Frontiers in Human Neuroscience (Dec 2015)
Lesion Mapping the Four-Factor Structure of Emotional Intelligence
Abstract
Emotional intelligence refers to an individual’s ability to process and respond to emotions, including recognizing the expression of emotions in others, using emotions to enhance thought and decision making, and regulating emotions to drive effective behaviors. Despite their importance for goal-directed social behavior, little is known about the neural mechanisms underlying specific facets of emotional intelligence. Here, we report findings from a study investigating the neural bases of these specific components for emotional intelligence in a sample of 130 combat veterans with penetrating traumatic brain injury. We examined the neural mechanisms underlying experiential (perceiving and using emotional information) and strategic (understanding and managing emotions) facets of emotional intelligence. Factor scores were submitted to voxel-based lesion symptom mapping to elucidate their neural substrates. The results indicate that two facets of emotional intelligence (perceiving and managing emotions) engage common and distinctive neural systems, with shared dependence on the social knowledge network, and selective engagement of the orbitofrontal and parietal cortex for strategic aspects of emotional information processing. The observed pattern of findings suggests that sub-facets of experiential and strategic emotional intelligence can be characterized as separable but related processes that depend upon a core network of brain structures within frontal, temporal and parietal cortex.
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