Citation

Kveraga K, Boshyan J, Adams RB, Mote J, Betz N, Ward N, Hadjikhani N, Bar M, Barrett LF. Soc. Cogn. Affect. Neurosci. 2014; 10(1): 28-35.

Affiliation

Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Room 2301, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, 02129, USA, Telephone: +1 617 724 5729, kestas@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, Oxford University Press)

DOI

10.1093/scan/nsu007

PMID

24493851

Abstract

Most theories of emotion hold that negative stimuli are threatening and aversive. Yet in everyday experiences some negative sights (e.g., car wrecks) attract curiosity, while others repel (e.g. a weapon pointed in our face). To examine the diversity in negative stimuli, we employed four classes of visual images (Direct Threat, Indirect Threat, Merely Negative, and Neutral) in a set of behavioral and fMRI studies. Participants reliably discriminated between the images, evaluating Direct Threat stimuli most quickly, and Merely Negative images most slowly.Threat images evoked greater and earlier BOLD activations in the amygdala and periaqueductal gray, structures implicated in representing and responding to the motivational salience of stimuli. Conversely, the merely negative images evoked larger BOLD signal in the parahippocampal, retrosplenial, and medial prefrontal cortices, regions which have been implicated in contextual association processing. Ventrolateral, as well as medial and lateral orbitofrontal cortices were activated by both threatening and merely negative images. In conclusion, negative visual stimuli can repel or attract scrutiny depending on their current threat potential, which is assessed by dynamic shifts in large-scale brain network activity.

Language: en