Pleasure rather than salience activates human nucleus accumbens and medial prefrontal cortex.
Recent human functional imaging studies have linked the processing of pleasant visual stimuli to activity in mesolimbic reward structures. However, whether the activation is driven specifically by the pleasantness of the stimulus, or by its salience, is unresolved. Here we find in two studies that free viewing of pleasant images of erotic and romantic couples prompts clear, reliable increases in nucleus accumbens (NAc) and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) activity, whereas equally arousing (salient) unpleasant images, and neutral pictures, do not. These data suggest that in visual perception, the human NAc and mPFC are specifically reactive to pleasant, rewarding stimuli and are not engaged by unpleasant stimuli, despite high stimulus salience.
Sabatinelli
Dean
D
National Institute of Mental Health Center for the Study of Emotion and Attention, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA. sabat@ufl.edu
Bradley
Margaret M
MM
Lang
Peter J
PJ
Costa
Vincent D
VD
Versace
Francesco
F
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D004644:Emotions; D006801:Humans; D019359:Knowledge; D008297:Male; D009714:Nucleus Accumbens / Q000502:physiology*; D009928:Organ Specificity; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D010781:Photography; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D012919:Social Behavior