Research

Cognitive Sciences and Psychology

Title :

Interactions between positive and negative emotional processing in the human brain

Area of research :

Cognitive Sciences and Psychology

Focus area :

Affective Neuroscience, Brain Imaging

Principal Investigator :

Dr. Srikanth Padmala, Indian Institute Of Science, Bangalore, Karnataka

Timeline Start Year :

2023

Timeline End Year :

2026

Contact info :

Details

Executive Summary :

The processing of positive and negative emotions is crucial for our well-being and survival. However, there is a gap in understanding how these oppositely valenced emotions interact in the brain, which influences our daily behaviors and has potential clinical relevance in mental disorders like addiction, anxiety, and depression. Previous brain imaging studies have mainly focused on learning or decision-making aspects of behavior, leaving little knowledge about the brain mechanisms underlying interactions between positive and negative emotional processing during perception and attention. To fill this gap, functional neuroimaging studies are proposed to delineate the brain mechanisms underlying the interactions between positive and negative emotional processing. The study aims to investigate the interactions between positive and negative emotional processing at multiple levels: brain, behavior, and physiology. The first aim is to investigate brain mechanisms underlying simultaneous processing of task-relevant positive and negative emotional information, hypothesizing that in brain regions sensitive to valence, competitive interactions between positive and negative emotional processing will occur. The second aim is to examine how overall salience is represented during simultaneous processing of task-irrelevant positive and negative emotional information in regions like the amygdala. The final aim is to investigate brain mechanisms underlying the simultaneous processing of implicit positive and negative emotional information. These studies aim to clarify the contributions of key cortical and subcortical brain regions implicated in emotional processing and how individual differences in self-reported affect impact interactions between positive and negative emotional processing.

Total Budget (INR):

42,66,724

Organizations involved