Altered Neural Activity and Emotions Following Right Middle Cerebral Artery Stroke

Abstract

Background and Purpose-Stroke of the right MCA is common. Such strokes often have consequences for emotional experience, but these can be subtle. In such cases diagnosis is difficult because emotional awareness (limiting reporting of emotional changes) may be affected. The present study sought to clarify the mechanisms of altered emotion experience after right MCA stroke. It was predicted that after right MCA stroke the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), a brain region concerned with emotional awareness, would show reduced neural activity.

Emotional blunting following left basal ganglia stroke: The role of depression and fronto-limbic functional alterations

“…Subjects were selected from a larger cohort recruited to study brain networks effects of focal brain damage during emotion experience using PET and the [ 15 O]water method (Paradiso et al, 2003; Turner et al, 2007; Paradiso et al, 2011). Subjects with stable strokes to the LBG (i.e., time from acute stroke greater than 3 months), confirmed by neurological exam and MRI scan (Figure 1), constituted the experimental group.…”

“…Brain activity elicited by viewing emotional and neutral stimuli and measured using [O 15 ]water positron emission tomography (PET) (Turner et al, 2007; Paradiso et al, 2008a; Paradiso et al, 2011) is reported in individuals with LBG damage relative to healthy volunteers. Because idiopathic (i.e., depression without gross brain damage) and post-stroke depression (Paradiso et al, 1997a) show essentially overlapping phenomenology, it was expected that depression following LBG lesion would be associated with the characteristic patterns of brain activity observed in idiopathic depression including higher activity in amygdala and mesial prefrontal cortex and lower activity in dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex (Drevets, 2001; Mayberg, 2002; Zhong et al, 2011).…”

“…Because idiopathic (i.e., depression without gross brain damage) and post-stroke depression (Paradiso et al, 1997a) show essentially overlapping phenomenology, it was expected that depression following LBG lesion would be associated with the characteristic patterns of brain activity observed in idiopathic depression including higher activity in amygdala and mesial prefrontal cortex and lower activity in dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex (Drevets, 2001; Mayberg, 2002; Zhong et al, 2011). In addition, brain activity measurements allowed an examination of regions of altered activity distant from the site of (LBG) damage (Turner et al, 2007; Paradiso et al, 2011). Based on expectations that LBG damage is associated with reduction in emotion processing, regions supporting emotion experience and awareness including the mesial prefrontal cortex and cingulate gyrus, and the insular cortex (Craig, 2009; Etkin et al, 2011) were expected to show significant brain activity alterations.…”

Depressive signs and cognitive performance in patients with a right hemisphere stroke

“…The researches had, in general, administrated screenings such as the Mini Mental State Exam -MMSE (14) , some tasks of expanded batteries (15) or entire expanded batteries (13) . Therefore, seems to be an even larger gap in the literature on the relationship between stroke, suggestive signs of depression (SSD) and hemispheric specialization with the processing of several cognitive functions measured by brief neuropsychological batteries.…”

Adaptação da Bateria Montreal de Avaliação da Comunicação para o Português Europeu

“…Approximately 50% of patients with right hemisphere damage (RHD) have some kind of acquired communication disorder (1) , which can affect social interactions and thus pose psychosocial and functional difficulties for these people (4) . The alterations in communication include: difficulties in maintaining the topic of the conversation (7) , prosodic processing (8) and understanding metaphors (1) , for example. Therefore, it is important to evaluate communication competences in addition to language skills, not infrequently ignored when it comes to RHD patients, as they exhibit appropriate language skills (phonology, semantics, syntax, morphology), but alterations, including pragmatic communication (figurative language, metaphors, jokes) and prosody, which are very important in the social context (8) .…”