Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia.
Department of Psychology, Hamilton College.
Psychol Bull. 2017 Oct;143(10):1033-1081. doi: 10.1037/bul0000096. Epub 2017 Jun 15.
The prefrontal cortex (PFC) plays a critical role in the generation and regulation of emotion. However, we lack an integrative framework for understanding how different emotion-related functions are organized across the entire expanse of the PFC, as prior reviews have generally focused on specific emotional processes (e.g., decision making) or specific anatomical regions (e.g., orbitofrontal cortex). Additionally, psychological theories and neuroscientific investigations have proceeded largely independently because of the lack of a common framework. Here, we provide a comprehensive review of functional neuroimaging, electrophysiological, lesion, and structural connectivity studies on the emotion-related functions of 8 subregions spanning the entire PFC. We introduce the appraisal-by-content model, which provides a new framework for integrating the diverse range of empirical findings. Within this framework, appraisal serves as a unifying principle for understanding the PFC's role in emotion, while relative content-specialization serves as a differentiating principle for understanding the role of each subregion. A synthesis of data from affective, social, and cognitive neuroscience studies suggests that different PFC subregions are preferentially involved in assigning value to specific types of inputs: exteroceptive sensations, episodic memories and imagined future events, viscero-sensory signals, viscero-motor signals, actions, others' mental states (e.g., intentions), self-related information, and ongoing emotions. We discuss the implications of this integrative framework for understanding emotion regulation, value-based decision making, emotional salience, and refining theoretical models of emotion. This framework provides a unified understanding of how emotional processes are organized across PFC subregions and generates new hypotheses about the mechanisms underlying adaptive and maladaptive emotional functioning. (PsycINFO Database Record
前额皮质（PFC）在情绪的产生和调节中起着关键作用。然而，我们缺乏一个综合的框架来理解不同的情绪相关功能是如何在整个 PFC 中组织起来的，因为之前的综述通常集中在特定的情绪过程（例如决策）或特定的解剖区域（例如眶额皮质）上。此外，由于缺乏共同的框架，心理学理论和神经科学研究在很大程度上是独立进行的。在这里，我们对跨越整个 PFC 的 8 个亚区的情绪相关功能的功能神经影像学、电生理学、损伤和结构连接研究进行了全面综述。我们引入了评价内容模型，为整合各种经验发现提供了一个新的框架。在这个框架中，评价是理解 PFC 在情绪中的作用的统一原则，而相对内容专业化是理解每个亚区作用的区分原则。情感、社会和认知神经科学研究的数据综合表明，不同的 PFC 亚区优先参与为特定类型的输入赋予价值：外感受感觉、情景记忆和想象中的未来事件、内脏感觉信号、内脏运动信号、动作、他人的心理状态（例如意图）、自我相关信息和正在进行的情绪。我们讨论了这个综合框架对理解情绪调节、基于价值的决策、情绪显著性以及精炼情绪理论模型的意义。这个框架提供了一个统一的理解，即情绪过程是如何在 PFC 亚区中组织起来的，并产生了关于适应性和适应性情绪功能的潜在机制的新假设。
