Processing of Affective Pictures: A Study Based on Functional Connectivity Network in the Cerebral Cortex

Abstract

Emotion plays an important role in people’s life. However, the existing researches do not give a unified conclusion on the brain function network under different emotional states. In this study, pictures from the international affective picture system (IAPS) of different valences were presented to subjects with a fixed frequency blinking frequency to induce stable state visual evoked potential (SSVEP). With the source location method, the cerebral cortex source signal was reconstructed based on EEG signals, and then the difference in SSVEP amplitudes in key brain areas under different emotional states and the difference in brain function network connections among different brain areas were analysed in cortical space. The results of the study show that positive and negative emotions evoked greater activation intensities in the prefrontal, temporal, and parietal lobes compared with those of neutral emotion. The network connections with a significant difference between emotional states mainly appear in the alpha and gamma bands, and the network connections with significant differences between positive emotion and negative emotion mainly exist in the right middle temporal gyrus and the superior frontal gyrus on both sides. In addition, the long-range connections play an important role in the process of emotional processing, especially the connections among frontal gyrus, middle temporal gyrus, and middle occipital gyrus. The results of this study provide a reliable scientific basis for revealing and elucidating the neural mechanism of emotion processing and the selection of brain regions and frequency bands in emotion recognition based on EEG signals.

The curvilinear effect of negative affect on voice behavior from the perspective of activation theory

“…Evidence has documented the association between negative affect and the activation of the cerebral cortex (e.g., Cyders et al, 2015;Dum et al, 2016;He et al, 2021;Lindquist et al, 2016;Northoff et al, 2000;Shackman et al, 2011). In support of our first premise, Cyders' et al (2015) study showed that the right posterior orbitofrontal cortex and left amygdala would be activated when people experience negative affect from viewing emotional images.…”

“…Third, according to previous literature that negative affect is positively related to the activation of the cerebral cortex (e.g., Cyders et al, 2015;Dum et al, 2016;He et al, 2021), we used activation theory to assume an inverted U-shaped relationship between negative affect and voice behavior. However, Russel (2003) proposes that the activation level is determined by the type of negative affect and negative affect can be classified as low (e.g., sadness, helplessness) and high activated negative affect (e.g., frustration and anger).…”

Two Distinct Neural Mechanisms Underlying Acupuncture Analgesia

“…Moreover, another study showed that brain activity in the middle occipital gyrus is associated with the efficacy of acupuncture analgesia for migraine ( 67 ), which the present finding corroborated perfectly. The middle occipital cortex plays a role in emotional information processing ( 68 , 69 ). Emotional information is reflected in the delta band neural activities ( 70 ), which is potentially associated with functional cortical deafferentation or inhibition of the sensory afferences ( 71 ).…”