Neural mechanism underlying impaired visual judgement in the dysmetabolic brain: an fMRI study

AbstractAerobic exercise, in relation to physical activity, has been shown to have beneficial effects on anxiety. However, the underlyig neural mechanism remains elusive. Using a within-subject crossover design, this fMRI study examined how exercise (12-min treadmill running versus walking) mediated amygdala reactivity to explicit and implicit (backward masked) perception of emotional faces in young adults (N = 40). Results showed that acute exercise-induced differences of state anxiety (STAI-S) varied as a function of individual’s habitual physical activity (IPAQ). Subjects with high IPAQ levels showed significant STAI-S reduction (P < 0.05). Path analyses indicated that IPAQ explained 14.67% of the variance in acute exercise-induced STAI-S differences. Running elicited stronger amygdala reactivity to implicit happiness than fear, whereas walking did the opposite. The exercise-induced amygdala reactivity to explicit fear was associated with the IPAQ scores and STAI-S differences. Moreover, after running, the amygdala exhibited a positive functional connectivity with the orbitofrontal cortex and insula to implicit happiness, but a negative connectivity with the parahippocampus and subgenual cingulate to implicit fear. The findings suggest that habitual physical activity could mediate acute exercise-induced anxiolytic effects in regards to amygdala reactivity, and help establish exercise training as a form of anxiolytic therapy towards clinical applications.

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The mechanism and neural substrate of musical emotions in the audio-visual modality

Psychology of Music ◽

10.1177/03057356211042078 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 030573562110420

Author(s):

Xin Zhou ◽

Ying Wu ◽

Yingcan Zheng ◽

Zilun Xiao ◽

Maoping Zheng

Keyword(s):

Musical Training ◽

Block Design ◽

Sensory Modality ◽

Neural Mechanism ◽

Brain Regions ◽

Visual Modality ◽

Training Experience ◽

Musical Expertise ◽

Fmri Study ◽

Bilateral Distribution

Previous studies on multisensory integration (MSI) of musical emotions have yielded inconsistent results. The distinct features of the music materials and different musical expertise levels of participants may account for that. This study aims to explore the neural mechanism for the audio-visual integration of musical emotions and infer the reasons for inconsistent results in previous studies by investigating the influence of the type of musical emotions and musical training experience on the mechanism. This fMRI study used a block-design experiment. Music excerpts were selected to express fear, happiness, and sadness, presented under audio only (AO) and audio-visual (AV) modality conditions. Participants were divided into two groups: one comprising musicians who had been musically trained for many years and the other non-musicians with no musical expertise. They assessed the type and intensity of musical emotion after listening to or watching excerpts. Brain regions related to MSI of emotional information and default mode network (DMN) are sensitive to sensory modality conditions and emotion-type changes. Participants in the non-musician group had more, and bilateral distribution of brain regions showed greater activation in the AV assessment stage. By contrast, the musician group had less and lateralized right-hemispheric distribution of brain regions.

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P.6.021 Neural mechanism of moral judgment using facial affect in an emotional context: 3T fMRI study

European Neuropsychopharmacology ◽

10.1016/s0924-977x(04)80525-x ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 14 ◽

pp. S365-S366

Author(s):

J. Kim ◽

B.S. Jeong ◽

S.W. Kee ◽

S.H. Lee

Keyword(s):

Moral Judgment ◽

Neural Mechanism ◽

Facial Affect ◽

Emotional Context ◽

Fmri Study

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The neural mechanism of spatial-positional association in working memory: A fMRI study

Brain and Cognition ◽

10.1016/j.bandc.2021.105756 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 152 ◽

pp. 105756

Author(s):

Dandan Zhou ◽

Qing Cai ◽

Jie Luo ◽

Zizhen Yi ◽

Yun Li ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Neural Mechanism ◽

Fmri Study

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Computational Feature Analysis of Body Movements Reveals Hierarchical Brain Organization

Cerebral Cortex ◽

10.1093/cercor/bhy228 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 29 (8) ◽

pp. 3551-3560 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Maarten J Vaessen ◽

Etienne Abassi ◽

Maurizio Mancini ◽

Antonio Camurri ◽

Beatrice de Gelder

Keyword(s):

Parietal Lobe ◽

Brain Activity ◽

Action Observation ◽

Temporal Cortex ◽

Neural Mechanism ◽

The Body ◽

Body Movements ◽

Brain Organization ◽

Semantic Categories ◽

Fmri Study

Abstract Social species spend considerable time observing the body movements of others to understand their actions, predict their emotions, watch their games, or enjoy their dance movements. Given the important information obtained from body movements, we still know surprisingly little about the details of brain mechanisms underlying movement perception. In this fMRI study, we investigated the relations between movement features obtained from automated computational analyses of video clips and the corresponding brain activity. Our results show that low-level computational features map to specific brain areas related to early visual- and motion-sensitive regions, while mid-level computational features are related to dynamic aspects of posture encoded in occipital–temporal cortex, posterior superior temporal sulcus and superior parietal lobe. Furthermore, behavioral features obtained from subjective ratings correlated with activity in higher action observation regions. Our computational feature-based analysis suggests that the neural mechanism of movement encoding is organized in the brain not so much by semantic categories than by feature statistics of the body movements.

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Romantic love: An fMRI study of a neural mechanism for mate choice

The Journal of Comparative Neurology ◽

10.1002/cne.20772 ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 493 (1) ◽

pp. 58-62 ◽

Cited By ~ 154

Author(s):

Helen Fisher ◽

Arthur Aron ◽

Lucy L. Brown

Keyword(s):

Mate Choice ◽

Romantic Love ◽

Neural Mechanism ◽

Fmri Study

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Neural Mechanism of Figural Inductive Reasoning: An fMRI Study

Acta Psychologica Sinica ◽

10.3724/sp.j.1041.2010.00496 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 42 (4) ◽

pp. 496-506 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Yang MEI ◽

Pei-Peng LIANG ◽

Sheng-Fu LU ◽

Yan-Hui YANG ◽

Ning ZHONG ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Inductive Reasoning ◽

Neural Mechanism ◽

Fmri Study

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The Neural Mechanism of Number Line Bisection: A fMRI study

Neuropsychologia ◽

10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2019.03.007 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 129 ◽

pp. 37-46 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Dixiu Liu ◽

Dandan Zhou ◽

Mengjin Li ◽

Min Li ◽

Wenshan Dong ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Neural Mechanism ◽

Number Line ◽

Line Bisection ◽

Fmri Study

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The Functional and Neural Mechanism of Action Preparation: Roles of EBA and FFA in Voluntary Action Control

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

10.1162/jocn.2010.21418 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 23 (1) ◽

pp. 214-220 ◽

Cited By ~ 51

Author(s):

Simone Kühn ◽

André W. Keizer ◽

Serge A. R. B. Rombouts ◽

Bernhard Hommel

Keyword(s):

Motor Behavior ◽

Neural Mechanism ◽

Action Control ◽

Voluntary Action ◽

Body Parts ◽

Ideomotor Theory ◽

Face Area ◽

Extrastriate Body Area ◽

Fmri Study ◽

Action Preparation

Ideomotor theory claims that actions are cognitively represented and accessed via representations of the sensory effects they evoke. Previous studies provide support for this claim by showing that the presentation of action effects primes activation in corresponding motor structures. However, whether people actually use action-effect representations to control their motor behavior is not yet clear. In our fMRI study, we had participants prepare for manual or facial actions on a trial-by-trial basis, and hypothesized that preparation would be mediated by the cortical areas that code for the perceptual effects of these actions. Preparing for manual action induced higher activation of hand-related areas of motor cortex (demonstrating actual preparation) and of the extrastriate body area, which is known to mediate the perception of body parts. In contrast, preparing for facial action induced higher activation of face-related motor areas and of the fusiform face area, known to mediate face perception. These observations provide further support for the ideomotor theory and suggest that visual imagery might play a role in voluntary action control.

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