scholarly journals The Role of Cingulate Cortex in Vicarious Pain

2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Esther H. Yesudas ◽  
Tatia M. C. Lee
Keyword(s):  
Affective State ◽  
Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Affective Processing ◽  
Pain Processing ◽  
Motor Processing ◽  
Neuronal Populations ◽  
Experienced Pain ◽  
Clinical Disorders

Vicarious pain is defined as the observation of individuals in pain. There is growing neuroimaging evidence suggesting that the cingulate cortex plays a significant role in self-experienced pain processing. Yet, very few studies have directly tested the distinct functions of the cingulate cortex for vicarious pain. In this review, one EEG and eighteen neuroimaging studies reporting cingulate cortex activity during pain observation were discussed. The data indicate that there is overlapping neural activity in the cingulate cortex during self- and vicarious pain. Such activity may contribute to shared neural pain representations that permit inference of the affective state of individuals in pain, facilitating empathy. However, the exact location of neuronal populations in which activity overlaps or differs for self- and observed pain processing requires further confirmation. This review also discusses evidence suggesting differential functions of the cingulate cortex in cognitive, affective, and motor processing during empathy induction. While affective processing in the cingulate cortex during pain observation has been explored relatively more often, its attention and motor roles remain underresearched. Shedding light on the neural correlates of vicarious pain and corresponding empathy in healthy populations can provide neurobiological markers and intervention targets for empathic deficits found in various clinical disorders.

scholarly journals Anxiety makes time pass quicker: neural correlates

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
I Sarigiannidis ◽  
K Kieslich ◽  
C Grillon ◽  
M Ernst ◽  
JP Roiser ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processing ◽  
Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Work Time ◽  
Time Processing ◽  
Anxiety Induction ◽  
Temporal Bisection Task ◽  
Conjunction Analysis ◽  
Threat Of Shock

AbstractAnxiety can be an adaptive process that promotes harm avoidance. It is accompanied by shifts in cognitive processing, but the precise nature of these changes and the neural mechanisms that underlie them are not fully understood. One theory is that anxiety impairs concurrent (non-harm related) cognitive processing by commandeering finite neurocognitive resources. For example, we have previously shown that anxiety reliably ‘speeds up time’, promoting temporal underestimation, possibly due to loss of temporal information. Whether this is due anxiety ‘overloading’ neurocognitive processing of time is unknown. We therefore set out to understand the neural correlates of this effect, examining whether anxiety and time processing overlap, particularly in regions of the cingulate cortex. Across two studies (an exploratory Study 1, N=13, followed by a pre-registered Study 2, N=29) we combined a well-established anxiety manipulation (threat of shock) with a temporal bisection task while participants were scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Consistent with our previous work, time was perceived to pass more quickly under induced anxiety. Anxiety induction led to widespread activation in cingulate cortex, while the perception of longer intervals was associated with more circumscribed activation in a mid-cingulate area. Importantly, conjunction analysis identified convergence between anxiety and time processing in the insula and mid-cingulate cortex. These results provide tentative support for the hypothesis that anxiety impacts cognitive processing by overloading already-in-use neural resources. In particular, overloading mid-cingulate cortex capacity may drive emotion-related changes in temporal perception, consistent with the hypothesised role of this region in mediating cognitive affective and behavioural responses to anxiety.

TESTING GOAL-DRIVEN CAPTURE BY THREAT

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Robert Harrison Brown
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Attentional Capture ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Experimental Manipulation ◽  
Contingent Capture ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Affective Stimuli ◽  
Clinical Disorders ◽  
Positive Stimuli

Attention has long been characterised within prominent models as reflecting a competition between goal-driven and stimulus-driven processes. It remains unclear, however, how involuntary attentional capture by affective stimuli, such as threat-laden content, fits into such models. While such effects were traditionally held to reflect stimulus-driven processes, recent research has increasingly implicated a critical role of goal-driven processes. Here we test an alternative goal-driven account of involuntary attentional capture by threat, using an experimental manipulation of goal-driven attention. To this end we combined the classic ‘contingent capture’ and ‘emotion-induced blink’ (EIB) paradigms in an RSVP task with both positive or threatening target search goals. Across six experiments, positive and threat distractors were presented in peripheral, parafoveal, and central locations. Across all distractor locations, we found that involuntary attentional capture by irrelevant threatening distractors could be induced via the adoption of a search goal for a threatening category; adopting a goal for a positive category conversely led to capture only by positive stimuli. Our findings provide direct experimental evidence for a causal role of voluntary goals in involuntary capture by irrelevant threat stimuli, and hence demonstrate the plausibility of a top-down account of this phenomenon. We discuss the implications of these findings in relation to current cognitive models of attention and clinical disorders.

scholarly journals The role of the cingulate cortex in the generation of motor tics and the experience of the premonitory urge‐to‐tic in Tourette syndrome

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen R. Jackson ◽  
Hilmar P. Sigurdsson ◽  
Katherine Dyke ◽  
Maria Condon ◽  
Georgina M. Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Tourette Syndrome ◽  
Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Motor Tics ◽  
Premonitory Urge
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