Endogenous variation in ventromedial prefrontal cortex state dynamics during naturalistic viewing reflects affective experience
Journal
Science Advances
Journal Volume
7
Journal Issue
17
Date Issued
2021
Author(s)
Abstract
How we process ongoing experiences is shaped by our personal history, current needs, and future goals. Consequently, ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) activity involved in processing these subjective appraisals appears to be highly idiosyncratic across individuals. To elucidate the role of the vmPFC in processing our ongoing experiences, we developed a computational framework and analysis pipeline to characterize the spatiotemporal dynamics of individual vmPFC responses as participants viewed a 45-minute television drama. Through a combination of functional magnetic resonance imaging, facial expression tracking, and self-reported emotional experiences across four studies, our data suggest that the vmPFC slowly transitions through a series of discretized states that broadly map onto affective experiences. Although these transitions typically occur at idiosyncratic times across people, participants exhibited a marked increase in state alignment during high affectively valenced events in the show. Our work suggests that the vmPFC ascribes affective meaning to our ongoing experiences. Copyright ? 2021 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY).
Subjects
Magnetic resonance imaging
Computational framework
Emotional experiences
Facial Expressions
Functional magnetic resonance imaging
Personal history
Prefrontal cortex
Spatio-temporal dynamics
State dynamics
Pipeline processing systems
SDGs
Type
journal article