Brain activity during viewing and describing of emotional and neutral pictures
Year: 2019
Type: other
Abstract: Emotions, such as anger, fear or disgust, are central aspects of human life. What happens in the brain if someone views an emotional scene expressing e.g. fear or disgust compared to a neutral one? And what happens in the brain if someone describes an emotional scene? We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study brain activity during picture viewing and describing in 12 young healthy participants. fMRI records changes of blood oxygenation inside the brain during different experimental conditions to localize areas of increased brain activation associated with task performance. fMRI was performed on a Siemens Prisma MR scanner at 3 Tesla field strength. Our experimental conditions were: NV (viewing a neutral scene), ND (describing a neutral scene), EV (viewing an emotional scene) and ED (describing an emotional scene). Neutral and emotional pictures were taken from the Nencki Affective Picture System. fMRI data were analyzed using standard statistical methods based on the general linear model as implemented in the software package FSL. During viewing (NV, EV) we found strong and widespread activation of the occipital cortex. During describing (ND, ED) we found bilateral activation in the supplementary motor area, pre- and postcentral cortex, basal ganglia, cerebellum, and superior temporal cortex, in addition to occipital activation. Viewing an emotional scene is associated with increased activation in parts of the bilateral occipital cortex and the right postcentral gyrus compared to viewing a neutral scene (EV-NV). Describing a neutral scene is associated with stronger activity in the bilateral parietal cortex as well as the right frontal and temporal cortex compared to describing an emotional scene (ND-ED). These results suggest that the emotional valence of visual stimuli modulates not only the activity of the visual cortex during viewing, but also of parietal, temporal, and frontal areas during speaking.
Authors: Sarah Schumacher, Peter Sörös
Institution: Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: gold
OpenAlex ID: W2969229826