The Journal of Neuroscience, February 15, 2006, ():
Brain Systems Mediating Cognitive Interference by Emotional Distraction
J. Neurosci. Dolcos and McCarthy
26: 2072
Supplemental data
Files in this Data Supplement:
- supplemental material -
Supplemental material
- supplemental material
-
Figure Caption
Figure 1. The effect of emotional distracters on activity in brain regions showing greater response to successful that to unsuccessful trials. Confirming our predictions, specific regions of the dorsal executive system showed greater activity to correct than to incorrect responses. Moreover, the emotional distracters associated with incorrect responses produced the lowest level of activity in the dlPFC (BA9). The left panel shows an activation t map of the direct contrasts between activity for the correct and incorrect trials, superimposed on a high-resolution brain image displayed in a coronal view. The line graph shows the time course of brain activity from the dlPFC region highlighted by the white circle, in which incorrect emotional distracters were associated with lower levels of activity than the incorrect trials of both neutral and scrambled distracters. Supporting this idea, a one-way ANOVA computed on the % change in the MR signal associated with the incorrect responses of the three distracters (emotional vs. neutral vs. scrambled) yielded a significant main effect of distracter (F(2, 9) = 5.29, p < 0.02). Post-hoc analyses further confirmed that the incorrect emotional trials produced lower level of activity than both the incorrect neutral trials (p < 0.05) and the incorrect scrambled trials (p < 0.006). The greatest difference occurred 12 sec after the onset of the memoranda (marked by the dotted line). The grey rectangular boxes above the x axis indicate the onset and duration of the memoranda, distracters, and the probes, respectively. dlPFC = dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, BA = Brodman Area; Emo = Emotional; L = Left, R = Right. Additional dorsal executive regions showing greater delay activity for the correct than for the incorrect trials included sub-regions of the dlPFC [BA46, x y z = -46 21 28, T(9) = 3.4, 0.002], basal ganglia [putamen, x y z = 24 16 -1, T(9) = 6.4, p < 0.0001], and cingulate gyrus [BA32/24, x y z = -8 32 24, T(9) = 6.2, p < 0.0001; BA31, x y z = -8 -25 34, T(9) = 3.8, p < 0.001].
