Task difficulty modulates the impact of emotional stimuli on neural response in cognitive-control regions

Abnormality of anxious behaviors and functional connectivity between the amygdala and the frontal lobe in maternally deprived monkeys

OBJECTIVE

Anxious behaviors often occur in individuals who have experienced early adversity. Anxious behaviors can bring many hazards, such as social withdrawal, eating disorders, negative self-efficacy, self-injurious thoughts and behaviors, anxiety disorders, and even depression. Abnormal behavior are is closely related to changes in corresponding circuit functions in the brain. This study investigated the relationship between brain circuits and anxious behaviors in maternal-deprived rhesus monkey animal model, which mimic early adversity in human.

METHODS

Twenty-five rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) were grouped by two different rearing conditions: 11 normal control and mother-reared (MR) monkeys and 14 maternally deprived and peer-reared (MD) monkeys. After obtaining images of the brain areas with significant differences in maternal separation and normal control macaque function, the relationship between functional junction intensity and stereotypical behaviors was determined by correlation analysis.

RESULTS

The correlation analysis revealed that stereotypical behaviors were negatively correlated with the coupling between the left lateral amygdala subregion and the left inferior frontal gyrus in both MD and MR macaques.

CONCLUSION

This study suggests that early adversity-induced anxious behaviors are associated with changes in the strength of the amygdala-prefrontal connection. The normalization of the regions involved in the functional connection might reverse the behavioral abnormality. It provides a solid foundation for effective intervention in human early adversity.

SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT

This study suggests that early adversity-induced anxious behaviors are associated with changes in the strength of the amygdala-prefrontal connection. The higher the amygdala-prefrontal connection strength, the less stereotyped behaviors exhibited by monkeys experiencing early adversity. Thus, in the future, changing the strength of the amygdala-prefrontal connection may reverse the behavioral abnormalities of individuals who experience early adversity. This study provides a solid foundation for effective intervention in humans' early adversity.

Processing negative autobiographical memories in a foreign language

The use of a foreign language has been introduced in the clinical setting as a form of emotional distance to help deal with negative experiences. However, the evidence of foreign language reducing emotionality during processing negative events is still scarce. This study aims to test whether the description and processing of a traumatic or highly emotional event in a foreign language could modulate the strength of the connection between traumatic symptomatology and emotional reaction. For this purpose, a sample of 128 healthy participants completed a series of questionnaires via an online platform. Firstly, their levels of distress, arousal and valence were assessed in their native language. Secondly, they were assigned to either the native language or the foreign language group and described a negative childhood event in the assigned language (English or Spanish), followed by five questions for processing the event. Next, their emotionality was assessed again in their native language. Finally, a questionnaire of traumatic stress symptoms and an avoidance scale were completed. Results showed that the relationship between traumatic symptomatology and emotionality was moderated by the language of processing the negative event. Specifically, traumatic symptomatology was more strongly associated with distress and arousal change when the processing task was performed in the native language. These findings suggest the influence of a foreign language on emotional reactivity when a negative experience is processed, which could be an essential tool in the treatment of disorders related to stress and trauma.

The influence of stimuli valence, extraversion, and emotion regulation on visual search within real-world scenes

Affective traits, including extraversion and emotion regulation, are important considerations in clinical psychology due to their associations with the occurrence of affective disorders. Previously, emotional real-world scenes have been shown to influence visual search. However, it is currently unknown whether extraversion and emotion regulation can influence visual search towards neutral targets embedded within real-world scenes, or whether these traits can impact the effect of emotional stimuli on visual search. An opportunity sample of healthy individuals had trait levels of extraversion and emotion regulation recorded before completing a visual search task. Participants more accurately identified search targets in neutral images compared to positive images, whilst response times were slower in negative images. Importantly, individuals with higher trait levels of expressive suppression displayed faster identification of search targets regardless of the emotional valence of the stimuli. Extraversion and cognitive reappraisal did not influence visual search. These findings add to our understanding regarding the influence of extraversion, cognitive reappraisal, and expressive suppression on our ability to allocate attention during visual search when viewing real-world scenes.

Cognitive and Affective Empathy Relate Differentially to Emotion Regulation

The constructs of empathy (i.e., understanding and/or sharing another's emotion) and emotion regulation (i.e., the processes by which one manages emotions) have largely been studied in relative isolation of one another. To better understand the interrelationships between their various component processes, this manuscript reports two studies that examined the relationship between empathy and emotion regulation using a combination of self-report and task measures. In study 1 (N = 137), trait cognitive empathy and affective empathy were found to share divergent relationships with self-reported emotion dysregulation. Trait emotion dysregulation was negatively related to cognitive empathy but did not show a significant relationship with affective empathy. In the second study (N = 92), the magnitude of emotion interference effects (i.e., the extent to which inhibitory control was impacted by emotional relative to neutral stimuli) in variants of a Go/NoGo and Stroop task were used as proxy measures of implicit emotion regulation abilities. Trait cognitive and affective empathy were differentially related to both task metrics. Higher affective empathy was associated with increased emotional interference in the Emotional Go/NoGo task; no such relationship was observed for trait cognitive empathy. In the Emotional Stroop task, higher cognitive empathy was associated with reduced emotional interference; no such relationship was observed for affective empathy. Together, these studies demonstrate that greater cognitive empathy was broadly associated with improved emotion regulation abilities, while greater affective empathy was typically associated with increased difficulties with emotion regulation. These findings point to the need for assessing the different components of empathy in psychopathological conditions marked by difficulties in emotion regulation.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s42761-021-00062-w.

Impact of Distracting Emotional Stimuli on the Characteristics of Movement Performance: A Kinematic Study

It is well-documented that emotional stimuli impact both the cognitive and motor aspects of “goal-directed” behavior. However, how emotional distractors impact motor performance remains unclear. This study aimed to characterize how movement quality was impacted during emotional distractors. We used a modified oddball paradigm and documented the performance of pure movement. Participants were designated to draw a triangle or a polygon, while an emotional stimulus was presented. Speed was assessed using reaction time and movement time. The quality and precision of movement were assessed by calculating the accuracy and root-mean-square error (RMSE). Compared to drawings of triangles, polygons had higher accuracy under negative stimuli, but lower RMSE under positive stimuli. The results indicate that distracting emotional stimuli impact different aspects of movement quality, with movement complexity influencing accuracy under negative distractors and precision under positive distractors. This study provides further evidence that movement precision is an important feature of emotional embodiment that should be incorporated in future studies.

Personality Traits Modulate the Impact of Emotional Stimuli During a Working Memory Task: A Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Study

The purpose of the present study was to examine the influence of personality traits on the impact of emotional stimuli focusing on n-back task performance and brain activity changes. Previous neuroimaging studies have reported that individual differences in emotional processing can be attributed to personality traits, which is linked to the hemisphere-specific activity of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) in response to emotional stimuli. Thirty right-handed healthy young male participants were recruited in this study and classified into two groups, the behavioral inhibition system (BIS) group and behavioral activation system (BAS) group, based on their scores on the BIS/BAS scale. Participants saw six emotional images (two each with negative, neutral, and positive valence), which were selected from the International Affective Picture System and validated in a preliminary experiment. Then, a dual 2-back task that simultaneously employed auditory-verbal and visuospatial stimuli was conducted. Additionally, the concentration of oxygenated hemoglobin (Oxy-Hb) changes in the DLPFC was measured during the image presentation and dual 2-back task by near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). The task performance showed a significantly increased reaction time (RT) in the negative valence independent of personality traits. The results of Oxy-Hb changes showed a significant interaction between personality traits and emotional valence. Further, the hemisphere-subgroup analysis revealed that the right DLPFC activity was significantly higher in the negative valence than in the neutral valence in the BIS group; the right DLPFC activity was also significantly higher in the BIS group than in the BAS group in the positive valence. There was no main effect or interaction in the left DLPFC activity. These findings suggest the importance of considering personality traits when examining the impact of emotional stimuli. Further studies with large sample sizes warranted to examine the influence emotional stimuli exert on working memory performance, considering the personality traits to better understand individual differences in emotional processing.

Attention control ability, mood state, and emotional regulation ability partially affect executive control of attention on task-irrelevant emotional stimuli

Executive control of attention is important for goal-directed behavior, and it is influenced by emotional information. This study examined the effect of stimulus valence on a color word flanker task and how individual differences within a general population may affect task performance. 119 participants completed a color word flanker task with task-irrelevant emotional information (positive, negative, neutral). This task was followed by several self-report scales that measured individual differences in attention control ability (ACS), current mood (PANAS), and emotion regulation ability (DERS). Faster reaction times and greater accuracy were associated with negative stimuli. The flanker effect was greater for negative trials than for neutral and positive trials. The greater flanker effect for negative trials was driven by decreased reaction time on negative congruent trials. A significant interaction was evident between stimulus valence and ACS score, such that reaction time was faster for negative trials than for neutral trials among those with low, average, and high ACS. However, this difference was largest for those with high ACS. Further, these relationships between attention control ability and executive control of attention were influenced by level of depressive symptoms (as measured by BDI-II). This study extends our knowledge about the relationship between executive control of attention to emotional stimuli and individual differences related to mood and attentional disorders in a general population. Study results may have important implications for theoretical models of cognitive control and task-irrelevant emotional information across individual differences.

Deficits in frontoparietal activation and anterior insula functional connectivity during regulation of cognitive-affective interference in bipolar disorder

OBJECTIVES

Bipolar disorders (BD) are characterized by emotion and cognitive dysregulation. Mapping deficits in the neurocircuitry of cognitive-affective regulation allows for potential identification of intervention targets. This study used functional MRI data in BD patients and healthy controls during performance on a task requiring cognitive and inhibitory control superimposed on affective images, assessing cognitive and affective interference.

METHODS

Functional MRI data were collected from 39 BD patients and 36 healthy controls during performance on the Multi-Source Interference Task overlaid on images from the International Affective Picture System (MSIT-IAPS). Analyses examined patterns of activation in a priori regions implicated in cognitive and emotional processing. Functional connectivity to the anterior insula during task performance was also examined, given this region's role in emotion-cognition integration.

RESULTS

BD patients showed significantly less activation during cognitive interference trials in inferior parietal lobule, dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, anterior insula, mid-cingulate, and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex regardless of affective valence. BD patients showed deviations in functional connectivity with anterior insula in regions of the default mode and frontoparietal control networks during negatively valenced cognitive interference trials.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings show disruptions in cognitive regulation and inhibitory control in BD patients in the presence of irrelevant affective distractors. Results of this study suggest one pathway to dysregulation in BD is through inefficient integration of affective and cognitive information, and highlight the importance of developing interventions that target emotion-cognition integration in BD.

Involvement of amygdala-prefrontal dysfunction in the influence of negative emotion on the resolution of cognitive conflict in patients with schizophrenia

INTRODUCTION

Patients with schizophrenia often have impaired cognition and abnormal conflict control. Conflict control is influenced by the emotional values of stimuli. This study investigated the neural basis of negative emotion interference with conflict control in schizophrenia.

METHODS

Seventeen patients with schizophrenia and 20 healthy controls underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while performing the emotional Simon task, in which positive or negative emotional pictures were located in congruent or incongruent positions. Analysis was focused on identifying brain regions with the significant interaction among group, emotion, and conflict in whole brain voxel-wise analysis, and abnormality in their functional connectivity in the patient group.

RESULTS

The regions showing the targeted interaction was the right amygdala, which exhibited significantly reduced activity in the negative congruent (t = -2.168, p = 0.036) and negative incongruent (t = -3.273, p = 0.002) conditions in patients versus controls. The right amygdala also showed significantly lower connectivity with the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in the cognitive and emotional loading contrast (negative incongruent-positive congruent) in patients versus controls (t = -5.154, p < 0.01), but not in the cognitive-only or emotional-only loading contrast.

CONCLUSIONS

These results suggest that negative emotion interferes with cognitive conflict resolution in patients with schizophrenia due to amygdala-dorsolateral prefrontal cortex disconnection. Based on these findings, interventions targeting conflict control under negative emotional influence may promote cognitive rehabilitation in patients with schizophrenia.

Using an emotional saccade task to characterize executive functioning and emotion processing in attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and bipolar disorder

Despite distinct diagnostic criteria, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and bipolar disorder (BD) share cognitive and emotion processing deficits that complicate diagnoses. The goal of this study was to use an emotional saccade task to characterize executive functioning and emotion processing in adult ADHD and BD. Participants (21 control, 20 ADHD, 20 BD) performed an interleaved pro/antisaccade task (look toward vs. look away from a visual target, respectively) in which the sex of emotional face stimuli acted as the cue to perform either the pro- or antisaccade. Both patient groups made more direction (erroneous prosaccades on antisaccade trials) and anticipatory (saccades made before cue processing) errors than controls. Controls exhibited lower microsaccade rates preceding correct anti- vs. prosaccade initiation, but this task-related modulation was absent in both patient groups. Regarding emotion processing, the ADHD group performed worse than controls on neutral face trials, while the BD group performed worse than controls on trials presenting faces of all valence. These findings support the role of fronto-striatal circuitry in mediating response inhibition deficits in both ADHD and BD, and suggest that such deficits are exacerbated in BD during emotion processing, presumably via dysregulated limbic system circuitry involving the anterior cingulate and orbitofrontal cortex.

Content specificity of attentional bias to threat in post-traumatic stress disorder

BACKGROUND

Attentional bias to affective information and reduced cognitive control may maintain the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and impair cognitive functioning. However, the role of content specificity of affective stimuli (e.g., trauma-related, emotional trauma-unrelated) in the observed attentional bias and cognitive control is less clear, as this has not been tested simultaneously before. Therefore, we examined the content specificity of attentional bias to threat in PTSD.

METHODS

PTSD participants (survivors of a multistory factory collapse, n=30) and matched controls (n=30) performed an Eriksen Flanker task. They identified the direction of a centrally presented target arrow, which was flanked by several task-irrelevant distractor arrows pointed to the same (congruent) or opposite direction (incongruent). Additionally, participants were presented with a picture of a face (neutral, emotional) or building (neutral=normal, emotional=collapsed multistory factory) as a task-irrelevant background image.

RESULTS

We found that PTSD participants produced overall larger conflict effects and longer reaction times (RT) to emotional than to neutral stimuli relative to their healthy counterparts. Moreover, PTSD, but not healthy participants showed a stimulus specific dissociation in processing emotional stimuli. Emotional faces elicited longer RTs compared to neutral faces, while emotional buildings elicited faster responses, compared to neutral buildings.

CONCLUSIONS

PTSD patients show a content-sensitive attentional bias to emotional information and impaired cognitive control.

Picture Novelty Influences Response Selection and Inhibition: The Role of the In-Group Bias and Task-Difficulty

The human visual system prioritizes processing of novel information, leading to faster detection of novel stimuli. Novelty facilitates conflict resolution through the enhanced early perceptual processing. However, the role of novel information processing during the conflict-related response selection and inhibition remains unclear. Here, we used a face-gender classification version of the Simon task and manipulated task-difficulty and novelty of task-relevant information. The novel quality of stimuli was made task-irrelevant, and an in-group bias was tightly controlled by manipulation of a gender of picture stimuli. We found that the in-group bias modulated the role of novelty in executive control. Novel opposite-sex stimuli facilitated response inhibition only when the task was not demanding. By contrast, novelty enhanced response selection irrespective of the in-group factor when task-difficulty was increased. These findings support the in-group bias mechanism of visual processing, in cases when attentional resources are not limited by a demanding task. The results are further discussed along the lines of the attentional load theory and neural mechanisms of response-inhibition and locomotor activity. In conclusion, our data showed that processing of novel information may enhance executive control through facilitated response selection and inhibition.

Attention to emotional stimuli in borderline personality disorder - a review of the influence of dissociation, self-reference, and psychotherapeutic interventions

Interactions between attention and processing of emotional stimuli shed light on both sensitivity to emotional stimuli as well as emotion dysregulation. Both of the latter processes have been proposed as central characteristics of altered emotion processing in those with borderline personality disorder (BPD). This review first summarizes the conflicting behavioural, psychophysiological and neuroimaging evidence for the hypothesis that emotional dysregulation should be reflected by higher distractibility through emotional stimuli in those with BPD. Dissociation, self-reference, as well as symptom severity modulated by psychotherapeutic interventions are proposed to help clarify divergent findings. Data suggest an association of dissociation with impaired task continuation during the presentation of interfering emotional and neutral stimuli, as well as high recruitment of neuronal attention networks together with a blunted emotional response. Considering self-reference, evidence suggests that negative rather than positive information may be more self-relevant to those with BPD. This may be due to a negative self-concept and self-evaluation. Social or trauma-relevant information attracts more attention from individuals with BPD and thus suggests higher self-relevance. After psychotherapeutic interventions, initial evidence may indicate normalization of the way attention and emotional stimuli interact in BPD. When studying attention-emotion interactions in BPD, methodological heterogeneities regarding sample, task, and stimulus characteristics need to be considered. When doing so, dissociation, self-reference, and psychotherapeutic interventions offer promising targets for future studies on attention-emotion interactions in those with BPD. This could promote a deeper insight into the affected individuals' struggle with emotions.

Emotion has no impact on attention in a change detection flicker task

Past research provides conflicting findings regarding the influence of emotion on visual attention. Early studies suggested a broadening of attentional resources in relation to positive mood. However, more recent evidence indicates that positive emotions may not have a beneficial impact on attention, and that the relationship between emotion and attention may be mitigated by factors such as task demand or stimulus valence. The current study explored the effect of emotion on attention using the change detection flicker paradigm. Participants were induced into positive, neutral, and negative mood states and then completed a change detection task. A series of neutral scenes were presented and participants had to identify the location of a disappearing item in each scene. The change was made to the center or the periphery of each scene and it was predicted that peripheral changes would be detected quicker in the positive mood condition and slower in the negative mood condition, compared to the neutral condition. In contrast to previous findings emotion had no influence on attention and whilst central changes were detected faster than peripheral changes, change blindness was not affected by mood. The findings suggest that the relationship between emotion and visual attention is influenced by the characteristics of a task, and any beneficial impact of positive emotion may be related to processing style rather than a “broadening” of attentional resources.

Aversive emotional interference impacts behavior and prefronto-striatal activity during increasing attentional control

Earlier studies have demonstrated that emotional stimulation modulates attentional processing during goal-directed behavior and related activity of a brain network including the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and the caudate nucleus. However, it is not clear how emotional interference modulates behavior and brain physiology during variation in attentional control, a relevant question for everyday life situations in which both emotional stimuli and cognitive load vary. The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of negative emotions on behavior and activity in IFG and caudate nucleus during increasing levels of attentional control. Twenty two healthy subjects underwent event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging while performing a task in which neutral or fearful facial expressions were displayed before stimuli eliciting increasing levels of attentional control processing. Results indicated slower reaction time (RT) and greater right IFG activity when fearful compared with neutral facial expressions preceded the low level of attentional control. On the other hand, fearful facial expressions preceding the intermediate level of attentional control elicited faster behavioral responses and greater activity in the right and left sides of the caudate. Finally, correlation analysis indicated a relationship between behavioral correlates of attentional control after emotional interference and right IFG activity. All together, these results suggest that the impact of negative emotions on attentional processing is differentially elicited at the behavioral and physiological levels as a function of cognitive load.

ERP evidence of cognitive strategy change in motivational conditions with varying level of difficulty

Recent research suggests that motivation improves cognitive functions but the particular mechanisms and precise behavioural conditions involved in such improvement still remain unknown. Particularly, it is unclear when in time and in which conditions these mechanisms are engaged. In the present study, we aimed to look at the neural markers of cognitive control strategies in different motivational conditions (motivation vs neutral) with different levels of difficulty (high vs low). Twenty-five adults completed a newly designed task in the four conditions above. Three ERP components were analysed: the CNV, LRP and P3b. We found that a motivational situation triggers the use of a proactive strategy when low cognitive control is required. A reactive strategy was used in a non-motivational situation and for difficult trials. Our study is also the first to provide evidence that the difference between proactive and reactive strategies occurs after the first stimulus (cue) is processed.

Evidence for altered amygdala activation in schizophrenia in an adaptive emotion recognition task

Deficits in social cognition seem to present an intermediate phenotype for schizophrenia, and are known to be associated with an altered amygdala response to faces. However, current results are heterogeneous with respect to whether this altered amygdala response in schizophrenia is hypoactive or hyperactive in nature. The present study used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate emotion-specific amygdala activation in schizophrenia using a novel adaptive emotion recognition paradigm. Participants comprised 11 schizophrenia outpatients and 16 healthy controls who viewed face stimuli expressing emotions of anger, fear, happiness, and disgust, as well as neutral expressions. The adaptive emotion recognition approach allows the assessment of group differences in both emotion recognition performance and associated neuronal activity while also ensuring a comparable number of correctly recognized emotions between groups. Schizophrenia participants were slower and had a negative bias in emotion recognition. In addition, they showed reduced differential activation during recognition of emotional compared with neutral expressions. Correlation analyses revealed an association of a negative bias with amygdala activation for neutral facial expressions that was specific to the patient group. We replicated previous findings of affected emotion recognition in schizophrenia. Furthermore, we demonstrated that altered amygdala activation in the patient group was associated with the occurrence of a negative bias. These results provide further evidence for impaired social cognition in schizophrenia and point to a central role of the amygdala in negative misperceptions of facial stimuli in schizophrenia.

Testosterone is inversely related to brain activity during emotional inhibition in schizophrenia

Sex steroids affect cognitive function as well as emotion processing and regulation. They may also play a role in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. However, the effects of sex steroids on cognition and emotion-related brain activation in schizophrenia are poorly understood. Our aim was to determine the extent to which circulating testosterone relates to brain activation in men with schizophrenia compared to healthy men during cognitive-emotional processing. We assessed brain activation in 18 men with schizophrenia and 22 age-matched healthy men during an emotional go/no-go task using fMRI and measured total serum testosterone levels on the same morning. We performed an ROI analysis to assess the relationship between serum testosterone and brain activation, focusing on cortical regions involved the emotional go/no-go task. Slower RT and reduced accuracy was observed when participants responded to neutral stimuli, while inhibiting responses to negative stimuli. Healthy men showed a robust increase in activation of the middle frontal gyrus when inhibiting responses to negative stimuli, but there was no significant association between activation and serum testosterone level in healthy men. Men with schizophrenia showed a less pronounced increase in activation when inhibiting responses to negative stimuli; however, they did show a strong inverse association between serum testosterone level and activation of the bilateral middle frontal gyrus and left insula. Additionally, increased accuracy during inhibition of response to negative words was associated with both higher serum testosterone levels and decreased activation of the middle frontal gyrus in men with schizophrenia only. We conclude that endogenous hormone levels, even within the normal range, may play an enhanced modulatory role in determining the neural and behavioural response during cognitive-emotional processing in schizophrenia.

Functional similarity of facial emotion processing between people with a first episode of psychosis and healthy subjects

BACKGROUND

Neurofunctional and behavioral abnormalities in facial emotion processing (FEmoP) have been consistently found in schizophrenia patients, but studies assessing brain functioning in early phases are scarce and the variety of experimental paradigms in current literature make comparisons difficult. The present work focuses on assessing FEmoP in people experiencing a psychotic episode for the first time with different experimental paradigm approaches.

METHODS

Twenty-two patients with a first psychotic episode (FPe) (13 males) took part in a functional magnetic resonance imaging study (1.5T) examining neural responses to explicit and implicit processing of fearful and happy facial expressions presented at two different intensities: 50% and 100%. Their brain activation was compared to that of 31 healthy subjects (15 males).

RESULTS

Control subjects show differential patterns of brain activation regarding the task demands (implicit or explicit processing), the emotional content (happy or fear) and the intensities of the emotion (50% or 100%); such differences are not found in participants with a first psychotic episode (FPe). No interaction or group effects are seen between control and FPe participants with any of the emotional tasks assessed, although FPe subjects show worse behavioral performance.

CONCLUSIONS

No brain areas recruited for FEmoP emerge as significantly different between people with a FPe and healthy subjects, independently on the demands of the task, the emotion processed, or the intensity of the emotion; but FPe participants show a limited recruitment of differential brain regions that could be associated with poor emotional processing in the short term. Our results outline the need of investigating the underlying processes that lead FPe participants to worse FEmoP performance.

Neural signatures of the response to emotional distraction: a review of evidence from brain imaging investigations

Prompt responses to emotional, potentially threatening, stimuli are supported by neural mechanisms that allow for privileged access of emotional information to processing resources. The existence of these mechanisms can also make emotional stimuli potent distracters, particularly when task-irrelevant. The ability to deploy cognitive control in order to cope with emotional distraction is essential for adaptive behavior, while reduced control may lead to enhanced emotional distractibility, which is often a hallmark of affective disorders. Evidence suggests that increased susceptibility to emotional distraction is linked to changes in the processing of emotional information that affect both the basic response to and coping with emotional distraction, but the neural correlates of these phenomena are not clear. The present review discusses emerging evidence from brain imaging studies addressing these issues, and highlights the following three aspects. First, the response to emotional distraction is associated with opposing patterns of activity in a ventral "hot" affective system (HotEmo, showing increased activity) and a dorsal "cold" executive system (ColdEx, showing decreased activity). Second, coping with emotional distraction involves top-down control in order to counteract the bottom-up influence of emotional distraction, and involves interactions between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex. Third, both the response to and coping with emotional distraction are influenced by individual differences affecting emotional sensitivity and distractibility, which are linked to alterations of both HotEmo and ColdEx neural systems. Collectively, the available evidence identifies specific neural signatures of the response to emotional challenge, which are fundamental to understanding the mechanisms of emotion-cognition interactions in healthy functioning, and the changes linked to individual variation in emotional distractibility and susceptibility to affective disorders.

The influence of valence and decision difficulty on self-referential processing

Self-referential processing is defined as the process by which a person becomes aware that specific contents are related to his or her own self. Cortical midline structures (CMS), such as dorsal and medial prefrontal cortex, and regions such as inferior frontal cortex, insula, and temporal pole have been implicated in self-referential processing. However, the specific contribution of each of these areas is still largely unknown. More particularly, not many studies have examined the influence of valence and decision making difficulty on regions involved in self-referential processing. In this study, participants evaluated how well personality traits, differing in valence and decision difficulty, described themselves or the current US President. In line with predictions, ventral, rostral, and dorsal parts of medial prefrontal cortex showed greater activity when participants judged traits about themselves relative to judging traits about the current US President. However, none of these regions showed significant modulation by trait valence. Increasing trait decision difficulty was associated with increased activity within dorsal medial prefrontal cortex and bilateral anterior insula. However, there was very minimal overlap (6/119 voxels, i.e., 5%) of the regions of dorsal medial prefrontal cortex implicated in self-referential processing and those implicated in trait decision difficulty. The results are interpreted within current accounts of self-referential processing.