The Left Amygdala and Right Frontoparietal Cortex Support Emotional Adaptation Aftereffects

Abstract

Adaptation aftereffects—in which prolonged prior experience (adaptation) can bias the subsequent judgment of ambiguous stimuli—are a ubiquitous phenomenon. Numerous studies have found behaviorally stable adaptation aftereffects in a variety of areas. However, it is unclear which brain regions are responsible for this function, particularly in the case of high-level emotional adaptation aftereffects. To address this question, the present study used fMRI technology to investigate the neural mechanism of emotional adaptation aftereffects. Consistent with previous studies, we observed typical emotional adaptation effects in behavior. Specifically, for the same morphed facial images, participants perceived increased sadness after adapting to a happy facial image and increased happiness after adapting to a sad facial image. More crucially, by contrasting neural responses to ambiguous morphed facial images (i.e., facial images of intermediate morph levels) following adaptation to happy and sad expressions, we demonstrated a neural mechanism of emotional aftereffects supported by the left amygdala/insula, right angular gyrus, and right inferior frontal gyrus. These results suggest that the aftereffects of emotional adaptation are supported not only by brain regions subserving emotional processing but also by those subserving cognitive control.