Central Institute of Mental Health, Mannheim, Germany.
Neuroimage. 2011 Apr 1;55(3):1200-7. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2011.01.011. Epub 2011 Jan 12.
Visual emotional stimuli evoke enhanced activation in early visual cortex areas which may help organisms to quickly detect biologically salient cues and initiate appropriate approach or avoidance behavior. Functional neuroimaging evidence for the modulation of other sensory modalities by emotion is scarce. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to test whether sensory facilitation by emotional cues can also be found in the auditory domain. We recorded auditory brain activation with functional near-infrared-spectroscopy (fNIRS), a non-invasive and silent neuroimaging technique, while participants were listening to standardized pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral sounds selected from the International Affective Digitized Sound System (IADS). Pleasant and unpleasant sounds led to increased auditory cortex activation as compared to neutral sounds. This is the first study to suggest that the enhanced activation of sensory areas in response to complex emotional stimuli is apparently not restricted to the visual domain but is also evident in the auditory domain.
视觉情感刺激会引起早期视觉皮层区域的活动增强，这可能有助于生物体快速检测到生物显著性线索，并启动适当的接近或回避行为。情感对其他感觉模态的调制的功能神经影像学证据很少。因此，本研究的目的是测试情绪线索是否也能在听觉领域引起感觉增强。我们使用功能近红外光谱（fNIRS）记录听觉大脑激活，这是一种非侵入性和无声的神经影像学技术，而参与者则在听选自国际情感数字化声音系统（IADS）的标准化愉悦、不愉快和中性声音。与中性声音相比，愉悦和不愉快的声音会导致听觉皮层的激活增加。这是第一项表明，对复杂情感刺激的感觉区域的增强激活显然不仅限于视觉领域，在听觉领域也很明显。
