What is said or how it is said makes a difference: role of the right fronto-parietal operculum in emotional prosody as revealed by repetitive TMS.
Emotional signals in spoken language can be conveyed by semantic as well as prosodic cues. We investigated the role of the fronto-parietal operculum, a somatosensory area where the lips, tongue and jaw are represented, in the right hemisphere to detection of emotion in prosody vs. semantics. A total of 14 healthy volunteers participated in the present experiment, which involved transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) in combination with frameless stereotaxy. As predicted, compared with sham stimulation, TMS over the right fronto-parietal operculum differentially affected the reaction times for detection of emotional prosody vs. emotional semantics, showing that there is a dissociation at a neuroanatomical level. Detection of withdrawal emotions (fear and sadness) in prosody was delayed significantly by TMS. No effects of TMS were observed for approach emotions (happiness and anger). We propose that the right fronto-parietal operculum is not globally involved in emotion evaluation, but sensitive to specific forms of emotional discrimination and emotion types.
Helmholtz Instituut, Psychological Laboratory, Universiteit Utrecht, PO Box 80125, 3508 TC Utrecht, the Netherlands. s.vanrijn@fss.uu.nl
Sophie
S
van Rijn
André
A
Aleman
Eric
E
van Diessen
Celine
C
Berckmoes
Guy
G
Vingerhoets
René S
RS
Kahn
D000328:Adult; D001931:Brain Mapping; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D004193:Discrimination Learning / Q000502:physiology; D004558:Electric Stimulation; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology*; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D007807:Language Tests; D008280:Magnetics; D008297:Male; D010296:Parietal Lobe / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012660:Semantics; D013063:Speech Discrimination Tests; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D014705:Verbal Behavior / Q000502:physiology*