Get aroused and be stronger: emotional facilitation of physical effort in the human brain.
Effort magnitude is commonly thought to reflect motivation, but little is known about the influence of emotional factors. Here, we manipulated the emotional state of subjects, via the presentation of pictures, before they exerted physical effort to win money. After highly arousing pictures, subjects produced more force and reported lower effort sensation, regardless of monetary incentives. Functional neuroimaging revealed that emotional arousal, as indexed by postscan ratings, specifically correlated with bilateral activity in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. We suggest that this region, by driving the motor cortex, constitutes a brain pathway that allows emotional arousal to facilitate physical effort.
Schmidt
Liane
L
Institut du Cerveau et de la Moëlle épinière (ICM), INSERM UMRS 975, Paris, France.
Cléry-Melin
Marie-Laure
ML
Lafargue
Gilles
G
Valabrègue
Romain
R
Fossati
Philippe
P
Dubois
Bruno
B
Pessiglione
Mathias
M
D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D005712:Galvanic Skin Response; D006225:Hand / Q000502:physiology; D018737:Hand Strength / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D016014:Linear Models; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000502:physiology; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D013997:Time Factors; D055815:Young Adult