Right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex involvement in the integration of emotional processing: Parametric mediation analysis of fMRI.

Neurosci Lett. 2016 Jan 12;

Authors: Kida I, Hoshi Y

Abstract
Emotion plays an important role in goal-directed behavior. Although numerous neuroimaging studies have been conducted, neural mechanisms behind emotion generation and emotion regulation are still elusive. This is partly explainable by large individual variations in emotional responses in addition to the fact that emotion is considered a complex process. The present functional magnetic resonance imaging study aimed firstly to specify valence-dependent brain activation, and then to clarify the interactions between regions underlying emotional processing. We measured brain activation in 12 healthy adults while passively viewing affective pictures. The individual valence ratings, which were assessed afterwards, were negatively correlated with activation in the frontal, parietal, and occipital lobes, and subcortical regions including amygdalae. The parametric mediation analysis performed on these regions showed that the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (Brodmann area 47) was main mediator of the valence ratings with the other regions. Interestingly, there was no mediator region for the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. These results indicate the possibility that the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex mainly participate in integration of visually induced emotional processing in the valence dimension.

PMID: 26797654 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]