Early brain-body impact of emotional arousal

D'hondt D'Hondt

doi:10.3389/fnhum.2010.00033

Abstract

Current research in affective neuroscience suggests that the emotional content of visual stimuli activates brain–body responses that could be critical to general health and physical disease. The aim of this study was to develop an integrated neurophysiological approach linking central and peripheral markers of nervous activity during the presentation of natural scenes in order to determine the temporal stages of brain processing related to the bodily impact of emotions. More specifically, whole head magnetoencephalogram (MEG) data and skin conductance response (SCR), a reliable autonomic marker of central activation, were recorded in healthy volunteers during the presentation of emotional (unpleasant and pleasant) and neutral pictures selected from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS). Analyses of event-related magnetic fields (ERFs) revealed greater activity at 180 ms in an occipitotemporal component for emotional pictures than for neutral counterparts. More importantly, these early effects of emotional arousal on cerebral activity were significantly correlated with later increases in SCR magnitude. For the first time, a neuromagnetic cortical component linked to a well-documented marker of bodily arousal expression of emotion, namely, the SCR, was identified and located. This finding sheds light on the time course of the brain–body interaction with emotional arousal and provides new insights into the neural bases of complex and reciprocal mind–body links.

Highlights

The classical approach to mind–body interactions considers that psychological processes modulate general health and physical disease
For each spatial factors (SFs) and temporal factors (TFs) pair showing an emotional effect (p < 0.05, two-tailed), emotion-triggered neuromagnetic activity did not differ between experimental blocks, as the ANOVA indicated no significant interaction between blocks and emotional content (all Fs(8,136) < 1.58 and ps > 0.17)
We performed contrast analyses, which revealed greater activity at 180 ms in the occipitotemporal component for emotional pictures than for neutral counterparts (quadratic contrast, F(1,17) = 10.70, p = 0.004; Figure 5), with no significant difference between emotional valence (linear contrast, F(1,17) = 1.37, p = 0.260)

Summary

Introduction

The classical approach to mind–body interactions considers that psychological processes modulate general health and physical disease. The James–Lange theory proposes that emotional stimuli first induce peripheral physiological variations, which occur without consciousness of affect These bodily responses are further interpreted by the brain to produce the feeling state of an emotion (Critchley, 2009). The Cannon–Bard theory states that the perception of emotional stimuli evokes brain responses that simultaneously but separately induce bodily responses on the one hand and subjective feeling on the other (Friedman, 2009). From this debate have emerged fundamental questions about the time course of brain and body responses to emotion as well as their role in generating feelings

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