Modulation of emotional appraisal by false physiological feedback during fMRI.

• James and Lange proposed that emotions are the perception of physiological reactions. Two-level theories ofemotion extend this model to suggest that cognitive interpretations of physiological changes shape self-reported emotions.Correspondingly false physiological feedback of evoked or tonic bodily responses can alter emotional attributions. Moreover,anxiety states are proposed to arise from detection of mismatch between actual and anticipated states of physiologicalarousal. However, the neural underpinnings of these phenomena previously have not been examined. Methodology/Principal Findings. We undertook a functional brain imaging (fMRI) experiment to investigate how both primary and secondorderlevels of physiological (viscerosensory) representation impact on the processing of external emotional cues. 12participants were scanned while judging face stimuli during both exercise and non-exercise conditions in the context of trueand false auditory feedback of tonic heart rate. We observed that the perceived emotional intensity/salience of neutral faceswas enhanced by false feedback of increased heart rate. Regional changes in neural activity corresponding to this behaviouralinteraction were observed within included right anterior insula, bilateral mid insula, and amygdala. In addition, right anteriorinsula activity was enhanced during by asynchronous relative to synchronous cardiac feedback even with no change inperceived or actual heart rate suggesting this region serves as a comparator to detect physiological mismatches. Finally, BOLDactivity within right anterior insula and amygdala predicted the corresponding changes in perceived intensity ratings at botha group and an individual level. Conclusions/Significance. Our findings identify the neural substrates supportingbehavioural effects of false physiological feedback, and highlight mechanisms that underlie subjective anxiety states,including the importance of the right anterior insula in guiding second-order ‘‘cognitive’’ representations of bodily arousalstate.

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

art (ämneskategori)