Layer-specific, retinotopically-diffuse modulation in human visual cortex by emotional faces

Tt, Liu; Fu, Jason Z; Chai, Yuhui; Japee, Shruti; Chen, Gang; Ungerleider, Leslie G.; Merriam, Elisha P.

doi:10.1101/2022.07.10.499443

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 118 publications

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“…Previous studies have found that emotion triggers distinct neural representations in the visual cortex (Bo et al, 2021;Kragel et al, 2019). These neural representations are valence-specific (Bo et al, 2022;Liu et al, 2022) and different visual cortical patterns encode at least 5 distinguishable emotion categories (Bo et al, 2022;Kragel et al, 2019;Liu et al, 2022)). Other types of affect appear to be embedded in early sensory pathways as well.…”

Section: Emotion Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Deconstructing the brain bases of emotion regulation: A systems-identification approach using Bayes factors

Kraynak

Kwon

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Cognitive reappraisal is fundamental to cognitive therapies and everyday emotion regulation. Analyses using Bayes factors and an axiomatic systems-identification approach identified four reappraisal-related components encompassing distributed neural activity patterns across two independent fMRI studies (n=182 and n=176): (1) An anterior prefrontal system selectively involved in cognitive reappraisal; (2) A fronto-parietal-insular system engaged by both reappraisal and emotion generation, demonstrating a general role in appraisal; (3) A largely subcortical system activated during negative emotion generation but unaffected by reappraisal, including amygdala, hypothalamus, and periaqueductal gray; and (4) a posterior cortical system of negative emotion-related regions down-regulated by reappraisal. These systems covaried with individual differences in reappraisal success and were differentially related to neurotransmitter binding maps, implicating cannabinoid and serotonin systems in reappraisal. These findings challenge limbic-centric models of reappraisal and provide new systems-level targets for assessing and enhancing emotion regulation.

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Section: Emotion Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Deconstructing the brain bases of emotion regulation: A systems-identification approach using Bayes factors

Kraynak

Kwon

et al. 2023

Preprint

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“…The observed behavioral results and findings regarding valence and anxiety have important implications for understanding the neural mechanism of emotion processing. Many visual areas, including fusiform face area and early visual cortex, and subcortical regions, such as the amygdala, show greater activation to emotional faces, both positive and negative valenced, compared to neutral faces (Liu et al, 2022). Additionally, the amygdala-frontal connectivity has been a major focus for top-down emotion regulation through cognitive reappraisal.…”

Section: Conceptual Advance and Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emotion and anxiety interact to bias spatial attention.

Bachmann,

Japee,

Merriam

et al. 2024

Emotion

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Emotional expressions are an evolutionarily conserved means of social communication essential for social interactions. It is important to understand how anxious individuals perceive their social environments, including emotional expressions, especially with the rising prevalence of anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic. Anxiety is often associated with an attentional bias for threat-related stimuli, such as angry faces. Yet the mechanisms by which anxiety enhances or impairs two key components of spatial attention-attentional capture and attentional disengagement-to emotional expressions are still unclear. Moreover, positive valence is often ignored in studies of threat-related attention and anxiety, despite the high occurrence of happy faces during everyday social interaction. Here, we investigated the relationship between anxiety, emotional valence, and spatial attention in 574 participants across two preregistered studies (data collected in 2021 and 2022; Experiment 1: n = 154, 54.5% male, M age = 43.5 years; Experiment 2: n = 420, 58% male, M age = 36.46 years). We found that happy faces capture attention more quickly than angry faces during the visual search experiment and found delayed disengagement from both angry and happy faces over neutral faces during the spatial cueing experiment. We also show that anxiety has a distinct impact on both attentional capture and disengagement of emotional faces. Together, our findings highlight the role of positively valenced stimuli in attracting and holding attention and suggest that anxiety is a critical factor in modulating spatial attention to emotional stimuli.

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Emotion and Anxiety Interact to Bias Spatial Attention

Bachmann¹,

Japee²,

Merriam³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Emotional expressions are an evolutionarily conserved means of social communication and are essential for social interactions. It is important to understand how anxious individuals perceive their social environments, including emotional expressions, especially with the rising prevalence of anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic. Anxiety is often associated with an attentional bias for threat-related stimuli, such as angry faces. Yet the mechanisms by which anxiety enhances or impairs two key components of spatial attention—attentional capture and attentional disengagement—to emotional expressions are still unclear. Moreover, positive valence is often ignored in studies of threat-related attention and anxiety, despite high occurrence of happy faces during everyday social interaction. Here, we investigated the relationship between anxiety, emotional valence, and spatial attention in 574 participants across two preregistered studies. We found that happy faces capture attention more quickly than angry faces during the visual search experiment and found delayed disengagement from both angry and happy faces over neutral faces during the spatial cueing experiment. We also show that anxiety has a distinct impact on both attentional capture and disengagement of emotional faces. Together our findings highlight the role of positively valenced stimuli in attracting and holding attention and suggest that anxiety is a critical factor modulating spatial attention to emotional stimuli.

show abstract

Layer-specific, retinotopically-diffuse modulation in human visual cortex by emotional faces

Cited by 3 publications

References 118 publications

Deconstructing the brain bases of emotion regulation: A systems-identification approach using Bayes factors

Deconstructing the brain bases of emotion regulation: A systems-identification approach using Bayes factors

Emotion and anxiety interact to bias spatial attention.

Emotion and Anxiety Interact to Bias Spatial Attention

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