Interactions between emotion and action in the brain
Liana Catarina Lima Portugal,
Rita de Cássia Soares Alves,
Orlando Fernandes Junior,
Tiago Arruda Sanchez,
Izabela Mocaiber,
Eliane Volchan,
Fátima Smith Erthal,
Isabel Antunes David,
Jongwan Kim,
Leticia Oliveira,
Srikanth Padmala,
Gang Chen,
Luiz Pessoa,
Mirtes Garcia Pereira
Affiliations
Liana Catarina Lima Portugal
Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Laboratory of Neurophysiology of Behavior, Biomedical Institute, Federal Fluminense University, Niterói, RJ, Brazil
Rita de Cássia Soares Alves
Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Laboratory of Neurophysiology of Behavior, Biomedical Institute, Federal Fluminense University, Niterói, RJ, Brazil
Orlando Fernandes Junior
Laboratory of Neuroimaging and Psychophysiology, Department of Radiology, Faculty of Medicine, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil
Tiago Arruda Sanchez
Laboratory of Neuroimaging and Psychophysiology, Department of Radiology, Faculty of Medicine, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil
Izabela Mocaiber
Laboratory of Cognitive Psychophysiology, Department of Natural Sciences, Institute of Humanities and Health, Federal Fluminense University, Rio das Ostras, RJ, Brazil
Eliane Volchan
Laboratory of Neurobiology II, Institute of Biophysics Carlos Chagas Filho, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil
Fátima Smith Erthal
Laboratory of Neurobiology II, Institute of Biophysics Carlos Chagas Filho, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil
Isabel Antunes David
Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Laboratory of Neurophysiology of Behavior, Biomedical Institute, Federal Fluminense University, Niterói, RJ, Brazil
Jongwan Kim
Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
Leticia Oliveira
Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Laboratory of Neurophysiology of Behavior, Biomedical Institute, Federal Fluminense University, Niterói, RJ, Brazil
Srikanth Padmala
Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India
Gang Chen
Scientific and Statistical Computing Core, National Institute of Mental Health, USA
Luiz Pessoa
Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA; Maryland Neuroimaging Center, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
Mirtes Garcia Pereira
Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Laboratory of Neurophysiology of Behavior, Biomedical Institute, Federal Fluminense University, Niterói, RJ, Brazil; Corresponding author. Federal Fluminense University (UFF) Department of Physiology and PharmacologyHernani Pires de Mello, 101 São Domingos, Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, Cep: 24.210-130, Brazil.
A growing literature supports the existence of interactions between emotion and action in the brain, and the central participation of the anterior midcingulate cortex (aMCC) in this regard. In the present functional magnetic resonance imaging study, we sought to investigate the role of self-relevance during such interactions by varying the context in which threating pictures were presented (with guns pointed towards or away from the observer). Participants performed a simple visual detection task following exposure to such stimuli. Except for voxelwise tests, we adopted a Bayesian analysis framework which evaluated evidence for the hypotheses of interest, given the data, in a continuous fashion. Behaviorally, our results demonstrated a valence by context interaction such that there was a tendency of speeding up responses to targets after viewing threat pictures directed towards the participant. In the brain, interaction patterns that paralleled those observed behaviorally were observed most notably in the middle temporal gyrus, supplementary motor area, precentral gyrus, and anterior insula. In these regions, activity was overall greater during threat conditions relative to neutral ones, and this effect was enhanced in the directed towards context. A valence by context interaction was observed in the aMCC too, where we also observed a correlation (across participants) of evoked responses and reaction time data. Taken together, our study revealed the context-sensitive engagement of motor-related areas during emotional perception, thus supporting the idea that emotion and action interact in important ways in the brain.
