fMRI identifies the right inferior frontal cortex as the brain region where time interval processing is altered by negative emotional arousal: Time Perception and Emotion: An fMRI Study
Hum. Brain Mapp.. 2014-11-04; 36(3): 981-995
DOI: 10.1002/hbm.22680
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1. Hum Brain Mapp. 2015 Mar;36(3):981-95. doi: 10.1002/hbm.22680. Epub 2014 Nov
4.
fMRI identifies the right inferior frontal cortex as the brain region where time
interval processing is altered by negative emotional arousal.
Pfeuty M(1), Dilharreguy B, Gerlier L, Allard M.
Author information:
(1)University of Bordeaux, INCIA Department, CNRS UMR 5287, F-33000, Bordeaux,
France.
The reason why human beings are inclined to overestimate the duration of highly
arousing negative events remains enigmatic. The issue about what neurocognitive
mechanisms and neural structures support the connection between time perception
and emotion was addressed here by an event-related neuroimaging study involving
a localizer task, followed by the main experiment. The localizer task, in which
participants had to categorize either the duration or the average color of
visual stimuli aimed at identifying the neural structures constitutive of a
duration-specific network. The aim of the main experiment, in which participants
had to categorize the presentation time of either neutral or emotionally
negative visual stimuli, was to unmask which parts of the previously identified
duration-specific network are sensitive to emotionally negative arousal. The
duration-specific network that we uncovered from the localizer task comprised
the cerebellum bilaterally as well as the orbitofrontal, the anterior cingulate,
the anterior insular, and the inferior frontal cortices in the right hemisphere.
Strikingly, the imaging data from the main experiment underscored that the right
inferior frontal cortex (IFC) was the only region within the duration-specific
network whose activity was increased in the face of emotionally negative
pictures compared to neutral ones. Remarkably too, the extent of neural
activation induced by emotionally negative pictures (compared to neutral ones)
in this region correlated with a behavioral index reflecting the extent to which
emotionally negative pictures were overestimated compared to neutral ones. The
results are discussed in relation to recent models and studies suggesting that
the right anterior insular cortex/IFC is of central importance in time
perception.
© 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
DOI: 10.1002/hbm.22680
PMCID: PMC6869239
PMID: 25366500 [Indexed for MEDLINE]