Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA.
J Cogn Neurosci. 2010 Dec;22(12):2864-85. doi: 10.1162/jocn.2009.21366.
What is the basic structure of emotional experience and how is it represented in the human brain? One highly influential theory, discrete basic emotions, proposes a limited set of basic emotions such as happiness and fear, which are characterized by unique physiological and neural profiles. Although many studies using diverse methods have linked particular brain structures with specific basic emotions, evidence from individual neuroimaging studies and from neuroimaging meta-analyses has been inconclusive regarding whether basic emotions are associated with both consistent and discriminable regional brain activations. We revisited this question, using activation likelihood estimation (ALE), which allows spatially sensitive, voxelwise statistical comparison of results from multiple studies. In addition, we examined substantially more studies than previous meta-analyses. The ALE meta-analysis yielded results consistent with basic emotion theory. Each of the emotions examined (fear, anger, disgust, sadness, and happiness) was characterized by consistent neural correlates across studies, as defined by reliable correlations with regional brain activations. In addition, the activation patterns associated with each emotion were discrete (discriminable from the other emotions in pairwise contrasts) and overlapped substantially with structure-function correspondences identified using other approaches, providing converging evidence that discrete basic emotions have consistent and discriminable neural correlates. Complementing prior studies that have demonstrated neural correlates for the affective dimensions of arousal and valence, the current meta-analysis results indicate that the key elements of basic emotion views are reflected in neural correlates identified by neuroimaging studies.
情绪体验的基本结构是什么，它在人类大脑中是如何表现的？一种极具影响力的理论，离散基本情绪理论，提出了一组有限的基本情绪，如快乐和恐惧，这些情绪具有独特的生理和神经特征。尽管许多使用不同方法的研究都将特定的大脑结构与特定的基本情绪联系起来，但来自个体神经影像学研究和神经影像学荟萃分析的证据对于基本情绪是否与一致且可区分的区域大脑激活有关尚无定论。我们使用激活似然估计（ALE）重新研究了这个问题，ALE 允许对来自多个研究的结果进行空间敏感、体素级别的统计比较。此外，我们检查了比以前的荟萃分析更多的研究。ALE 荟萃分析的结果与基本情绪理论一致。所检查的每一种情绪（恐惧、愤怒、厌恶、悲伤和快乐）都具有跨研究的一致神经相关性，这是通过与区域大脑激活的可靠相关性来定义的。此外，与每种情绪相关的激活模式是离散的（在成对对比中可与其他情绪区分开来），并且与使用其他方法识别的结构-功能对应关系有很大重叠，为离散基本情绪具有一致和可区分的神经相关性提供了收敛性证据。补充了先前已经证明了唤醒和效价的情感维度的神经相关性的研究，当前的荟萃分析结果表明，神经影像学研究中确定的神经相关性反映了基本情绪观点的关键要素。
