Neural correlates of the natural observation of an emotionally loaded video

Abstract

Studies based on a paradigm of free or natural viewing have revealed characteristics that allow us to know how the brain processes stimuli within a natural environment. This method has been little used to study brain function. With a connectivity approach, we examine the processing of emotions using an exploratory method to analyze functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data. This research describes our approach to modeling stress paradigms suitable for neuroimaging environments. We showed a short film (4.54 minutes) with high negative emotional valence and high arousal content to 24 healthy male subjects (36.42 years old; SD = 12.14) during fMRI. Independent component analysis (ICA) was used to identify networks based on spatial statistical independence. Through this analysis we identified the sensorimotor system and its influence on the dorsal attention and default-mode networks, which in turn have reciprocal activity and modulate networks described as emotional.

Endogenous variation in ventromedial prefrontal cortex state dynamics during naturalistic viewing reflects affective experience

“…These types of affective experiences of feelings, smells, and tastes can be causally induced with direct electrical stimulation of this region via intracranial electrodes implanted in patients with epilepsy ( 34 ). In this study, we find the highest level of synchronization of vmPFC states at the most emotionally evocative narrative events, which is consistent with work using pupillometry ( 76 ) and fMRI ( 80 , 81 ), indicating that people temporally synchronize mental states at affectively arousing events.…”

“…These regions are associated with reward, fear, pain, motor, and somatosensory processing consistent with previous work characterizing positive valence in naturalistic films (80). State 2 was associated with increased activity in the vmPFC, PCC, dmPFC, TPJ, and superior temporal sulcus consistent with naturalistic work investigating negative affective experiences (81). These regions comprise the default mode and are associated with social processing.…”

Naturalistic Stimuli in Affective Neuroimaging: A Review

“…Importantly, emotional connotations affect the activation related to visual objects. For instance, aversive visual scene content including injuries evokes activation in the somatomotor network, while different networks (dorsal attention network and default mode network, respectively) are activated prior and after the injury scene (Nanni et al, 2018). Emotional (positive and negative) scenes in movies are associated with high default mode, salience, sensory, and language network activation (van der Meer et al, 2020).…”

“…For instance, activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, inferior frontal gyrus, ventromedial cortex, and temporal areas predict humor onset already a few seconds before the amusing episode started (Moran et al, 2004;Sawahata et al, 2013). In a study with aversive stimuli, the dorsal attention network was active when scenes with injuries were anticipated (Nanni et al, 2018).…”

Relationships between depressive symptoms and brain responses during emotional movie viewing emerge in adolescence

“…This method describes the similarity between multiple individuals' brain responses to a time-locked stimulus. ISC has proven useful for identifying the possible brain bases of emotion processing in healthy individuals (33)(34)(35) and group differences in adult depression (36,37). However, relationships between functional responses to naturalistic affective stimuli and individual differences in depressive symptoms remain poorly understood, especially in developing populations.…”