Hippocampus and human emotion control: a novel fMRI sequence shows hippocampal contribution within the Approach-Avoidance Task.
Keywords
Loading...
Authors
Issue Date
2022-12-26
Language
en
Document type
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Title
ISSN
Volume
Issue
Startpage
Endpage
DOI
Abstract
The hippocampus has been consistently implicated in spatial navigation and memory
consolidation. Recently, anterior hippocampal sub-fields CA1 and CA3 have been
involved in emotional action tendencies, like approach and avoidance behaviour.
However, it remains unclear whether those sub-fields are also involved in supporting
control over those emotional action tendencies. To study what neurophysiological
substrates is involved in emotion regulation, which is the ability to control impulsive
reactions, traditionally the approach-avoidance task (AAT) has been employed.
Although the emotion control literature has shown network of different brain areas
interacting when participants had to control their emotions, those studies could not
test whether CA1/CA3 was part of the emotion control brain network. The current
study tests this possibility, using a novel flow-sensitive high resolution fMRI
sequence in thirty-eight participants performing AAT, a task where participants
approached or avoided visually displayed emotional faces (happy or angry) by pulling
or pushing a joystick. Approaching angry and avoiding happy faces (incongruent
condition) requires rapid application of cognitive control to override prepotent
habitual action tendencies to approach appetitive or to avoid aversive situations. A
ROI analysis was employed, encompassing the the anterior prefrontal cortex (aPFC),
amygdala (BLA), and anterior hippocampus. Moreover, single-subject beta values
were extracted from peak-voxel CA1 and CA3 and were analysed through a Bayesian
statistics. Results showed replication previous findings for the aPFC and BLA, hence
validating the sensitivity of the novel fMRI sequence. However, single-subject betavalues
analysis did not confirm the presence of neither CA sub-fields contribution
within AAT. Despite such findings, results at the group level show congruencyrelated
activation within the anterior hippocampus, hence potentially revealing small
and distributed anterior hippocampal contribution in the emotion regulation network.
Description
Citation
Supervisor
Faculty
Faculteit der Sociale Wetenschappen