Abstract
We review literature examining relationships between tympanic membrane temperature (TMT), affective/motivational orientation, and hemispheric activity. Lateralized differences in TMT might enable real-time monitoring of hemispheric activity in real-world conditions, and could serve as a corroborating marker of mental illnesses associated with specific affective dysregulation. We support the proposal that TMT holds potential for broadly indexing lateralized brain physiology during tasks demanding the processing and representation of emotional and/or motivational states, and for predicting trait-related affective/motivational orientations. The precise nature of the relationship between TMT and brain physiology, however, remains elusive. Indeed the limited extant research has sampled different participant populations and employed largely different procedures and measures, making for seemingly discrepant findings and implications. We propose, however, that many of these discrepancies can be resolved by considering how emotional states map onto motivational systems, and further examining how validated methods for inducing lateralized brain activity might affect TMT.
Highlights
The development of techniques allowing examination of brain activity in “real-time” has enabled great strides to be made in the field of behavioral neuroscience generally, and in determining the cortical substrates of emotion and motivational orientation
Electroencephalography and functional imaging have indicated broad differences in hemispheric lateralization of affect/motivation, with the right hemisphere being specialized for negative affect and withdrawal motivation, and the left hemisphere being specialized for positive affect and approach motivation (e.g., Davidson, 2002, 2004; Davidson et al, 1990; Tomarken et al, 1992)
Of the 75% (9) published after or during 2010, all but one were from the laboratory of either Helton or Propper. These results suggest that investigation of TMT-emotion/motivation is in its infancy, and that while any consistent findings may be promising, they will need to be replicated and extended by other laboratories
Summary
The development of techniques allowing examination of brain activity in “real-time” has enabled great strides to be made in the field of behavioral neuroscience generally, and in determining the cortical substrates of emotion and motivational orientation . In order to remove some of these limitations, other methods to assess these relationships have been investigated One such method is lateralized differences in tympanic membrane temperature (TMT). Examination of the TMT-affect/motivation literature could help elucidate TMT-hemispheric activity relationships, and shed light on the physiological mechanisms that underlie them. Should a clear predictive relationship between TMT and affect/motivation exist, such a finding would be eminently useful for both research and clinical purposes. The purpose of this mini-review is to (i) determine if lateralized differences in TMT are systematically related to emotion/motivation and (ii) if so, by inference, is increased TMT associated with ipsilaterally increased or with ipsilaterally decreased hemispheric activity.
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