Emotion-dependent responses in spinal cord neurons: a spinal fMRI study.

Previous research has demonstrated that emotional stimuli receive preferential processing in the brain. In the current study, functional magnetic resonance imaging was utilized to determine if emotion-specific responses are detectable in the cervical spinal cord. During the passive (i.e., non-motoric) perception of images, activity was detected in the left dorsal and right ventral spinal cord in response to negative emotional stimuli; however, this pattern was reversed in response to neutral and positive stimuli. Critically, during active motoric responses to images, there was greater activity in the ventral cervical spinal cord in response to negative emotional stimuli than to neutral stimuli. These results demonstrate preferential motor responses to negative emotional images by the spinal cord, likely indicating an enhancement of activity in response to threat.