Liu Menglin, Gao Ying, Hao Guiliang, Yan Xiaoming, Zhang Xiaohua, Wang Xueyuan, Shu Wei, Yu Tao
Beijing Institute of Functional Neurosurgery, Xuanwu Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China.
CNS Neurosci Ther. 2025 Apr;31(4):e70393. doi: 10.1111/cns.70393.
Emotion is a major area of research in psychology and neuroscience. However, the role of direct electrical stimulation (DES) in emotional localization has not yet been fully explored. This study aimed to analyze the use of DES in examining the local connectivity of brain regions eliciting emotional responses, thereby providing evidence for a new perspective of local changes in brain networks during emotional responses.
We reviewed the clinical data of 500 patients with refractory epilepsy who underwent stereoencephalogram (SEEG) implantation to locate the epileptogenic area and functional mapping of the brain. The three-dimensional reconstruction was employed for the qualitative and positioning analysis on the emotional responses elicited using DES. We used Granger causality (GC), directed transfer function (DTF), and partial directed coherence (PDC) to analyze the changes in functional connectivity before and after stimulation in selected patients.
Emotional responses were evoked without aura using DES in 85 contacts in 31 patients, including 35 (41.2%) contacts with fear, 37 (43.5%) contacts with happiness, 6 (7.1%) contacts with anxiety, and 7 (8.2%) contacts with depression. Three contacts of interest in two patients experiencing transient emotional symptoms underwent GC, DTF, and PDC analyses; the analysis revealed significant differences in brain networks before and after stimulation in selected patients.
DES can evoke emotions across various brain regions, such as the bilateral amygdala, hippocampus, temporal lobe, frontal lobe, insula, cingulate cortex, paracentral gyrus, fusiform, orbitofrontal cortex, left thalamus, and putamen. These elicited emotional experiences may largely result from the alterations in local brain networks.
情绪是心理学和神经科学研究的一个主要领域。然而，直接电刺激（DES）在情绪定位中的作用尚未得到充分探索。本研究旨在分析DES在检查引发情绪反应的脑区局部连接性方面的应用，从而为情绪反应期间脑网络局部变化的新视角提供证据。
我们回顾了500例接受立体定向脑电图（SEEG）植入以定位致痫区和进行脑功能图谱检查的难治性癫痫患者的临床资料。采用三维重建对DES引发的情绪反应进行定性和定位分析。我们使用格兰杰因果关系（GC）、定向传递函数（DTF）和部分定向相干（PDC）来分析选定患者刺激前后功能连接性的变化。
31例患者的85个触点使用DES诱发了无先兆的情绪反应，其中35个（41.2%）触点引发恐惧，37个（43.5%）触点引发快乐，6个（7.1%）触点引发焦虑，7个（8.2%）触点引发抑郁。对两名出现短暂情绪症状的患者的三个感兴趣触点进行了GC、DTF和PDC分析；分析显示选定患者刺激前后脑网络存在显著差异。
DES可在双侧杏仁核、海马体、颞叶、额叶、脑岛、扣带回皮质、中央旁回、梭状回、眶额皮质、左侧丘脑和壳核等多个脑区诱发情绪。这些引发的情绪体验可能主要源于局部脑网络的改变。
