TY - JOUR
T1 - Activity in medial prefrontal cortex during cognitive evaluation of threatening stimuli as a function of personality style
AU - Rubino, Valeria
AU - Blasi, Giuseppe
AU - Latorre, Valeria
AU - Fazio, Leonardo
AU - d'Errico, Immacolata
AU - Mazzola, Viridiana
AU - Caforio, Grazia
AU - Nardini, Marcello
AU - Popolizio, Teresa
AU - Hariri, Ahmad
AU - Arciero, Giampiero
AU - Bertolino, Alessandro
PY - 2007/9/28
Y1 - 2007/9/28
N2 - Cognitive evaluation of emotional stimuli involves a network of brain regions including the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). However, threatening stimuli may be perceived with differential salience in different individuals. The goal of our study was to evaluate how different personality styles are associated with differential modulation of brain activity during explicit recognition of fearful and angry facial expressions. Twenty-eight healthy subjects underwent fMRI. Based on a cognitivist model, subjects were categorized according to how they attribute salience to emotional stimuli and how they regulate their emotional activation. We compared 14 phobic prone (PP) subjects, whose identity is more centered on the inner experience ("inward") and around control of environmental threat, and 14 eating disorders prone (EDP) subjects, whose identity is more centered on external referential contexts ("outward") and much less around control of threatening stimuli. During fMRI subjects either matched the identity of one of two angry and fearful faces to that of a simultaneously presented target face or identified the expression of a target face by choosing one of two simultaneously presented linguistic labels. The fMRI results indicated that PP subjects had greater mPFC activation when compared with EDP subjects during cognitive labeling of threatening stimuli. Activity in the mPFC also correlated with personality style scores. These results demonstrate that PP subjects recruit greater neuronal resources in mPFC whose activity is associated with cognitive aspects that are closely intertwined with emotional processing. These findings are consistent with the contention that cognitive evaluation and salience of emotional stimuli are associated with different personality styles.
AB - Cognitive evaluation of emotional stimuli involves a network of brain regions including the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). However, threatening stimuli may be perceived with differential salience in different individuals. The goal of our study was to evaluate how different personality styles are associated with differential modulation of brain activity during explicit recognition of fearful and angry facial expressions. Twenty-eight healthy subjects underwent fMRI. Based on a cognitivist model, subjects were categorized according to how they attribute salience to emotional stimuli and how they regulate their emotional activation. We compared 14 phobic prone (PP) subjects, whose identity is more centered on the inner experience ("inward") and around control of environmental threat, and 14 eating disorders prone (EDP) subjects, whose identity is more centered on external referential contexts ("outward") and much less around control of threatening stimuli. During fMRI subjects either matched the identity of one of two angry and fearful faces to that of a simultaneously presented target face or identified the expression of a target face by choosing one of two simultaneously presented linguistic labels. The fMRI results indicated that PP subjects had greater mPFC activation when compared with EDP subjects during cognitive labeling of threatening stimuli. Activity in the mPFC also correlated with personality style scores. These results demonstrate that PP subjects recruit greater neuronal resources in mPFC whose activity is associated with cognitive aspects that are closely intertwined with emotional processing. These findings are consistent with the contention that cognitive evaluation and salience of emotional stimuli are associated with different personality styles.
KW - Emotion recognition
KW - Fear
KW - fMRI
KW - Personality
KW - Prefrontal cortex
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=34548036981&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1016/j.brainresbull.2007.06.019
DO - 10.1016/j.brainresbull.2007.06.019
M3 - Article
C2 - 17720547
AN - SCOPUS:34548036981
VL - 74
SP - 250
EP - 257
JO - Brain Research Bulletin
JF - Brain Research Bulletin
SN - 0361-9230
IS - 4
ER -