Journal
NEUROPSYCHOLOGIA
Volume 45, Issue 6, Pages 1331-1341Publisher
PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2006.09.023
Keywords
social cognition; fear; happiness; PET; stroke; lesion
Funding
- NATIONAL CENTER FOR RESEARCH RESOURCES [K12RR017700] Funding Source: NIH RePORTER
- NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF MENTAL HEALTH [K02MH000163, R01MH052879] Funding Source: NIH RePORTER
- NCRR NIH HHS [K12 RR017700] Funding Source: Medline
- NIMH NIH HHS [K02 MH000163, R01 MH052879] Funding Source: Medline
Ask authors/readers for more resources
While the role of the cerebellum in motor coordination is widely accepted, the notion that it is involved in emotion has only recently gained popularity. To date, functional neuroimaging has not been used in combination with lesion studies to elucidate the role of the cerebellum in the processing of emotional material. We examined six participants with cerebellar stroke and nine age and education matched healthy volunteers. In addition to a complete neuropsychological, neurologic, and psychiatric examination, participants underwent [O-15]water positron emission tomography (PET) while responding to emotion-evoking visual stimuli. Cerebellar lesions were associated with reduced pleasant experience in response to happiness-evoking stimuli. Stroke patients reported an unpleasant experience to frightening stimuli similar to healthy controls, yet showed significantly lower activity in the right ventral lateral and left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, amygdala, thalamus, and retrosplenial cingulate gyrus. Frightening stimuli led to increased activity in the ventral medial prefrontal, anterior cingulate, pulvinar, and insular cortex. This suggests that alternate neural circuitry became responsible for maintaining the evolutionarily critical fear response after cerebellar damage. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available