Emotional states as distinct configurations of functional brain networks

Rotem Dan*, Marta Weinstock, Gadi Goelman

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

5 Scopus citations

Abstract

The conceptualization of emotional states as patterns of interactions between large-scale brain networks has recently gained support. Yet, few studies have directly examined the brain’s network structure during emotional experiences. Here, we investigated the brain’s functional network organization during experiences of sadness, amusement, and neutral states elicited by movies, in addition to a resting-state. We tested the effects of the experienced emotion on individual variability in the brain’s functional connectome. Next, for each state, we defined a community structure of the brain and quantified its segregation and integration. We found that sadness, relative to amusement, was associated with higher modular integration and increased connectivity of cognitive control networks: the salience and fronto-parietal networks. Moreover, in both the functional connectome and the emotional report, the similarity between individuals was dependent on the sex. Our results suggest that the experience of emotion is linked to a reconfiguration of whole-brain distributed, not emotion-specific, functional networks and that the brain’s topological structure carries information about the subjective emotional experience.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)5727-5739
Number of pages13
JournalCerebral Cortex
Volume33
Issue number9
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 May 2023

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

Keywords

  • emotion
  • fMRI
  • functional connectivity
  • modularity
  • movie

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