Seeing fearful body language rapidly freezes the observer's motor cortex

Counterfactual thinking affects the excitability of the motor cortex

“…This result could be explained by a possible greater saliency of monetary loss relative to gain outcomes in conditions in which a sense of responsibility is induced (see also Galea et al, 2013) and by several additional differences in the experimental design (e.g., the presentation of a monetary cue before versus after the TMS pulse stimulation; the onset between the monetary reward outcome and the single pulse TMS delivering) comparing the current work with respect to previous investigations (i.e., Gupta & Aron, 2011;Kapogiannis et al, 2008;Klein-Flü gge & Bestmann, 2012;Suzuki et al, 2014;Thabit et al, 2011). Moreover, it should be mentioned that we did not study other parameters of motor excitability such as the intracortical inhibition or the short-latency afferent inhibition that may be more sensitive to monetary rewards (e.g., see Kapogiannis et al, 2008;Thabit et al, 2011) and emotional processing (Borgomaneri et al, 2015).…”

“…Different scholars have already evaluated the impact of emotions on corticospinal excitability (Borgomaneri et al, 2014a(Borgomaneri et al, , 2014b(Borgomaneri et al, , 2015Coelho et al, 2010;Coombes et al, 2009;Hajcak et al 2007;Oathes, Bruce, & Nitschke, 2008;Oliveri et al, 2003). For instance, using TMS, Oliveri et al (2003) reported increased corticospinal excitability during the presentation of unpleasant, as compared with neutral images.…”

“…Notably, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) studies also indicate that various affective experiences linked to the processing of salient and emotional auditory or visual stimuli modulates excitability of M1 and its corticospinal projections (Avenanti, Annela, & Serino, 2012;Avenanti, Candidi, & Urgesi, 2013;Borgomaneri, Gazzola, & Avenanti, 2012;Hajcak et al, 2007;Makin, Holmes, Brozzoli, Rossetti, & Farn e, 2009;Oliveri et al, 2003;Serino, Annella, & Avenanti, 2009), in particular when emotional stimuli are negative and potentially threatening (Borgomaneri, Gazzola & Avenanti, 2014a, 2014bBorgomaneri, Vitale, Gazzola, & Avenanti, 2015;Coelho, Lipp, Marinovic, Wallis, & Riek, 2010;Giovannelli et al, 2013;van Loon, van den Wildenberg, van Stegeren, Hajcak, & Ridderinkhof, 2010;Nogueira-Campos et al, 2014). Therefore, M1 may represent an important brain region to investigate in relation to better understand the neural mechanisms associated reward/affective experiences including the experience of regret contingent upon counterfactually reasoning.…”

“…As a sense of responsibility is critical to the experience of regret and this might be present in the 'choose' but absent in the 'follow' condition, our paradigm dissociated the effect of counterfactual reasoning and regret from that of mere disappointment for a loss occurring independently of participants' decision. Based on the notion that negative emotions may be particularly effective in priming the body for action (Borgomaneri et al, 2014a(Borgomaneri et al, , 2015Ekman & Davidson, 1994;Frijda, 2009;van Loon et al, 2010;Vicario & Newman, 2013) we predicted that negative outcomes would increase motor excitability more than the other conditions. Moreover, since in the choose condition participants should feel more regret and other negative emotions relative to the follow condition, we predict motor modulation for monetary loss to be more pronounced in the former condition.…”

From affective blindsight to emotional consciousness

“…The excellent spatial resolution of fMRI, on the order of millimeters, is counterbalanced by its limited temporal resolution, as events occurring during a temporal window of a few seconds are averaged together, thus preventing a fine-grained analysis of the temporal dynamics occurring among the implicated areas. This is a serious limitation when studying emotions, as nonconscious emotional processing takes place within milliseconds after stimulus onset in subcortical brain areas, including the amygdala and structures related to reflex-like motor reactions, and is followed shortly after by later responses engaged in more deliberate responses and in conscious vision (Borgomaneri, Gazzola, & Avenanti 2014;Borgomaneri, Vitale, Gazzola, & Avenanti, 2015;Garrido, Barnes, Sahani, & Dolan, 2012;Garvert, Friston, Dolan, & Garrido, 2014;Luo, Holroyd, Jones, Hendler, & Blair, 2007;Maior, Hori, Tomaz, Ono, & Nishijo, 2010;Nguyen et al, 2014). Because both early nonconscious and later conscious responses take place within the time window of a single volume acquisition in fMRI studies, the different functional values of neural activity in the same structure may be integrated or overridden (Brosch & Wieser, 2011;Costa et al, 2014;Luo et al, 2010).…”