title: Motor planning of goal-directed action is tuned by the emotional valence of the stimulus: a kinematic study.
abstract: The basic underpinnings of homeostatic behavior include interacting with positive items and avoiding negative ones. As the planning aspects of goal-directed actions can be inferred from their movement features, we investigated the kinematics of interacting with emotion-laden stimuli. Participants were instructed to grasp emotion-laden stimuli and bring them toward their bodies while the kinematics of their wrist movement was measured. The results showed that the time to peak velocity increased for bringing pleasant stimuli towards the body compared to unpleasant and neutral ones, suggesting higher easiness in undertaking the task with pleasant stimuli. Furthermore, bringing unpleasant stimuli towards the body increased movement time in comparison with both pleasant and neutral ones while the time to peak velocity for unpleasant stimuli was the same as for that of neutral stimuli. There was no change in the trajectory length among emotional categories. We conclude that during the "reach-to-grasp" and "bring-to-the-body" movements, the valence of the stimuli affects the temporal but not the spatial kinematic features of motion. To the best of our knowledge, we show for the first time that the kinematic features of a goal-directed action are tuned by the emotional valence of the stimuli.
authors.affiliation: Laboratório de Neurobiologia II, Instituto de Biofísica Carlos Chagas Filho, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil.
authors.forename: P O
authors.initials: PO
authors.lastname: Esteves
authors.affiliation: Programa de Pós-graduação em Ciências da Reabilitação - Centro Universitário Augusto Motta, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil.
authors.forename: L A S
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Oliveira
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Fisiologia, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, Juiz de Fora, Brasil.
authors.forename: A A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Nogueira-Campos
authors.affiliation: Laboratório de Cognição Motora, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal do Pará, Belém, Brasil.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Saunier
authors.affiliation: INSERM - U1093 Cognition, Action, et Plasticité Sensorimotrice, Campus Universitaire, UFR STAPS, Dijon, France.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Pozzo
authors.affiliation: Laboratório de Neurobiologia II, Instituto de Biofísica Carlos Chagas Filho, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil.
authors.forename: J M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Oliveira
authors.affiliation: Programa de Pós-graduação em Ciências da Reabilitação - Centro Universitário Augusto Motta, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil.
authors.forename: E C
authors.initials: EC
authors.lastname: Rodrigues
authors.affiliation: Laboratório de Neurobiologia II, Instituto de Biofísica Carlos Chagas Filho, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Volchan
authors.affiliation: Laboratório de Neurobiologia II, Instituto de Biofísica Carlos Chagas Filho, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil.
authors.forename: C D
authors.initials: CD
authors.lastname: Vargas
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D006040:Goals; D006225:Hand / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009068:Movement / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult