title: The Brain Basis of Positive and Negative Affect: Evidence from a Meta-Analysis of the Human Neuroimaging Literature.
abstract: The ability to experience pleasant or unpleasant feelings or to represent objects as "positive" or "negative" is known as representing hedonic "valence." Although scientists overwhelmingly agree that valence is a basic psychological phenomenon, debate continues about how to best conceptualize it scientifically. We used a meta-analysis of 397 functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and positron emission tomography studies (containing 914 experimental contrasts and 6827 participants) to test 3 competing hypotheses about the brain basis of valence: the bipolarity hypothesis that positive and negative affect are supported by a brain system that monotonically increases and/or decreases along the valence dimension, the bivalent hypothesis that positive and negative affect are supported by independent brain systems, and the affective workspace hypothesis that positive and negative affect are supported by a flexible set of valence-general regions. We found little evidence for the bipolar or bivalent hypotheses. Findings instead supported the hypothesis that, at the level of brain activity measurable by fMRI, valence is flexibly implemented across instances by a set of valence-general limbic and paralimbic brain regions.
authors: Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.|Biomedical Research Imaging Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
authors: Kristen A
authors: KA
authors: Lindquist
authors: Pomona College, Claremont, CA, USA.
authors: Ajay B
authors: AB
authors: Satpute
authors: Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA.
authors: Tor D
authors: TD
authors: Wager
authors: Department of Psychology, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
authors: Jochen
authors: J
authors: Weber
authors: Department of Psychology, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA.|Department of Psychiatry and Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School/Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Boston, MA, USA.
authors: Lisa Feldman
authors: LF
authors: Barrett
mesh_terms: D000339:Affect / Q000502:physiology*; D001921:Brain / Q000378:metabolism / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008959:Models, Neurological; D008960:Models, Psychological; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000502:physiology; D049268:Positron-Emission Tomography
keywords: affect; meta-analysis; neuroimaging; valence; value
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