ARTICLE UPDATE - How Does Reward Expectation Influence Cognition in the Human Brain?

James B. Rowe, Doris Eckstein, Todd Braver and Adrian M. Owen

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience,20, 1980-1992

The prospect of reward changes how we think and behave. We investigated how this occurs in the brain using a novel continuous performance task in which fluctuating reward expectations biased cognitive processes between competing spatial and verbal tasks. Critically, effects of reward expectancy could be distinguished from induced changes in task-related networks. Behavioral data confirm specific bias toward a reward-relevant modality. Increased reward expectation improves reaction time and accuracy in the relevant dimension while reducing sensitivity to modulations of stimuli characteristics in the irrelevant dimension. Analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging data shows that the proximity to reward over successive trials is associated with increased activity of the medial frontal cortex regardless of the modality. However, there are modality-specific changes in brain activity in the lateral frontal, parietal, and temporal cortex. Analysis of effective connectivity suggests that reward expectancy enhances coupling in both early visual pathways and within the prefrontal cortex. These distributed changes in task-related cortical networks arise from subjects' representations of future events and likelihood of reward.

ARTICLE UPDATE - Emotional states influence the neural processing of affective language.

Pratt NL, Kelly SD.

Social Neuroscience, 3, 1-9

The present study investigated whether emotional states influence the neural processing of language. Event-related potentials recorded the brain's response to positively and negatively valenced words (e.g., love vs. death) while participants were directly induced into positive and negative moods. ERP electrodes in frontal scalp regions of the brain distinguished positive and negative words around 400 ms poststimulus. The amplitude of this negative waveform showed a larger negativity for positive words compared to negative words in the frontal electrode region when participants were in a positive, but not negative, mood. These findings build on previous research by demonstrating that people process affective language differently when in positive and negative moods, and lend support to recent views that emotion and cognition interact during language comprehension.

ARTICLE UPDATE - Should Persuasion Be Affective or Cognitive? The Moderating Effects of Need for Affect and Need for Cognition.

Haddock G, Maio GR, Arnold K, Huskinson T.

ersonality and Social Psychology Bulletin, in press

Three experiments tested the hypothesis that need for affect and need for cognition influence receptivity to affect-and cognition-based persuasive messages. Experiment 1 found that an affective message elicited more positive attitudes among individuals high in need for affect and low in need for cognition, whereas a cognitive message elicited more positive attitudes among individuals low in need for affect and high in need for cognition. Experiment 2 found that individual differences in need for affect influenced receptivity to an affect-based (but not cognition-based) message, whereas individual differences in need for cognition influenced receptivity to a cognition-based (but not affect-based) message. Experiment 3 found that individual differences in need for affect were associated with increased recognition of information from an affect-based (but not cognition-based) message, whereas individual differences in need for cognition were associated with increased recognition of information from a cognition-based (but not affect-based) message. Overall, the studies point to the importance of individual differences in need for affect and need for cognition in understanding how individuals respond to different types of persuasive messages.

ARTICLE UPDATE - On the relationship between emotion and cognition.

Pessoa, L.

Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 9, 148-158

The current view of brain organization supports the notion that there is a considerable degree of functional specialization and that many regions can be conceptualized as either 'affective' or 'cognitive'. Popular examples are the amygdala in the domain of emotion and the lateral prefrontal cortex in the case of cognition. This prevalent view is problematic for a number of reasons. Here, I will argue that complex cognitive-emotional behaviours have their basis in dynamic coalitions of networks of brain areas, none of which should be conceptualized as specifically affective or cognitive. Central to cognitive-emotional interactions are brain areas with a high degree of connectivity, called hubs, which are critical for regulating the flow and integration of information between regions.

ARTICLE UPDATE - The influence of sad mood on cognition.

Chepenik LG, Cornew LA, Farah MJ.

Emotion, 7, 802-811

Neuroimaging has identified an overlapping network of brain regions whose activity is modulated by mood and cognition. Studies of depressed individuals have shown changes in perception, attention, memory, and executive functions. This suggests that mood has a pervasive effect on cognition. Direct evidence of the effect of sad mood on cognition is surprisingly limited, however. Published studies have generally addressed a single cognitive ability per study because the fleeting nature of laboratory-induced mood precludes extended testing, and robust findings are limited to mood effects on memory for emotional stimuli. In this study, sad mood was induced and prolonged, enabling the effects of mood to be assessed for an array of abilities, including those that share neural substrates with sad mood and those affected by depression. Sad mood affected memory for emotional words and facial emotion recognition, but not the other processes measured, with a significant nonuniformity of effect over tasks. These results are consistent with circumscribed effects of sad mood on certain emotion-related cognitive processes, but not on cognition more generally.

ARTICLE UPDATE - Differential engagement of anterior cingulate cortex subdivisions for cognitive and emotional function.

Mohanty A, Engels AS, Herrington JD, Heller W, Ringo Ho MH, Banich MT, Webb AG, Warren SL, Miller GA.

Psychophysiology, 44, 343-351

Functional differentiation of dorsal (dACC) and rostral (rACC) anterior cingulate cortex for cognitive and emotional function has received considerable indirect support. Using fMRI, parallel tasks, and within-subject analysis, the present study directly tested the proposed specialization of ACC subdivisions. A Task x Region interaction confirmed more dACC activation during color-word distractors and more rACC activation during emotion-word distractors. Activity in ACC subdivisions differentially predicted behavioral performance. Connectivity with prefrontal and limbic regions also supported distinct dACC and rACC roles. Findings provide direct evidence for differential engagement of ACC subdivisions in cognitive and emotional processing and for differential functional connectivity in the implementation of cognitive control and emotion regulation. Results point to an anatomical and functional continuum rather than segregated operations.

ARTICLE UPDATE - Modulation of emotion by cognition and cognition by emotion

K.S. Blaira, B.W. Smithb, D.G.V. Mitchella, J. Mortonc, M. Vythilingama, L. Pessoad, D. Fridberga, A. Zametkina, D. Sturmane, E.E. Nelsona, W.C. Drevetsa, D.S. Pinea, A. Martine and R.J.R. Blair

NeuroImage, in press

In this study, we examined the impact of goal-directed processing on the response to emotional pictures and the impact of emotional pictures on goal-directed processing. Subjects (N = 22) viewed neutral or emotional pictures in the presence or absence of a demanding cognitive task. Goal-directed processing disrupted the BOLD response to emotional pictures. In particular, the BOLD response within bilateral amygdala and inferior frontal gyrus decreased during concurrent task performance. Moreover, the presence of both positive and negative distractors disrupted task performance, with reaction times increasing for emotional relative to neutral distractors. Moreover, in line with the suggestion of the importance of lateral frontal regions in emotional regulation [Ochsner, K. N., Ray, R. D., Cooper, J. C., Robertson, E. R., Chopra, S., Gabrieli, J. D., et al. (2004). For better or for worse: neural systems supporting the cognitive down-and up-regulation of negative emotion. NeuroImage, 23(2), 483–499], connectivity analysis revealed positive connectivity between lateral superior frontal cortex and regions of middle frontal cortex previously implicated in emotional suppression [Beauregard, M., Levesque, J., and Bourgouin, P. (2001). Neural correlates of conscious self-regulation of emotion. J. Neurosci., 21 (18), RC165.; Levesque, J., Eugene, F., Joanette, Y., Paquette, V., Mensour, B., Beaudoin, G., et al. (2003). Neural circuitry underlying voluntary suppression of sadness. Biol. Psychiatry, 53 (6), 502–510.; Ohira, H., Nomura, M., Ichikawa, N., Isowa, T., Iidaka, T., Sato, A., et al. (2006). Association of neural and physiological responses during voluntary emotion suppression. NeuroImage, 29 (3), 721–733] and negative connectivity with bilateral amygdala. These data suggest that processes involved in emotional regulation are recruited during task performance in the context of emotional distractors.