Emotions color our interpretations of the world and the people in it. For instance, when someone smiles at us or when we learn new information about someone, how does our perception of that person change? Given the everyday relevance of reacting to people, we need a clear understanding of how our brains generate emotional reactions towards others and how these emotions change our perceptions of others. In the past, knowledge of emotional processing in the human brain has largely been derived from behavioral, neuroimaging, and other methods. Though these tools have taught us much, we still do not have precise information about how quickly specific neuronal populations in the brain are activated and coordinated in response to emotion. Indeed, we do not yet fully understand how the human brain responds to emotional versus neutral stimuli.
The researchers, Drs. Parvizi and Gross, will use behavioral, psychophysiological, intracranial EEG (iEEG), and direct cortical stimulation (DCS) in conscious human subjects to test the effects of emotion on brain activity, especially in areas of the brain that selectively respond to emotion and to faces. Along with brain activity, they will also collect cardiac and pupillary activity, and then use DCS of the amygdala to reversibly alter this emotion-generative process. This research is expected to advance our understanding of the mechanisms underlying emotion generation, and the effects of these affective processes on the human visual perceptual system. Knowledge gained will set the stage for future research to investigate how clinical disorders and circuit-level abnormalities influence emotional processing in the human brain. This collaborative research will also offer unique training opportunities for students and fellows to learn multimodal approaches involving psychophysiology, iEEG, and DCS.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
