Internal body signals trigger brain responses to natural affective scenes

BLAS COUTO; FACUNDO MANES; AGUSTÍN IBÁÑEZ

Congreso; Society for Social Neuroscience (S4SN) Annual Meeting; 2015

The relationship between ongoing brain interoceptive signals and emotional processes has been addressed only indirectly through external stimulus-locked measures. In this study, an internal body trigger (heart evoked potential, HEP) was used to measure ongoing internally triggered signals during emotional states. We employed high-density electroencephalography (hd-EEG), source reconstruction analysis, and behavioral measures to assess healthy participants watching emotion-inducing video-clips (positive, negative, and neutral emotions). Results showed emotional modulation of the HEP at specific source-space nodes of the fronto-insulo-temporal networks related to affective-cognitive integration. This study is the first to assess the direct convergence among continuous triggers of viscerosensory cortical markers and emotion through dynamic stimuli presentation.[Grants from CONICYT/FONDECYT Regular (1130920/1140114); PICT(2012-0412/2012-1309), Foundation]CONICET