Semantic monitoring of words with emotional connotation during fMRI: Contribution of anterior left frontal cortex

Abstract

Previous studies showed that cortex in the anterior portions of the left frontal and temporal lobes participates in generating words with emotional connotations and processing pictures with emotional content. If these cortices process the semantic attribute of emotional connotation, they should be active whenever processing emotional connotation, without respect to modality of input or mode of output. Thus, we hypothesized that they would activate during monitoring of words with emotional connotations. Sixteen normal subjects performed semantic monitoring of words with emotional connotations, animal names, and implement names during fMRI. Cortex in the anterior left frontal lobe demonstrated significant activity for monitoring words with emotional connotations compared to monitoring tone sequences, animal names, or implement names. Together, the current and previous results implicate cortex in the anterior left frontal lobe in semantic processing of emotional connotation, consistent with connections of this cortex to paralimbic association areas. Current findings also indicate that neural substrates for processing emotional connotation are independent of substrates for processing the categories of living and nonliving things.

The influence of emotional interference on cognitive control: A meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies using the emotional Stroop task

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Sex differences in the development of emotion circuitry in adolescents at risk for substance abuse: a longitudinal fMRI study

“…Both the precentral and postcentral gyrus are part of the core brain network involved in discriminating between the basic emotions (Saarimaki et al , 2015). The pre-supplementary motor area, located on a portion of the precentral gyrus, in particular is involved in processing emotional words presented both visually and verbally (Beauregard et al , 1997; Isenberg et al , 1999; Crosson et al , 2002; Kensinger and Schacter, 2006; Warren et al , 2006; Hinojosa et al , 2014). In general, the motor cortices in the precentral gyrus seemingly play a significant role in motor preparation related to emotion (Frijda 1986; Mazzola et al , 2013).…”

The influence of emotional associations on the neural correlates of semantic priming

“…According to earlier studies on emotional word recognition, we hypothesize to find enhanced medial and lateral frontal activation for emotional over neutral stimuli [Crosson et al, 1999[Crosson et al, , 2002Kuchinke et al, 2005] with positive stimuli inducing activation in frontotemporal regions and negative information in fronto-temporal regions and posterior cingulate [Canli et al, 2004;Kuchinke et al, 2005;Mickley and Kensinger, 2008]. Moreover, as the focus of the current study is on non-emotional aspects (i.e., lexical) of the stimuli and we were interested in emotional influence across the whole brain rather than on specific regions, we did not expect activation of the amygdala in line with earlier work on semantic processing [Kuchinke et al, 2005;Liu et al, 2010;Luo et al, 2004].…”