Abstract
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 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.
Highlights
In the past few years emotional neuroscience investigated the neuronal network underlying emotion induction and emotion regulation
It lacks the attempt to compare emotion induction and emotion regulation with regard to prefrontal activation measured with functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), to exclude the possibility that the reported prefrontal brain activation in fNIRS studies are mainly caused by automatic emotion regulation processes
Measured with fNIRS - might be caused by automatic emotional regulation processes
Summary
In the past few years emotional neuroscience investigated the neuronal network underlying emotion induction and emotion regulation. Key structures of the “emotional brain” are located within the limbic system, especially the amygdala Besides these key structures of emotional processing there are additional regions in the prefrontal cortex which are involved in emotional processing [1]. A first study [5] found increased medial prefrontal cortex activity during an emotional induction paradigm which induces emotions by instructing participants to try to feel like a person whose facial expression is displayed. In accordance with these results, the instruction to remember emotional events leads to an increase of activation in prefrontal brain areas [6].
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