title: Abstract representations of associated emotions in the human brain.
abstract: Emotions can be aroused by various kinds of stimulus modalities. Recent neuroimaging studies indicate that several brain regions represent emotions at an abstract level, i.e., independently from the sensory cues from which they are perceived (e.g., face, body, or voice stimuli). If emotions are indeed represented at such an abstract level, then these abstract representations should also be activated by the memory of an emotional event. We tested this hypothesis by asking human participants to learn associations between emotional stimuli (videos of faces or bodies) and non-emotional stimuli (fractals). After successful learning, fMRI signals were recorded during the presentations of emotional stimuli and emotion-associated fractals. We tested whether emotions could be decoded from fMRI signals evoked by the fractal stimuli using a classifier trained on the responses to the emotional stimuli (and vice versa). This was implemented as a whole-brain searchlight, multivoxel activation pattern analysis, which revealed successful emotion decoding in four brain regions: posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), precuneus, MPFC, and angular gyrus. The same analysis run only on responses to emotional stimuli revealed clusters in PCC, precuneus, and MPFC. Multidimensional scaling analysis of the activation patterns revealed clear clustering of responses by emotion across stimulus types. Our results suggest that PCC, precuneus, and MPFC contain representations of emotions that can be evoked by stimuli that carry emotional information themselves or by stimuli that evoke memories of emotional stimuli, while angular gyrus is more likely to take part in emotional memory retrieval.
authors: Department of Brain and Cognitive Engineering, Korea University, 136-713 Seoul, Republic of Korea.
authors: Junsuk
authors: J
authors: Kim
authors: Department of Human Perception, Cognition and Action, Max-Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, 72076 Tübingen, Germany, and Department of Psychology, Durham University, DH1 3LE Durham, United Kingdom.
authors: Johannes
authors: J
authors: Schultz
authors: Department of Human Perception, Cognition and Action, Max-Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, 72076 Tübingen, Germany, and.
authors: Tim
authors: T
authors: Rohe
authors: Department of Brain and Cognitive Engineering, Korea University, 136-713 Seoul, Republic of Korea.
authors: Christian
authors: C
authors: Wallraven
authors: Department of Brain and Cognitive Engineering, Korea University, 136-713 Seoul, Republic of Korea.
authors: Seong-Whan
authors: SW
authors: Lee
authors: Department of Brain and Cognitive Engineering, Korea University, 136-713 Seoul, Republic of Korea, Department of Human Perception, Cognition and Action, Max-Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, 72076 Tübingen, Germany, and heinrich.buelthoff@tuebingen.mpg.de.
authors: Heinrich H
authors: HH
authors: Bülthoff
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001245:Association Learning; D001921:Brain / Q000098:blood supply / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D003210:Concept Formation / Q000502:physiology*; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009068:Movement / Q000502:physiology; D010100:Oxygen / Q000097:blood; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D010100:Oxygen
keywords: MVPA; abstract representation; associated emotion; fMRI