMRI data.
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Affiliation(s)
- M Justin Kim
- Correspondence should be addressed to M. Justin Kim, Department of Psychology, Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul 03063, South Korea. E-mail:
| | - Annchen R Knodt
- Laboratory of NeuroGenetics, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708 USA
| | - Ahmad R Hariri
- Laboratory of NeuroGenetics, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708 USA
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Hevia-Orozco JC, Reyes-Aguilar A, Hernández-Pérez R, González-Santos L, Pasaye EH, Barrios FA. Personality Traits Induce Different Brain Patterns When Processing Social and Valence Information. Front Psychol 2022; 12:782754. [PMID: 35153905 PMCID: PMC8833229 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.782754] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/24/2021] [Accepted: 12/28/2021] [Indexed: 11/28/2022] Open
Abstract
This paper shows the brain correlates of Cloninger’s personality model during the presentation of social scenarios under positive or negative valence situations. Social scenarios were constructed when participants played the Dictator game with two confederates that had two opposites roles as the cooperator (Coop) and non-cooperator (NoCoop). Later the same day during a fMRI scanning session, participants read negative (Neg) and positive (Pos) situations that happened to confederates in the past. Participants were asked to think “how do you think those people felt during that situation?” A dissimilarity matrix between stimuli were obtained from fMRI results. Results shown that Harm Avoidance trait people make use of right middle frontal gyrus and left superior frontal gyrus to discriminate between Coop and NoCoop. Cooperation as a trait makes use of the right superior temporal gyrus and the right precuneus to discriminate between Coop and NoCoop in positive social scenarios. Finally, Self-directedness trait people make use of the right inferior parietal lobe to discriminate between Coop and NoCoop in negative social scenarios and the right precuneus to discriminate between Coop and Strangers. An intuitive link between discrimination findings and behavioral patterns of those personality traits is proposed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jorge Carlos Hevia-Orozco
- Escuela de Psicología, Universidad Anáhuac Mayab, Mérida, Mexico
- Instituto de Neurobiología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Santiago de Querétaro, Mexico
| | - Azalea Reyes-Aguilar
- Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City, Mexico
| | - Raúl Hernández-Pérez
- Department of Ethology, Institute of Biology, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary
| | - Leopoldo González-Santos
- Instituto de Neurobiología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Santiago de Querétaro, Mexico
| | - Erick H Pasaye
- Instituto de Neurobiología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Santiago de Querétaro, Mexico
| | - Fernando A Barrios
- Instituto de Neurobiología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Santiago de Querétaro, Mexico
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39
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Saarimäki H, Glerean E, Smirnov D, Mynttinen H, Jääskeläinen IP, Sams M, Nummenmaa L. Classification of emotion categories based on functional connectivity patterns of the human brain. Neuroimage 2021; 247:118800. [PMID: 34896586 PMCID: PMC8803541 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118800] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/20/2021] [Revised: 12/05/2021] [Accepted: 12/08/2021] [Indexed: 12/01/2022] Open
Abstract
Neurophysiological and psychological models posit that emotions depend on connections across wide-spread corticolimbic circuits. While previous studies using pattern recognition on neuroimaging data have shown differences between various discrete emotions in brain activity patterns, less is known about the differences in functional connectivity. Thus, we employed multivariate pattern analysis on functional magnetic resonance imaging data (i) to develop a pipeline for applying pattern recognition in functional connectivity data, and (ii) to test whether connectivity patterns differ across emotion categories. Six emotions (anger, fear, disgust, happiness, sadness, and surprise) and a neutral state were induced in 16 participants using one-minute-long emotional narratives with natural prosody while brain activity was measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We computed emotion-wise connectivity matrices both for whole-brain connections and for 10 previously defined functionally connected brain subnetworks and trained an across-participant classifier to categorize the emotional states based on whole-brain data and for each subnetwork separately. The whole-brain classifier performed above chance level with all emotions except sadness, suggesting that different emotions are characterized by differences in large-scale connectivity patterns. When focusing on the connectivity within the 10 subnetworks, classification was successful within the default mode system and for all emotions. We thus show preliminary evidence for consistently different sustained functional connectivity patterns for instances of emotion categories particularly within the default mode system.
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Affiliation(s)
- Heini Saarimäki
- Faculty of Social Sciences, Tampere University, FI-33014 Tampere University, Tampere, Finland; Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering, School of Science, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland.
| | - Enrico Glerean
- Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering, School of Science, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland; Advanced Magnetic Imaging (AMI) Centre, Aalto NeuroImaging, School of Science, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland; Turku PET Centre and Department of Psychology, University of Turku, Turku, Finland; Department of Computer Science, School of Science, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland; International Laboratory of Social Neurobiology, Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience, HSE University, Moscow, Russian Federation
| | - Dmitry Smirnov
- Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering, School of Science, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland
| | - Henri Mynttinen
- Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering, School of Science, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland
| | - Iiro P Jääskeläinen
- Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering, School of Science, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland; International Laboratory of Social Neurobiology, Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience, HSE University, Moscow, Russian Federation
| | - Mikko Sams
- Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering, School of Science, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland; Department of Computer Science, School of Science, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland
| | - Lauri Nummenmaa
- Turku PET Centre and Department of Psychology, University of Turku, Turku, Finland
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40
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Abstract
Is Mr. Hyde more similar to his alter ego Dr. Jekyll, because of their physical identity, or to Jack the Ripper, because both evoke fear and loathing? The relative weight of emotional and visual dimensions in similarity judgements is still unclear. We expected an asymmetric effect of these dimensions on similarity perception, such that faces that express the same or similar feeling are judged as more similar than different emotional expressions of same person. We selected 10 male faces with different expressions. Each face posed one neutral expression and one emotional expression (five disgust, five fear). We paired these expressions, resulting in 190 pairs, varying either in emotional expressions, physical identity, or both. Twenty healthy participants rated the similarity of paired faces on a 7-point scale. We report a symmetric effect of emotional expression and identity on similarity judgements, suggesting that people may perceive Mr. Hyde to be just as similar to Dr. Jekyll (identity) as to Jack the Ripper (emotion). We also observed that emotional mismatch decreased perceived similarity, suggesting that emotions play a prominent role in similarity judgements. From an evolutionary perspective, poor discrimination between emotional stimuli might endanger the individual.
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41
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Sievers B, Parkinson C, Kohler PJ, Hughes JM, Fogelson SV, Wheatley T. Visual and auditory brain areas share a representational structure that supports emotion perception. Curr Biol 2021; 31:5192-5203.e4. [PMID: 34644547 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2021.09.043] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/02/2021] [Revised: 07/07/2021] [Accepted: 09/16/2021] [Indexed: 11/18/2022]
Abstract
Emotionally expressive music and dance occur together across the world. This may be because features shared across the senses are represented the same way even in different sensory brain areas, putting music and movement in directly comparable terms. These shared representations may arise from a general need to identify environmentally relevant combinations of sensory features, particularly those that communicate emotion. To test the hypothesis that visual and auditory brain areas share a representational structure, we created music and animation stimuli with crossmodally matched features expressing a range of emotions. Participants confirmed that each emotion corresponded to a set of features shared across music and movement. A subset of participants viewed both music and animation during brain scanning, revealing that representations in auditory and visual brain areas were similar to one another. This shared representation captured not only simple stimulus features but also combinations of features associated with emotion judgments. The posterior superior temporal cortex represented both music and movement using this same structure, suggesting supramodal abstraction of sensory content. Further exploratory analysis revealed that early visual cortex used this shared representational structure even when stimuli were presented auditorily. We propose that crossmodally shared representations support mutually reinforcing dynamics across auditory and visual brain areas, facilitating crossmodal comparison. These shared representations may help explain why emotions are so readily perceived and why some dynamic emotional expressions can generalize across cultural contexts.
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Affiliation(s)
- Beau Sievers
- Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA; Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755, USA.
| | - Carolyn Parkinson
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA; Brain Research Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA
| | - Peter J Kohler
- Department of Psychology, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada; Centre for Vision Research, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada
| | | | | | - Thalia Wheatley
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755, USA; Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM 87501, USA.
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42
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Perkins AQ, Rich EL. Identifying identity and attributing value to attributes: reconsidering mechanisms of preference decisions. Curr Opin Behav Sci 2021; 41:98-105. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cobeha.2021.04.019] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/12/2022]
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43
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Haykin H, Rolls A. The neuroimmune response during stress: A physiological perspective. Immunity 2021; 54:1933-1947. [PMID: 34525336 PMCID: PMC7615352 DOI: 10.1016/j.immuni.2021.08.023] [Citation(s) in RCA: 35] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/11/2021] [Revised: 07/28/2021] [Accepted: 08/19/2021] [Indexed: 01/21/2023]
Abstract
Stress is an essential adaptive response that enables the organism to cope with challenges and restore homeostasis. Different stressors require distinctive corrective responses in which immune cells play a critical role. Hence, effects of stress on immunity may vary accordingly. Indeed, epidemiologically, stress can induce either inflammation or immune suppression in an organism. However, in the absence of a conceptual framework, these effects appear chaotic, leading to confusion. Here, we examine how stressor diversity is imbedded in the neuroimmune axis. Stressors differ in the brain patterns they induce, diversifying the neuronal and endocrine mediators dispatched to the periphery and generating a wide range of potential immune effects. Uncovering this complexity and diversity of the immune response to different stressors will allow us to understand the involvement of stress in pathological conditions, identify ways to modulate it, and even harness the therapeutic potential embedded in an adaptive response to stress.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hedva Haykin
- Department of immunology, Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 3525422, Israel
| | - Asya Rolls
- Department of immunology, Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 3525422, Israel.
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44
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Lee KM, Ferreira-Santos F, Satpute AB. Predictive processing models and affective neuroscience. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 2021; 131:211-228. [PMID: 34517035 DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2021.09.009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/30/2019] [Revised: 02/10/2021] [Accepted: 09/07/2021] [Indexed: 01/17/2023]
Abstract
The neural bases of affective experience remain elusive. Early neuroscience models of affect searched for specific brain regions that uniquely carried out the computations that underlie dimensions of valence and arousal. However, a growing body of work has failed to identify these circuits. Research turned to multivariate analyses, but these strategies, too, have made limited progress. Predictive processing models offer exciting new directions to address this problem. Here, we use predictive processing models as a lens to critique prevailing functional neuroimaging research practices in affective neuroscience. Our review highlights how much work relies on rigid assumptions that are inconsistent with a predictive processing approach. We outline the central aspects of a predictive processing model and draw out their implications for research in affective and cognitive neuroscience. Predictive models motivate a reformulation of "reverse inference" in cognitive neuroscience, and placing a greater emphasis on external validity in experimental design.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kent M Lee
- Northeastern University, 360 Huntington Ave, 125 NI, Boston, MA 02118, USA.
| | - Fernando Ferreira-Santos
- Laboratory of Neuropsychophysiology, Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, University of Porto, Portugal
| | - Ajay B Satpute
- Northeastern University, 360 Huntington Ave, 125 NI, Boston, MA 02118, USA
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45
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Weaverdyck ME, Thornton MA, Tamir DI. The representational structure of mental states generalizes across target people and stimulus modalities. Neuroimage 2021; 238:118258. [PMID: 34118394 PMCID: PMC8327621 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118258] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/12/2020] [Revised: 06/06/2021] [Accepted: 06/07/2021] [Indexed: 10/26/2022] Open
Abstract
Each individual experiences mental states in their own idiosyncratic way, yet perceivers can accurately understand a huge variety of states across unique individuals. How do they accomplish this feat? Do people think about their own anger in the same ways as another person's anger? Is reading about someone's anxiety the same as seeing it? Here, we test the hypothesis that a common conceptual core unites mental state representations across contexts. Across three studies, participants judged the mental states of multiple targets, including a generic other, the self, a socially close other, and a socially distant other. Participants viewed mental state stimuli in multiple modalities, including written scenarios and images. Using representational similarity analysis, we found that brain regions associated with social cognition expressed stable neural representations of mental states across both targets and modalities. Together, these results suggest that people use stable models of mental states across different people and contexts.
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Affiliation(s)
- Miriam E Weaverdyck
- Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, United States.
| | - Mark A Thornton
- Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, United States
| | - Diana I Tamir
- Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, United States; Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, United States
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46
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Isik AI, Vessel EA. From Visual Perception to Aesthetic Appeal: Brain Responses to Aesthetically Appealing Natural Landscape Movies. Front Hum Neurosci 2021; 15:676032. [PMID: 34366810 PMCID: PMC8336692 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2021.676032] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/04/2021] [Accepted: 06/29/2021] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
During aesthetically appealing visual experiences, visual content provides a basis for computation of affectively tinged representations of aesthetic value. How this happens in the brain is largely unexplored. Using engaging video clips of natural landscapes, we tested whether cortical regions that respond to perceptual aspects of an environment (e.g., spatial layout, object content and motion) were directly modulated by rated aesthetic appeal. Twenty-four participants watched a series of videos of natural landscapes while being scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and reported both continuous ratings of enjoyment (during the videos) and overall aesthetic judgments (after each video). Although landscape videos engaged a greater expanse of high-level visual cortex compared to that observed for images of landscapes, independently localized category-selective visual regions (e.g., scene-selective parahippocampal place area and motion-selective hMT+) were not significantly modulated by aesthetic appeal. Rather, a whole-brain analysis revealed modulations by aesthetic appeal in ventral (collateral sulcus) and lateral (middle occipital sulcus, posterior middle temporal gyrus) clusters that were adjacent to scene and motion selective regions. These findings suggest that aesthetic appeal per se is not represented in well-characterized feature- and category-selective regions of visual cortex. Rather, we propose that the observed activations reflect a local transformation from a feature-based visual representation to a representation of "elemental affect," computed through information-processing mechanisms that detect deviations from an observer's expectations. Furthermore, we found modulation by aesthetic appeal in subcortical reward structures but not in regions of the default-mode network (DMN) nor orbitofrontal cortex, and only weak evidence for associated changes in functional connectivity. In contrast to other visual aesthetic domains, aesthetically appealing interactions with natural landscapes may rely more heavily on comparisons between ongoing stimulation and well-formed representations of the natural world, and less on top-down processes for resolving ambiguities or assessing self-relevance.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ayse Ilkay Isik
- Department of Neuroscience, Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
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47
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Saarimäki H. Naturalistic Stimuli in Affective Neuroimaging: A Review. Front Hum Neurosci 2021; 15:675068. [PMID: 34220474 PMCID: PMC8245682 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2021.675068] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/02/2021] [Accepted: 05/17/2021] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Naturalistic stimuli such as movies, music, and spoken and written stories elicit strong emotions and allow brain imaging of emotions in close-to-real-life conditions. Emotions are multi-component phenomena: relevant stimuli lead to automatic changes in multiple functional components including perception, physiology, behavior, and conscious experiences. Brain activity during naturalistic stimuli reflects all these changes, suggesting that parsing emotion-related processing during such complex stimulation is not a straightforward task. Here, I review affective neuroimaging studies that have employed naturalistic stimuli to study emotional processing, focusing especially on experienced emotions. I argue that to investigate emotions with naturalistic stimuli, we need to define and extract emotion features from both the stimulus and the observer.
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Affiliation(s)
- Heini Saarimäki
- Human Information Processing Laboratory, Faculty of Social Sciences, Tampere University, Tampere, Finland
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48
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49
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Zych AD, Gogolla N. Expressions of emotions across species. Curr Opin Neurobiol 2021; 68:57-66. [PMID: 33548631 PMCID: PMC8259711 DOI: 10.1016/j.conb.2021.01.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 24] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/02/2020] [Revised: 01/07/2021] [Accepted: 01/08/2021] [Indexed: 12/31/2022]
Abstract
What are emotions and how should we study them? These questions give rise to ongoing controversy amongst scientists in the fields of neuroscience, psychology and philosophy, and have resulted in different views on emotions [1-6]. In this review, we define emotions as functional states that bear essential roles in promoting survival and thus have emerged through evolution. Emotions trigger behavioral, somatic, hormonal, and neurochemical reactions, referred to as expressions of emotion. We discuss recent studies on emotion expression across species and highlight emerging common principles. We argue that detailed and multidimensional analyses of emotion expressions are key to develop biology-based definitions of emotions and to reveal their neuronal underpinnings.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anna D Zych
- Circuits for Emotion Research Group, Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology, Martinsried, Germany; International Max-Planck Research School for Translational Psychiatry, Munich, Germany
| | - Nadine Gogolla
- Circuits for Emotion Research Group, Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology, Martinsried, Germany.
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50
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Donoshita Y, Choi US, Ban H, Kida I. Assessment of olfactory information in the human brain using 7-Tesla functional magnetic resonance imaging. Neuroimage 2021; 236:118212. [PMID: 34082117 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118212] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/01/2020] [Revised: 05/13/2021] [Accepted: 05/25/2021] [Indexed: 10/21/2022] Open
Abstract
Olfaction could prove to be an early marker of neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. To use olfaction for disease diagnosis, elucidating the standard olfactory functions in healthy humans is necessary. However, the olfactory function in the human brain is less frequently assessed because of methodological difficulties associated with olfactory-related cerebral areas. Using ultra-high fields (UHF), functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with high spatial resolution and sensitivity may allow for the measurement of activation in the cerebral areas. This study aimed to apply 7-Tesla fMRI to assess olfactory function in the human brain by exposing individuals to four different odorants for 8 s. We found that olfactory stimulation mainly activated the piriform and orbitofrontal cortex in addition to the amygdala. Among these regions, univariate fMRI analysis indicated that subjective odor intensity significantly correlated with the averaged fMRI signals in the piriform cortex but not with subjective hedonic tone in any region. In contrast, multivariate fMRI analysis showed that subjective hedonic tone could be discriminated from the fMRI response patterns in the posterior orbitofrontal cortex. Thus, the piriform cortex is mainly associated with subjective odor intensity, whereas the posterior orbitofrontal cortex are involved in the discrimination of the subjective hedonic tone of the odorant. UHF-fMRI may be useful for assessing olfactory function in the human brain.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yuka Donoshita
- Center for Information and Neural Networks, National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan; Daikin Industries, Ltd., Settsu, Osaka 566-8585, Japan
| | - Uk-Su Choi
- Center for Information and Neural Networks, National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan; Graduate School of Frontier Biosciences, Osaka University, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan
| | - Hiroshi Ban
- Center for Information and Neural Networks, National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan; Graduate School of Frontier Biosciences, Osaka University, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan
| | - Ikuhiro Kida
- Center for Information and Neural Networks, National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan; Graduate School of Frontier Biosciences, Osaka University, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan.
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