Insula Activation Research Articles

Neural basis of reward expectancy inducing proactive aggression.

Proactive aggression refers to deliberate and unprovoked behavior, typically motivated by personal gain or expected reward. Reward expectancy is generally recognized as a critical factor that may influence proactive aggression, but its neural mechanisms remain unknown. We conducted a task-based functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment to investigate the relationship between reward expectancy and proactive aggression. 37 participants (20 females, mean age = 20.8 ± 1.42, age range = 18-23 years) completed a reward-harm task. In the experiment, reward valence expectancy and reward possibility expectancy were manipulated respectively by varying amounts (low: 0.5-1.5 yuan; high: 10.5-11.5 yuan) and possibilities (low: 10%-30%; high: 70%-90%) of money that participants could obtain by choosing to aggress. Participants received fMRI scans throughout the experiment. Brain activation regions associated with reward expectancy mainly involve the middle frontal gyrus, lingual gyrus, inferior temporal gyrus, anterior cuneus, caudate nucleus, inferior frontal gyrus, cingulate gyrus, anterior central gyrus, and posterior central gyrus. Associations between brain activation and reward expectancy in the left insula, left middle frontal gyrus, left thalamus, and right middle frontal gyrus were found to be related to proactive aggression. Furthermore, the brain activation regions primarily involved in proactive aggression induced by reward expectancy were the insula, inferior frontal gyrus, inferior temporal gyrus, pallidum, and caudate nucleus. Under conditions of high reward expectancy, participants engage in more proactive aggressive behavior. Reward expectancy involves the activation of reward- and social-cognition-related brain regions, and these associations are instrumental in proactive aggressive decisions.

Thermoregulatory Responses To Lying Based on Age and Temperature

The main goal that was trying to be achieved throughout the course of this project was to determine if a subject is lying, based on the body temperature of an individual. This can also be known as the thermoregulatory responses in the metopic suture and the apex region between male and females. When law enforcement tries to determine whether a subject is lying, they could be able to figure it out based on the subject’s facial temperature increasing or decreasing. The two points, forehead and nose, were chosen because there is a location in the brain called the insula, which is located deep within the lateral sulcus of the brain, which shows a difference in temperature when a lie is told. Insula activates brown adipose tissue to release heat, causing this phenomenon to occur. Ten subjects were used. Thirty questions were posed to each subject, and they were permitted to tell either the truth or a lie. After every question, the forehead and nose temperatures were taken. The results showed that when male and females lie, their temperature increases. The explanation for this is the area in the brain called the insula, which is more active in females and people over the ages of eighteen. For high insular activity to happen, it means the brain is trying hard to perform a complex task.

Neural mechanisms of costly helping in the general population and mirror-pain synesthetes

It has been argued that experiencing the pain of others motivates helping. Here, we investigate the contribution of somatic feelings while witnessing the pain of others onto costly helping decisions, by contrasting the choices and brain activity of participants that report feeling somatic feelings (self-reported mirror-pain synesthetes) against those that do not. Participants in fMRI witnessed a confederate receiving pain stimulations whose intensity they could reduce by donating money. The pain intensity could be inferred either from the facial expressions of the confederate in pain (Face condition) or from the kinematics of the pain-receiving hand (Hand condition). Our results show that self-reported mirror-pain synesthetes increase their donation more steeply, as the intensity of the observed pain increases, and their somatosensory brain activity (SII and the adjacent IPL) was more tightly associated with donation in the Hand condition. For all participants, activation in insula, SII, TPJ, pSTS, amygdala and MCC correlated with the trial by trial donation made in the Face condition, while SI and MTG activation was correlated with the donation in the Hand condition. These results further inform us about the role of somatic feelings while witnessing the pain of others in situations of costly helping.

Cognitive rehabilitation effects on grey matter volume and Go-NoGo activity in progressive multiple sclerosis: results from the CogEx trial

BackgroundResearch on cognitive rehabilitation (CR) and aerobic exercise (EX) to improve cognition in progressive multiple sclerosis (PMS) remains limited. CogEx trial investigated the effectiveness of CR and EX in PMS:...

20. Insula Activity During Reward Anticipation is Prospectively Negatively Associated With Low-Level Alcohol Use in Early Adolescence.

20. Insula Activity During Reward Anticipation is Prospectively Negatively Associated With Low-Level Alcohol Use in Early Adolescence.

Loss, gain and choice difficulty in gambling patients: Neural and behavioural processes.

Impaired decision-making is often displayed by individuals suffering from gambling disorder (GD). Since there are a variety of different phenomena influencing decision-making, we focused in this study on the effects of GD on neural and behavioural processes related to loss aversion and choice difficulty. Behavioural responses as well as brain images of 23 patients with GD and 20 controls were recorded while they completed a mixed gambles task, where they had to decide to either accept or reject gambles with different amounts of potential gain and loss. We found no behavioural loss aversion in either group and no group differences regarding loss and gain-related choice behaviour, but there was a weaker relation between choice difficulty and decision time in patients with GD. Similarly, we observed no group differences in processing of losses or gains, but choice difficulty was weaker associated with brain activity in the right anterior insula and anterior cingulate cortex in patients with GD. Our results showed for the first time the effects of GD on neural processes related to choice difficulty. In addition, our findings on choice difficulty give new insights on the psychopathology of GD and on neural processes related to impaired decision-making in GD.

A large-scale c-Fos brain mapping study on extinction of cocaine-primed reinstatement.

Individuals with cocaine addiction can experience many craving episodes and subsequent relapses, which represents the main obstacle to recovery. Craving is often favored when abstinent individuals ingest a small dose of cocaine, encounter cues associated with drug use or are exposed to stressors. Using a cocaine-primed reinstatement model in rat, we recently showed that cocaine-conditioned interoceptive cues can be extinguished with repeated cocaine priming in the absence of drug reinforcement, a phenomenon we called extinction of cocaine priming. Here, we applied a large-scale c-Fos brain mapping approach following extinction of cocaine priming in male rats to identify brain regions implicated in processing the conditioned interoceptive stimuli of cocaine priming. We found that cocaine-primed reinstatement is associated with increased c-Fos expression in key brain regions (e.g., dorsal and ventral striatum, several prefrontal areas and insular cortex), while its extinction mostly disengages them. Moreover, while reinstatement behavior was correlated with insular and accumbal activation, extinction of cocaine priming implicated parts of the ventral pallidum, the mediodorsal thalamus and the median raphe. These brain patterns of activation and inhibition suggest that after repeated priming, interoceptive signals lose their conditioned discriminative properties and that action-outcome associations systems are mobilized in search for new contingencies, a brain state that may predispose to rapid relapse.

Amplification of positivity for depression and anxiety: Neural prediction of treatment response

Psychosocial treatments targeting the positive valence system (PVS) in depression and anxiety demonstrate efficacy in enhancing positive affect (PA), but response to treatment varies. We examined whether individual differences in neural activation to positive and negative valence incentive cues underlies differences in benefitting from a PVS-targeted treatment. Individuals with clinically elevated depression and/or anxiety (N = 88, ages 18 to 55) participated in one of two randomized, waitlist-controlled trials of Amplification of Positivity (AMP; NCT02330627, NCT03196544), a cognitive and behavioral intervention targeting the PVS. Participants completed a monetary incentive delay (MID) task during fMRI acquisition at baseline measuring neural activation to the possibility of gaining or losing money. Change in PA from before to after treatment was assessed using the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule. No significant associations were observed between baseline neural activation during gain anticipation and AMP-related changes in PA in regions of interest (striatum and insula) or whole-brain analyses. However, higher baseline striatal and insula activation during loss anticipation was associated with greater increases in PA post-AMP. This study provides preliminary evidence suggesting neural reactivity to negative valence cues may inform who stands to benefit most from treatments targeting the PVS.

The neural representations of valence transformation in indole processing.

Indole is often associated with a sweet and floral odor typical of jasmine flowers at low concentrations and an unpleasant, animal-like odor at high concentrations. However, the mechanism whereby the brain processes this opposite valence of indole is not fully understood yet. In this study, we aimed to investigate the neural mechanisms underlying indole valence encoding in conversion and nonconversion groups using the smelling task to arouse pleasantness. For this purpose, 12 conversion individuals and 15 nonconversion individuals participated in an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging paradigm with low (low-indole) and high (high-indole) indole concentrations in which valence was manipulated independent of intensity. The results of this experiment showed that neural activity in the right amygdala, orbitofrontal cortex and insula was associated with valence independent of intensity. Furthermore, activation in the right orbitofrontal cortex in response to low-indole was positively associated with subjective pleasantness ratings. Conversely, activation in the right insula and amygdala in response to low-indole was positively correlated with anticipatory hedonic traits. Interestingly, while amygdala activation in response to high-indole also showed a positive correlation with these hedonic traits, such correlation was observed solely with right insula activation in response to high-indole. Additionally, activation in the right amygdala in response to low-indole was positively correlated with consummatory pleasure and hedonic traits. Regarding olfactory function, only activation in the right orbitofrontal cortex in response to high-indole was positively correlated with olfactory identification, whereas activation in the insula in response to low-indole was negatively correlated with the level of self-reported olfactory dysfunction. Based on these findings, valence transformation of indole processing in the right orbitofrontal cortex, insula, and amygdala may be associated with individual hedonic traits and perceptual differences.

Stereotyped goal-directed manifold dynamics in the insular cortex

The insular cortex is involved in diverse processes, including bodily homeostasis, emotions, and cognition. However, we lack a comprehensive understanding of how it processes information at the level of neuronal populations. We leveraged recent advances in unsupervised machine learning to study insular cortex population activity patterns (i.e., neuronal manifold) in mice performing goal-directed behaviors. We find that the insular cortex activity manifold is remarkably consistent across different animals and under different motivational states. Activity dynamics within the neuronal manifold are highly stereotyped during rewarded trials, enabling robust prediction of single-trial outcomes across different mice and across various natural and artificial motivational states. Comparing goal-directed behavior with self-paced free consumption, we find that the stereotyped activity patterns reflect task-dependent goal-directed reward anticipation, and not licking, taste, or positive valence. These findings reveal a core computation in insular cortex that could explain its involvement in pathologies involving aberrant motivations.

The Role of the Insula in Chronic Pain and Associated Structural Changes: An Integrative Review.

Chronic pain affects a substantial portion of the global population, significantly impacting quality of life and well-being. This condition involves complex mechanisms, including dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system, which plays a crucial role in pain perception.The insula, a key brain region involved in pain processing, plays a critical role in pain perception and modulation. Lesions in the insula can result in pain asymbolia, where pain perception remains intact but emotional responses are inappropriate. The insula is anatomically and functionally divided into anterior and posterior regions, with the posterior insula processing nociceptive input based on intensity and location before relaying it to the anterior insula for emotional mediation. Understanding the insula's intricate role in pain processing is crucial, as it is involved in encoding prediction errors and mediating emotional dimensions of pain perception.The focus of this review wason synthesizing existing literature on the role of the insula in chronic pain and associated structural changes. The goal was to integrate findings from various sources to provide a comprehensive overview of the topic.The search strategy included a combination of Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) and relevant keywords related to insulaand chronic pain. The following databases were surveyed: PubMed, Embase, Scopus, and Web of Science. We identified a total of 2515 articles, and after following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guideline based on eligibility criteria, 46 articles were used to synthesize this review. Our study highlights the pivotal role of the insula in chronic pain processing and associated structural changes, integrating findings from diverse studies and neuroimaging investigations. Beyond mere pain sensation, the insula contributes to emotional awareness, attention, and salience detection within the pain network.Various chronic pain conditions reveal alterations in insular activity and connectivity, accompanied by changes in gray matter volume and neurochemical profiles. Interventions targeting the insula show promise in alleviating chronic pain symptoms. However, further research is needed to understand underlying mechanisms, which can aid in developing more effective therapeutic interventions for pain.

359 Low-Intensity Focused Ultrasound to Human Dorsal Anterior Cingulate Cortex and Insula Attenuates Measures of Central Sensitization

INTRODUCTION: Central sensitization is the abnormal amplified response to pain and is associated with chronic pain. Increased insula and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) activity is associated with central sensitization. Low-intensity focused ultrasound (LIFU) is a novel form of non-invasive neuromodulation that can precisely target the anterior insula (AI), posterior insula (PI) and dACC. METHODS: N = 18 healthy participants underwent conditioned pain modulation (CPM) and temporal summation of pain (TSP) tasks before and after 10 minutes of LIFU or sham stimulations. For CPM, the conditioning stimulus (CS) was a cold pressor test to the left hand and the test stimulus (TS) was a brief transient heat stimulus to the dorsum of the right hand. For TSP, 10 transient heat stimuli (>0.33 Hz) were administered to the dorsum of the right hand. The primary outcome measure for both tasks was perceived pain ratings (0-9). Electrodermal response and electrocardiogram was collected to evaluate the effect of LIFU on autonomic reactivity. RESULTS: LIFU to PI increased CPM 0.5 ± 0.181 compared to sham (p = 0.024). LIFU to PI also significantly reduced perceived pain during the TSP task compared to sham (p < 0.001). We also found a significant difference between dACC and sham conditions during TSP by -0.55 ± 0.05 (p < 0.001). LIFU to the AI increases frequency domain measures of heart-rate variability. CONCLUSIONS: LIFU to the insula and dACC affects pain processing in measures of central sensitization. This demonstrates the neuromodulation abilities of LIFU and is a promising tool to develop noninvasive clinical therapies for chronic pain conditions.

Exploring the impact of immersive virtual reality on depression knowledge and stigma reduction: a cross-over RCT fMRI study

The stigma of mental illness is a form of negative judgmental knowledge and is a barrier to individual seeking treatment. Contact-based educational interventions with first-person perspective (1PP) combined with immersive virtual reality (IVR) is promising as an anti-stigma intervention. This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of 1PP anti-stigma IVR intervention compared to video in enhancing depression knowledge and reducing stigma, as well as to examine the corresponding depression knowledge brain activity change using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Participants engaged in a 1PP anti-stigma intervention using both IVR and conventional video, focusing on the daily life and recovery of a patient with mild depression. The change in depression knowledge, stigma-related behavioral, and brain activity using fMRI were measured at pre- and post-interventions. Depression knowledge improved for both interventions; however, only the IVR intervention reduced stigma. In the IVR intervention, depression knowledge score was positively associated with neural response in the right superior frontal gyrus activation, indicative of empathic concern. Conversely, the video intervention correlated with increased activity in the right anterior insula, suggesting a distress-related response. The findings demonstrate that the immersive nature of IVR can reduce stigma more effectively than video intervention. This effectiveness is underpinned by the change in depression knowledge on neural activity, with IVR fostering empathy-related behavioral responses. The results highlight the potential of IVR in enhancing empathic understanding and reducing stigma towards mental illness, emphasizing the need for further exploration into immersive technologies for mental health education.

Perception of social inclusion/exclusion and response inhibition in adolescents with past suicide attempt: a multidomain task-based fMRI study.

The occurrence of suicidal behaviors increases during adolescence. Hypersensitivity to negative social signals and deficits in cognitive control are putative mechanisms of suicidal behaviors, which necessitate confirmation in youths. Multidomain functional neuroimaging could enhance the identification of patients at suicidal risk beyond standard clinical measures. Three groups of adolescents (N = 96; 78% females, age = 11.6-18.1) were included: patients with depressive disorders and previous suicide attempts (SA, n = 29); patient controls with depressive disorders but without anysuicide attempt history (PC, n = 35); and healthy controls (HC, n = 32). We scanned participants with 3T-MRI during social inclusion/exclusion (Cyberball Game) and response inhibition (Go-NoGo) tasks. Neural activation was indexed by the blood-oxygenation-level dependent (BOLD) of the hemodynamic response during three conditions in the Cyberball Game ("Control condition", "Social Inclusion", and "Social Exclusion"), and two conditions in Go-NoGo task ("Go" and "NoGo" blocks). ANCOVA-style analysis identified group effects across three whole-brain contrasts: 1) NoGo vs. Go, 2) Social inclusion vs. control condition, 3) Social exclusion vs. control condition. We found that SA had lower activation in the left insula during social inclusion vs. control condition compared to PC and HC. Moreover, SA compared to PC had higher activity in the right middle prefrontal gyrus during social exclusion vs. control condition, and in bilateral precentral gyri during NoGo vs. Go conditions. Task-related behavioral and self-report measures (Self-reported emotional reactivity in the Cyberball Game, response times and number of errors in the Go-NoGo Task) did not discriminate groups. In conclusion, adolescent suicidal behaviors are likely associated with neural alterations related to the processing of social perception and response inhibition. Further research, involving prospective designs and diverse cohorts of patients, is necessary to explore the potential of neuroimaging as a tool in understanding the emergence and progression of suicidal behaviors.

Resting-state activity and functional connectivity of insula and postcentral gyrus related to psychological resilience in female depressed patients: A preliminary study

BackgroundPsychological resilience is a protective factor of depression. However, the neuroimaging characteristics of the relationship between psychological resilience and brain imaging in depression are not very clear. Our objectives were to explore the brain functional imaging characteristics of different levels of resilience in female patients with depression. MethodsResting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) was performed on 58 female depressed patients. According to the resilience score, participants were divided into three groups: Low resilience (Low-res), Medium resilience (Med-res) and High resilience (High-res). We compared the differences in the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (ALFF) and functional connectivity (FC) among the three groups and correlated psychological resilience with ALFF and FC. ResultsAccording to ALFF, there was a higher activation in RI and RPG in the High-res compared with Med-res and Low-res, but no significant differences between Med-res and Low-res. The FC between the RPG and supramarginal gyrus (SG) in the High-res was significantly stronger than that in the Med-res and the Low-res, and the FC of the Med-res is stronger than that of the Low-res. Both ALFF and FC were positively correlated with the score of resilience. LimitationsThe sample size of this study was relatively small and it lacked healthy controls. The results of this study could be considered preliminary. ConclusionsAmong female patients with depression, patients with higher psychological resilience had higher resting state activation in the RI and RPG and had a stronger interaction between the RPG and the SG.

The insular cortex is not insular in thyroid eye disease: neuroimaging revelations of central–peripheral system interaction

BackgroundThyroid eye disease (TED) is highly correlated with dysregulated immunoendocrine status. The insular cortex was found to regulate peripheral inflammation and immunomodulation in mice. This study aimed to explore whether the insular cortex in patients with TED played a modulatory role including the aberrant brain functional alteration and its association with immunoendocrine status.MethodsThis study included 34 active patients (AP), 30 inactive patients (IP) with TED, and 45 healthy controls (HC) matched for age, sex, and educational level. Comprehensive clinical details (especially immunoendocrine markers) and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data were collected from each participant. The amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF) was used to probe the aberrant alterations of local neural activity. The seed-based functional connectivity (FC) analysis was used to explore the relationship between the insular cortex and each voxel throughout the whole brain. The correlation analysis was conducted to assess the association between insular neurobiomarkers and immunoendocrine parameters.ResultsWhen compared with the IP and HC groups, the AP group displayed significantly higher ALFF values in the right insular cortex (INS.R) and lower FC values between the INS.R and the bilateral cerebellum. None of the neurobiomarkers differed between the IP and HC groups. Besides, correlations between insular neurobiomarkers and immunoendocrine markers (free thyroxine, the proportion of T cells, and natural killer cells) were identified in both AP and IP groups.ConclusionsThis study was novel in reporting that the dysregulation of the insular cortex activity in TED was associated with abnormal peripheral immunoendocrine status. The insular cortex might play a key role in central–peripheral system interaction in TED. Further research is crucial to enhance our understanding of the central–peripheral system interaction mechanisms involved in autoimmune diseases.

Risk factors for internalizing symptoms: The influence of empathy, theory of mind, and negative thinking processes.

Internalizing symptoms such as elevated stress and sustained negative affect can be important warning signs for developing mental disorders. A recent theoretical framework suggests a complex interplay of empathy, theory of mind (ToM), and negative thinking processes as a crucial risk combination for internalizing symptoms. To disentangle these relationships, this study utilizes neural, behavioral, and self-report data to examine how the interplay between empathy, ToM, and negative thinking processes relates to stress and negative affect. We reanalyzed the baseline data of N = 302 healthy participants (57% female, Mage = 40.52, SDage = 9.30) who participated in a large-scale mental training study, the ReSource project. Empathy and ToM were assessed using a validated fMRI paradigm featuring naturalistic video stimuli and via self-report. Additional self-report scales were employed to measure internalizing symptoms (perceived stress, negative affect) and negative thinking processes (rumination and self-blame). Our results revealed linear associations of self-reported ToM and empathic distress with stress and negative affect. Also, both lower and higher, compared to average, activation in the anterior insula during empathic processing and in the middle temporal gyrus during ToM performance was significantly associated with internalizing symptoms. These associations were dependent on rumination and self-blame. Our findings indicate specific risk constellations for internalizing symptoms. Especially people with lower self-reported ToM and higher empathic distress may be at risk for more internalizing symptoms. Quadratic associations of empathy- and ToM-related brain activation with internalizing symptoms depended on negative thinking processes, suggesting differential effects of cognitive and affective functioning on internalizing symptoms. Using a multi-method approach, these findings advance current research by shedding light on which complex risk combinations of cognitive and affective functioning are relevant for internalizing symptoms.

Neuronal correlates of intensification and acceptance of symptoms during exposure therapy in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Cognitive behaviour therapy with exposure and response prevention is efficient in treating patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Nevertheless, it would be helpful for many patients to complement the therapeutic treatment with acceptance strategies to further increase the therapeutic benefit. The aim of the present study was to examine neurobiological responses to acceptance and intensification strategies during symptom provocation alongside the psychotherapeutic process. A total of 23 patients diagnosed with OCD (subtype: washing/contamination fear) was instructed to utilise either an acceptance strategy (ACS) or an intensification strategy (INS) to cope with their emotional and cognitive reactions to personalised symptom-triggering and neutral pictures. Fourteen patients participated twice: at the beginning [T1] and at the end [T2] of an inpatient multimodal treatment including cognitive behaviour therapy with response prevention to assess functional variations. For the contrast of T1 and T2, ACS showed increased brain activity in the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), left caudate body, and posterior cingulate gyrus (PCC). They also showed decreased activity in the left anterior insula. INS showed decreased activation in right lingual gyrus and right caudate body. At T2, ACS showed increased activation compared to INS in the left cerebrum: IFG, caudate nucleus, middle and superior temporal gyrus, and PCC/cuneus. For the comparison of T1 and T2, the ACS revealed increased brain activity in the left IFG, left caudate body, and right inferior parietal lobe. It showed decreased activity in the left anterior insula. The INS revealed decreased activity in right lingual gyrus and right caudate body.The psychometric questionnaires suggested that patients were able to reduce obsession, compulsion, and depression symptoms. Furthermore, patients rated the ACS as more useful for themselves compared with the INS. The increased left IFG activity using ACS (T1 vs. T2) could be interpreted as a better inhibitory top-down process, while the increased PCC response might be due to a better reappraisal strategy after therapy. ACS seems to mobilise neuronal activations under therapy, especially in the left hemisphere. Both strategies showed reductions in emotional networks as a neuronal correlate of therapy success. Overall, ACS may be more efficient than INS, as rated by the patients and as in accordance with neurobiological findings.

Neural response to threat and reward among young adults at risk for alcohol use disorder.

Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is heritable. Thus, young adults with positive family histories represent an at-risk group relative to those without a family history, and if studied at a time when both groups have similar levels of alcohol use, it provides an opportunity to identify neural processing patterns associated with risk for AUD. Previous studies have shown that diminished response to potential reward is associated with genetic risk for AUD, but it is unclear how threat may modulate this response. We used a modified Monetary Incentive Delay task during fMRI to examine neural correlates of the interaction between threat and reward anticipation in a sample of young adults with (n = 31) and without (n = 44) family histories of harmful alcohol use. We found an interaction (p = 0.048) between cue and group in the right nucleus accumbens where the family history positive group showed less differentiation to the anticipation of gaining $5 and losing $5 relative to gaining $0. The family history-positive group also reported less excitement for trials to gain $5 relative to gaining $0 (p < 0.001). Family history-positive individuals showed less activation in the left insula during both safe and threat blocks compared to family history-negative individuals (p = 0.005), but the groups did not differ as a function of threat (p > 0.70). Young adults with, relative to without, enriched risk for AUD may have diminished reward processing via both neural and behavioural markers to potential rewarding and negative consequences. Neural response to threat may not be a contributing factor to risk at this stage.

Negative emotions enhance memory-guided attention in a visual search task by increasing frontoparietal, insular, and parahippocampal cortical activity

Previous literature demonstrated that long-term memory representations guide spatial attention during visual search in real-world pictures. However, it is currently unknown whether memory-guided visual search is affected by the emotional content of the picture. During functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), participants were asked to encode the position of high-contrast targets embedded in emotional (negative or positive) or neutral pictures. At retrieval, they performed a visual search for targets presented at the same location as during encoding, but at a much lower contrast. Behaviorally, participants detected more accurately targets presented in negative pictures compared to those in positive or neutral pictures. They were also faster in detecting targets presented at encoding in emotional (negative or positive) pictures than in neutral pictures, or targets not presented during encoding (i.e., memory-guided attention effect). At the neural level, we found increased activation in a large circuit of regions involving the dorsal and ventral frontoparietal cortex, insular and parahippocampal cortex, selectively during the detection of targets presented in negative pictures during encoding. We propose that these regions might form an integrated neural circuit recruited to select and process previously encoded target locations (i.e., memory-guided attention sustained by the frontoparietal cortex) embedded in emotional contexts (i.e., emotional contexts recollection supported by the parahippocampal cortex and emotional monitoring supported by the insular cortex). Ultimately, these findings reveal that negative emotions can enhance memory-guided visual search performance by increasing neural activity in a large-scale brain circuit, contributing to disentangle the complex relationship between emotion, attention, and memory.