Paying Attention to Emotion: An fMRI Investigation

Abstract:
Abstract: Emotional and cognitive functioning may involve complementary, reciprocal neural systems, or common neural systems. The present research addressed this issue by comparing regional hemodynamic responses to color-word versus emotional Stroop tasks. Twelve normal right-handed participants indicated a word's color while ignoring the word's meaning. In 3 separate blocks utilizing a castle paradigm, word meaning was neutral versus color-conflicting; neutral versus emotionally negative; and neutral versus emotionally positive. Within a block, emotion-word epochs toggled between low- and high-arousal words. Multislice images of the brain were acquired using a 1.5 T GE Signa MR scanner equipped for echo-planar imaging. Compared to neutral words, both color-conflicting and high-arousal negative words activated inferior frontal, medial frontal, and parietal areas, indicating a common network for attentional selection, regardless of the emotional versus non-emotional nature of the distractor. In addition, high-arousal negative words activated left orbitofrontal and right temporal/occipital regions that were not significantly activated by color-conflicting words. High-arousal positive words activated bilateral orbitofrontal regions; low arousal words, whether positive or negative, did not produce reliable activation compared to neutral words. Together, the results support a common neural systems conception of the relation between attention and emotion, together with uniquely activated emotional areas that depend on valence and arousal, as predicted from neuropsychological models of emotion.