title: Brain activation during direct and indirect processing of positive and negative words.
abstract: The effects of task conditions on brain activation to emotional stimuli are poorly understood. In this event-related fMRI study, brain activation to negative and positive words (matched for arousal) and neutral words was investigated under two task conditions. Subjects either had to attend to the emotional meaning (direct task) or to non-emotional features of the words (indirect task). Regardless of task, positive vs. negative words led to increased activation in the ventral medial prefrontal cortex, while negative vs. positive words induced increased activation of the insula. Compared to neutral words, all emotional words were associated with increased activation of the amygdala. Finally, the direct condition, as compared to the indirect condition, led to enhanced activation to emotional vs. neutral words in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and the anterior cingulate cortex. These results suggest valence and arousal dependent brain activation patterns that are partially modulated by participants' processing mode of the emotional stimuli.
authors: Department of Biological and Clinical Psychology, Friedrich Schiller University, Am Steiger 3/1, D-07743 Jena, Germany. straube@biopsy.uni-jena.de
authors: Thomas
authors: T
authors: Straube
authors: Andreas
authors: A
authors: Sauer
authors: Wolfgang H R
authors: WH
authors: Miltner
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001143:Arousal / Q000502:physiology*; D001921:Brain / Q000098:blood supply / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods; D008297:Male; D010100:Oxygen / Q000097:blood; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D014825:Vocabulary; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D010100:Oxygen