Prefrontal Brain Activation During Emotional Processing: A Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy Study (fNIRS)

Please always quote using this URN: urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-97437
  • The limbic system and especially the amygdala have been identified as key structures in emotion induction and regulation. Recently research has additionally focused on the influence of prefrontal areas on emotion processing in the limbic system and the amygdala. Results from fMRI studies indicate that the prefrontal cortex (PFC) is involved not only in emotion induction but also in emotion regulation. However, studies using fNIRS only report prefrontal brain activation during emotion induction. So far it lacks the attempt to compare emotionThe limbic system and especially the amygdala have been identified as key structures in emotion induction and regulation. Recently research has additionally focused on the influence of prefrontal areas on emotion processing in the limbic system and the amygdala. Results from fMRI studies indicate that the prefrontal cortex (PFC) is involved not only in emotion induction but also in emotion regulation. However, studies using fNIRS only report prefrontal brain activation during emotion induction. So far it lacks the attempt to compare emotion induction and emotion regulation with regard to prefrontal activation measured with fNIRS, to exclude the possibility that the reported prefrontal brain activation in fNIRS studies are mainly caused by automatic emotion regulation processes. Therefore this work tried to distinguish emotion induction from regulation via fNIRS of the prefrontal cortex. 20 healthy women viewed neutral pictures as a baseline condition, fearful pictures as induction condition and reappraised fearful pictures as regulation condition in randomized order. As predicted, the view-fearful condition led to higher arousal ratings than the view-neutral condition with the reappraise-fearful condition in between. For the fNIRS results the induction condition showed an activation of the bilateral PFC compared to the baseline condition (viewing neutral). The regulation condition showed an activation only of the left PFC compared to the baseline condition, although the direct comparison between induction and regulation condition revealed no significant difference in brain activation. Therefore our study underscores the results of previous fNIRS studies showing prefrontal brain activation during emotion induction and rejects the hypothesis that this prefrontal brain activation might only be a result of automatic emotion regulation processes.show moreshow less

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Metadaten
Author: Martin J. Herrmann, Evelyn Glotzbach, Andreas Mühlberger, Kathrin Gschwendtner, Andreas J. Fallgatter, Paul Pauli
URN:urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-97437
Document Type:Journal article
Faculties:Medizinische Fakultät / Klinik und Poliklinik für Psychiatrie, Psychosomatik und Psychotherapie
Fakultät für Humanwissenschaften (Philos., Psycho., Erziehungs- u. Gesell.-Wissensch.) / Institut für Psychologie
Language:English
Parent Title (English):The Open Neuroimaging Journal
Year of Completion:2011
Source:In: The Open Neuroimgaging Journal (2011) 5, 33-39, doi: 10.2174/1874440001105010033
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2174/1874440001105010033
Dewey Decimal Classification:6 Technik, Medizin, angewandte Wissenschaften / 61 Medizin und Gesundheit / 610 Medizin und Gesundheit
Tag:Emotional processing; emotional regulation; fNIRS
Release Date:2014/05/12
Licence (German):License LogoCC BY-NC: Creative-Commons-Lizenz: Namensnennung, Nicht kommerziell