Lateral Prefrontal Organization in Emotion: Representational and Causal Mechanism - Duration Difference Estimation
University of California, Santa Barbara
Summary
To support optimal behavior in daily life, goals and responses following emotional events should ideally incorporate not only the valence and intensity of prior emotional episodes but also their temporal features, such as the relative duration of positive vs. negative attributes. However, how specific brain regions contribute to the integration of temporal and emotional information and promote goal-directed response remains unknown. The goal of this study is to examine how specific brain regions track both emotional and temporal information of dynamic emotional events to inform other related brain regions to guide goal-oriented and context-appropriate actions. The investigators will scan healthy human participants using functional MRI (fMRI) while they view emotional image sequences and track the associated emotional and temporal (duration) information, and act accordingly. The investigators will employ multivariate patterns analysis and pattern similarity analysis to identify brain regions that represent (can decode) emotion, time, and their combined signals, as well as brain regions that represent the associated action goal. In addition, to infer the causal contributions of these brain regions in forming task-relevant representations (emotion, time, and action goal), the same participants will be recruited to receive transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) in these regions.
Description
Overview. n=50 participants from the UC Santa Barbara and the larger Santa Barbara community will be recruited and invited to participate in a multi-session fMRI/TMS+fMRI study. Eligibility criteria have been described and include fMRI and TMS safety criteria. Behavioral Task. To test the hypothesis that the lateral frontal pole (FPl) represents emotion and temporal signals and integrates them to inform contextual action goal representations in the mid-lateral prefrontal cortex (mid-LPFC), the investigators will use a well-validated task that manipulates time and emotional valence factors to…
Eligibility
- Age range
- 18–45 years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Yes
Inclusion Criteria: * right-handed * between the ages of 18 and 45 * be a fluent English speaker * have normal to corrected-to-normal vision. Exclusion Criteria: * if they report a current or prior diagnosis of a psychiatric disorder requiring hospitalization and/or are currently using psychiatric medication; o If they report a history of or current neurological disease (i.e., stroke, concussion, epilepsy, major head trauma, complicated migraine); * If they ever had a seizure; * If they have a family history of epilepsy or seizure disorders; * If they have a history of fainting; * If they a…
Interventions
- OtherEmotion valence
Positive vs. Negative (temporally extended sequence)
- OtherTime
∆ Temporal evidence (i.e. relative time difference of stimulus-type exposure across a sequence: 1200 vs. 1800)
- DeviceTMS Stimulation
FPl vs. mid-LPFC vs. non-PFC Control (S1); Specific LPFC region (vs. non-PFC active Control) function is manipulated with an inhibitory TMS protocol (cTBS).
Location
- University of California, Santa BarbaraSanta Barbara, California