Bottom-Up and Top-Down Processes in Emotion Generation: Common and Distinct Neural Mechanisms
Name
Gabrieli-Bottom-down.pdf
Size
1.34 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
f0d54649b74abf6299ed32eb7765c3f4
Author(s)
Ochsner, Kevin N.
Ray, Rebecca R.
Hughes, Brent
McRae, Kateri
Cooper, Jeffrey C.
Weber, Jochen
Gross, James J.
Gabrieli, John D. E.
Date Issued
November 2009
Journal
Psychological Science
Publisher
Sage Publications
Citation
Ochsner, Kevin N. et al. “Bottom-Up and Top-Down Processes in Emotion Generation: Common and Distinct Neural Mechanisms.” Psychological Science 20.11 (2009): 1322–1331. Web. 30 Mar. 2012.
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
Emotions are generally thought to arise through the interaction of bottom-up and top-down processes. However, prior work has not delineated their relative contributions. In a sample of 20 females, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to compare the neural correlates of negative emotions generated by the bottom-up perception of aversive images and by the top-down interpretation of neutral images as aversive. We found that (a) both types of responses activated the amygdala, although bottom-up responses did so more strongly; (b) bottom-up responses activated systems for attending to and encoding perceptual and affective stimulus properties, whereas top-down responses activated prefrontal regions that represent high-level cognitive interpretations; and (c) self-reported affect correlated with activity in the amygdala during bottom-up responding and with activity in the medial prefrontal cortex during top-down responding. These findings provide a neural foundation for emotion theories that posit multiple kinds of appraisal processes and help to clarify mechanisms underlying clinically relevant forms of emotion dysregulation.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02459.x
