scholarly journals The role of dorsolateral and ventromedial prefrontal cortex in the processing of emotional dimensions

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vahid Nejati ◽  
Reyhaneh Majdi ◽  
Mohammad Ali Salehinejad ◽  
Michael A. Nitsche
Keyword(s):  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Emotional Processing ◽  
Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Visual Stimuli ◽  
Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Anodal Tdcs ◽  
Stimulation Condition ◽  
Dorsolateral Prefrontal

AbstractThe ventromedial and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex are two major prefrontal regions that usually interact in serving different cognitive functions. On the other hand, these regions are also involved in cognitive processing of emotions but their contribution to emotional processing is not well-studied. In the present study, we investigated the role of these regions in three dimensions (valence, arousal and dominance) of emotional processing of stimuli via ratings of visual stimuli performed by the study participants on these dimensions. Twenty- two healthy adult participants (mean age 25.21 ± 3.84 years) were recruited and received anodal and sham transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) (1.5 mA, 15 min) over the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) and and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) in three separate sessions with an at least 72-h interval. During stimulation, participants underwent an emotional task in each stimulation condition. The task included 100 visual stimuli and participants were asked to rate them with respect to valence, arousal, and dominance. Results show a significant effect of stimulation condition on different aspects of emotional processing. Specifically, anodal tDCS over the dlPFC significantly reduced valence attribution for positive pictures. In contrast, anodal tDCS over the vmPFC significantly reduced arousal ratings. Dominance ratings were not affected by the intervention. Our results suggest that the dlPFC is involved in control and regulation of valence of emotional experiences, while the vmPFC might be involved in the extinction of arousal caused by emotional stimuli. Our findings implicate dimension-specific processing of emotions by different prefrontal areas which has implications for disorders characterized by emotional disturbances such as anxiety or mood disorders.

scholarly journals Reducing future fears by suppressing the brain mechanisms underlying episodic simulation

2016 ◽  
Vol 113 (52) ◽  
pp. E8492-E8501 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roland G. Benoit ◽  
Daniel J. Davies ◽  
Michael C. Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Episodic Simulation ◽  
Dorsolateral Prefrontal ◽  
Future Events ◽  
The Right ◽  
Development Of Anxiety ◽  
The Brain

Imagining future events conveys adaptive benefits, yet recurrent simulations of feared situations may help to maintain anxiety. In two studies, we tested the hypothesis that people can attenuate future fears by suppressing anticipatory simulations of dreaded events. Participants repeatedly imagined upsetting episodes that they feared might happen to them and suppressed imaginings of other such events. Suppressing imagination engaged the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which modulated activation in the hippocampus and in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). Consistent with the role of the vmPFC in providing access to details that are typical for an event, stronger inhibition of this region was associated with greater forgetting of such details. Suppression further hindered participants’ ability to later freely envision suppressed episodes. Critically, it also reduced feelings of apprehensiveness about the feared scenario, and individuals who were particularly successful at down-regulating fears were also less trait-anxious. Attenuating apprehensiveness by suppressing simulations of feared events may thus be an effective coping strategy, suggesting that a deficiency in this mechanism could contribute to the development of anxiety.

Functional role of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in the modulation of cognitive bias

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xue Xia ◽  
Yansong Li ◽  
Yanqiu Wang ◽  
Jing Xia ◽  
Yitong Lin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Cognitive Bias ◽  
Functional Role ◽  
Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Dorsolateral Prefrontal

Regional cerebral perfusion correlates with anxiety in neuropsychiatric SLE: evidence for a mechanism distinct from depression

Lupus ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (14) ◽  
pp. 1678-1689 ◽  
Author(s):  
E Papadaki ◽  
E Kavroulakis ◽  
G Bertsias ◽  
A Fanouriakis ◽  
D Karageorgou ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Blood Flow ◽  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Cerebral Blood Volume ◽  
Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Anxiety And Depression ◽  
Healthy Controls ◽  
Dorsolateral Prefrontal ◽  
Depression Symptomatology

The study examined the hypothesis that hypoperfusion in brain areas known to be involved in emotional disturbances in primary psychiatric disorders is also linked to emotional difficulties in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and that these are not secondary to the physical and social burden incurred by the disease. Nineteen SLE patients without overt neuropsychiatric manifestations (non-NPSLE), 31 NPSLE patients, and 23 healthy controls were examined. Dynamic susceptibility contrast MRI was used and cerebral blood flow and cerebral blood volume values were estimated in six manually selected regions of interest of brain regions suspected to play a role in anxiety and depression (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, hippocampi, caudate nuclei and putamen). NPSLE patients reported high rates of anxiety and depression symptomatology. Significantly reduced cerebral blood flow and cerebral blood volume values were detected in the NPSLE group compared to healthy controls in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and ventromedial prefrontal cortex, bilaterally. Within the NPSLE group, anxiety symptomatology was significantly associated with lower perfusion in frontostriatal regions and in the right anterior cingulate gyrus. Importantly, the latter associations appeared to be specific to anxiety symptoms, as they persisted after controlling for depression symptomatology and independent of the presence of visible lesions on conventional MRI. In conclusion, hypoperfusion in specific limbic and frontostriatal regions is associated with more severe anxiety symptoms in the context of widespread haemodynamic disturbances in NPSLE.

scholarly journals Neural representations of honesty predict future trust behavior

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriele Bellucci ◽  
Felix Molter ◽  
Soyoung Q. Park
Keyword(s):  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Multivariate Analyses ◽  
Posterior Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Intraparietal Sulcus ◽  
Temporoparietal Junction ◽  
Neural Representations ◽  
Brain Signals ◽  
Dorsolateral Prefrontal

AbstractTheoretical accounts propose honesty as a central determinant of trustworthiness impressions and trusting behavior. However, behavioral and neural evidence on the relationships between honesty and trust is missing. Here, combining a novel paradigm that successfully induces trustworthiness impressions with functional MRI and multivariate analyses, we demonstrate that honesty-based trustworthiness is represented in the posterior cingulate cortex, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and intraparietal sulcus. Crucially, brain signals in these regions predict individual trust in a subsequent social interaction with the same partner. Honesty recruited the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC), and stronger functional connectivity between the VMPFC and temporoparietal junction during honesty encoding was associated with higher trust in the subsequent interaction. These results suggest that honesty signals in the VMPFC are integrated into trustworthiness beliefs to inform present and future social behaviors. These findings improve our understanding of the neural representations of an individual’s social character that guide behaviors during interpersonal interactions.

The role of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in implicit procedural learning

1996 ◽  
Vol 107 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alvaro Pascual-Leone ◽  
EricM. Wassermann ◽  
Jordan Grafman ◽  
Mark Hallett
Keyword(s):  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Procedural Learning ◽  
Dorsolateral Prefrontal
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