The basic premise of this proposal is that emotion is comprised of a number of components which may utilize different brain systems. These components include: affective experience (or """"""""subjective feelings""""""""), expressive behavior, cognitive appraisal, somatic arousal, and goal-directed activity (e.g., Plutchik, 1984). The proposed research will focus on affective experience, in particular its hedonic (i.e., pleasant/unpleasant) aspect, and its relation to expression. The unique feature of this research is the use of intrinsically hedonic and minimally cognitive stimuli to elicit affective responding in brain-damaged patients. The framework for our project emanates from the literature on laterality and emotion. Although much research has shown that the two sides of the brain differ in their involvement in emotion, many questions remain, perhaps the most important being whether they differ with respect to hedonic valence. The experimental subjects will be 16 right brain-damaged and 26 left brain- damaged patients with unilateral frontal lobe lesions from cerebrovascular pathology. Sixteen matched normal controls will also serve as subjects. Hedonic experience will be assessed through subjects' ratings of pleasant and unpleasant odors. Expression will be assessed through both spontaneous and """"""""prompted"""""""" facial displays in response to the odors, which will be evaluated by naive judges from videotaped records. Our objective is to determine whether patients with right- and left-sided brain damage differ in hedonic experience, facial response to hedonic stimuli, and the relationship between experience and expression. This study will be the first to focus on hedonic experience and expression via olfactory stimulation in a brain-damaged population. Our work is based on the belief that understanding the neurological bases of emotion requires a research strategy in which each component can be assessed independently of the others. If this preliminary research reveals patient group differences, a proposal for a more elaborate study will be submitted, in which additional components of emotion, e.g., arousal, are systematically compared within the same group of brain-damaged patients.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Type
Small Research Grants (R03)
Project #
1R03MH044889-01A2
Application #
3428974
Study Section
Mental Health Small Grant Review Committee (MSM)
Project Start
1991-03-01
Project End
1993-02-28
Budget Start
1991-03-01
Budget End
1992-02-29
Support Year
1
Fiscal Year
1991
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
Queens College
Department
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
City
Flushing
State
NY
Country
United States
Zip Code
11367
Borod, J C; Rorie, K D; Pick, L H et al. (2000) Verbal pragmatics following unilateral stroke: emotional content and valence. Neuropsychology 14:112-24
Bloom, R L; Pick, L H; Borod, J C et al. (1999) Psychometric aspects of verbal pragmatic ratings. Brain Lang 68:553-65
Canino, E; Borod, J C; Madigan, N et al. (1999) Development of procedures for rating posed emotional expressions across facial, prosodic, and lexical channels. Percept Mot Skills 89:57-71
Grunwald, I S; Borod, J C; Obler, L K et al. (1999) The effects of age and gender on the perception of lexical emotion. Appl Neuropsychol 6:226-38
Montreys, C R; Borod, J C (1998) A preliminary evaluation of emotional experience and expression following unilateral brain damage. Int J Neurosci 96:269-83
Borod, J C; Koff, E; Yecker, S et al. (1998) Facial asymmetry during emotional expression: gender, valence, and measurement technique. Neuropsychologia 36:1209-15
Borod, J C; Haywood, C S; Koff, E (1997) Neuropsychological aspects of facial asymmetry during emotional expression: a review of the normal adult literature. Neuropsychol Rev 7:41-60
Borod, J C; Rorie, K D; Haywood, C S et al. (1996) Hemispheric specialization for discourse reports of emotional experiences: relationships to demographic, neurological, and perceptual variables. Neuropsychologia 34:351-9
Madigan, N K; Ehrlichman, H; Borod, J C (1994) Hedonic ratings of odors as a function of odor sequence in older adults. Percept Mot Skills 79:27-32
Borod, J C; Martin, C C; Alpert, M et al. (1993) Perception of facial emotion in schizophrenic and right brain-damaged patients. J Nerv Ment Dis 181:494-502

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