Temporal dynamics of emotional responding: amygdala recovery predicts emotional traits

An individual’s affective style is influenced by many things, including the manner in which an individual responds to an emotional challenge. Emotional response is composed of a number of factors, two of which are the initial reactivity to an emotional stimulus and the subsequent recovery once the stimulus terminates or ceases to be relevant. However, most neuroimaging studies examining emotional processing in humans focus on the magnitude of initial reactivity to a stimulus rather than the prolonged response. In this study, we use functional magnetic resonance imaging to study the time course of amygdala activity in healthy adults in response to presentation of negative images. We split the amygdala time course into an initial reactivity period and a recovery period beginning after the offset of the stimulus. We find that initial reactivity in the amygdala does not predict trait measures of affective style. Conversely, amygdala recovery shows predictive power such that slower amygdala recovery from negative images predicts greater trait neuroticism, in addition to lower levels of likability of a set of social stimuli (neutral faces). These data underscore the importance of taking into account temporal dynamics when studying affective processing using neuroimaging

NEUROSCIENCE DU BONHEUR

Cette revue de recherches met en évidence quatre nouvelles composantes du bien-être et leurs bases neurales sous-jacentes : 1) les émotions positives soutenues; 2) la récupération à la suite d’expériences négatives (résilience); 3) l’empathie, l’altruisme et le comportement prosocial; 4) le vagabondage de l’esprit, la pleine conscience et l’attention « capturée » par l’émotion. Les circuits neuraux sous-jacents à chacune de ces composantes sont partiellement indépendants, malgré un certain recouvrement. Les circuits sous-jacents aux quatre composantes du bien-être se caractérisent tous par la plasticité; ils peuvent être transformés. Ainsi, le bonheur et le bien-être peuvent être considérés comme des habiletés pouvant être développées par l’entraînement cognitif.This review emphasizes four novel constituents of well-being and their underlying neural bases : 1) sustained positive emotions; 2) recovery from negative emotion (resilience); 3) empathy, altruism, and pro-social behavior; 4) mind-wandering, mindfulness, and emotion-captured attention. The neural circuits that underlie each of these four constituents are partially separable, though there is some overlap. The circuits underlying the four constituents of well-being all exhibit plasticity; they can be transformed. So, happiness and well-being may be regarded as skills that can be enhanced through cognitive training