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The Journal of Neuroscience, February 15, 2006, 26(7):2072-2079; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5042-05.2006

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Behavioral/Systems/Cognitive
Brain Systems Mediating Cognitive Interference by Emotional Distraction

Florin Dolcos1 and Gregory McCarthy1,2

1Duke University–University of North Carolina Brain Imaging and Analysis Center, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina 27710, and 2Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina 27705

Correspondence should be addressed to Dr. Gregory McCarthy, Duke University–University of North Carolina Brain Imaging and Analysis Center, 163 Bell Building, Box 3918, Durham, NC 27710. Email: gregory.mccarthy{at}duke.edu

Flexible behavior depends on our ability to cope with distracting stimuli that can interfere with the attainment of goals. Emotional distracters can be particularly disruptive to goal-oriented behavior, but the neural systems through which these detrimental effects are mediated are not known. We used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the effect of emotional and nonemotional distracters on a delayed-response working memory (WM) task. As expected, this task evoked robust activity during the delay period in typical WM regions (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and lateral parietal cortex). Presentation of emotional distracters during the delay interval evoked strong activity in typical emotional processing regions (amygdala and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex) while simultaneously evoking relative deactivation of the WM regions and impairing WM performance. These results provide the first direct evidence that the detrimental effect of emotional distracters on ongoing cognitive processes entails the interaction between a dorsal neural system associated with "cold" executive processing and a ventral system associated with "hot" emotional processing.

Key words: affect; arousal; learning and memory; emotional interference; emotional-cognitive interaction; affective disorders


Received Sept. 10, 2005; revised Jan. 8, 2005; accepted Jan. 9, 2006.

Correspondence should be addressed to Dr. Gregory McCarthy, Duke University–University of North Carolina Brain Imaging and Analysis Center, 163 Bell Building, Box 3918, Durham, NC 27710. Email: gregory.mccarthy{at}duke.edu




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