Abstract Representations of Associated Emotions in the Human Brain

Kim J, Schultz J, Rohe T, Wallraven C, Lee SW, Buelthoff HH (2015)

Publication Status: Published

Publication Type: Journal article, Original article

Publication year: 2015

Journal

Journal of Neuroscience Society for Neuroscience

Publisher: SOC NEUROSCIENCE

Book Volume: 35

Pages Range: 5655-5663

Journal Issue: 14

DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4059-14.2015

Abstract

Emotions can be aroused by various kinds of stimulus modalities. Recent neuroimaging studies indicate that several brain regions represent emotions at an abstract level, i.e., independently from the sensory cues from which they are perceived (e.g., face, body, or voice stimuli). If emotions are indeed represented at such an abstract level, then these abstract representations should also be activated by the memory of an emotional event. We tested this hypothesis by asking human participants to learn associations between emotional stimuli (videos of faces or bodies) and non-emotional stimuli (fractals). After successful learning, fMRI signals were recorded during the presentations of emotional stimuli and emotion-associated fractals. We tested whether emotions could be decoded from fMRI signals evoked by the fractal stimuli using a classifier trained on the responses to the emotional stimuli (and vice versa). This was implemented as a whole-brain searchlight, multivoxel activation pattern analysis, which revealed successful emotion decoding in four brain regions: posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), precuneus, MPFC, and angular gyrus. The same analysis run only on responses to emotional stimuli revealed clusters in PCC, precuneus, and MPFC. Multidimensional scaling analysis of the activation patterns revealed clear clustering of responses by emotion across stimulus types. Our results suggest that PCC, precuneus, and MPFC contain representations of emotions that can be evoked by stimuli that carry emotional information themselves or by stimuli that evoke memories of emotional stimuli, while angular gyrus is more likely to take part in emotional memory retrieval.

Authors with CRIS profile

Tim Rohe

Involved external institutions

Max-Planck-Institut für biologische Kybernetik / Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics DE Germany (DE) Korea University KR Korea, Republic of (KR)

How to cite

APA:

Kim, J., Schultz, J., Rohe, T., Wallraven, C., Lee, S.-W., & Buelthoff, H.H. (2015). Abstract Representations of Associated Emotions in the Human Brain. Journal of Neuroscience, 35(14), 5655-5663. https://dx.doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4059-14.2015

MLA:

Kim, Junsuk, et al. "Abstract Representations of Associated Emotions in the Human Brain." Journal of Neuroscience 35.14 (2015): 5655-5663.

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