Zang Qian, Zhao Xiaoming, Liang Tie, Liu Xiuling, Lou Cunguang
Center for Student Mental Health and Development, Hebei University, Baoding, Hebei 071002, P. R. China.
Key Laboratory of Digital Medical Engineering of Hebei Province, Hebei University, Baoding, Hebei 071002, P. R. China.
Sheng Wu Yi Xue Gong Cheng Xue Za Zhi. 2024 Oct 25;41(5):951-957. doi: 10.7507/1001-5515.202403052.
Fear emotion is a typical negative emotion that is commonly present in daily life and significantly influences human behavior. A deeper understanding of the mechanisms underlying negative emotions contributes to the improvement of diagnosing and treating disorders related to negative emotions. However, the neural mechanisms of the brain when faced with fearful emotional stimuli remain unclear. To this end, this study further combined electroencephalogram (EEG) source analysis and cortical brain network construction based on early posterior negativity (EPN) analysis to explore the differences in brain information processing mechanisms under fearful and neutral emotional picture stimuli from a spatiotemporal perspective. The results revealed that neutral emotional stimuli could elicit higher EPN amplitudes compared to fearful stimuli. Further source analysis of EEG data containing EPN components revealed significant differences in brain cortical activation areas between fearful and neutral emotional stimuli. Subsequently, more functional connections were observed in the brain network in the alpha frequency band for fearful emotions compared to neutral emotions. By quantifying brain network properties, we found that the average node degree and average clustering coefficient under fearful emotional stimuli were significantly larger compared to neutral emotions. These results indicate that combining EPN analysis with EEG source component and brain network analysis helps to explore brain functional modulation in the processing of fearful emotions with higher spatiotemporal resolution, providing a new perspective on the neural mechanisms of negative emotions.
恐惧情绪是一种典型的负面情绪，在日常生活中普遍存在，并对人类行为产生重大影响。深入了解负面情绪背后的机制有助于改善与负面情绪相关疾病的诊断和治疗。然而，大脑在面对恐惧情绪刺激时的神经机制仍不清楚。为此，本研究进一步结合基于早期后负波（EPN）分析的脑电图（EEG）源分析和皮质脑网络构建，从时空角度探索恐惧和中性情绪图片刺激下大脑信息处理机制的差异。结果显示，与恐惧刺激相比，中性情绪刺激能引发更高的EPN波幅。对包含EPN成分的EEG数据进行进一步的源分析，结果显示恐惧和中性情绪刺激在大脑皮质激活区域存在显著差异。随后，与中性情绪相比，在恐惧情绪的大脑网络中观察到更多α频段的功能连接。通过量化脑网络属性，我们发现与中性情绪相比，恐惧情绪刺激下的平均节点度和平均聚类系数显著更大。这些结果表明，将EPN分析与EEG源成分和脑网络分析相结合，有助于以更高的时空分辨率探索恐惧情绪处理中的大脑功能调制，为负面情绪的神经机制提供了新的视角。
