Emergent processes in cognitive-emotional interactions

Abstract

Emotion and cognition have been viewed as largely separate entities in the brain. Within this framework, significant progress has been made in understanding specific aspects of behavior. Research in the past two decades, however, has started to paint a different picture of brain organization, one in which network interactions are key to understanding complex behaviors. From both basic and clinical perspectives, the characterization of cognitive-emotional interactions constitutes a fundamental issue in the investigation of the mind and brain. This review will highlight the interactive and integrative potential that exists in the brain to bring together the cognitive and emotional domains. First, anatomical evidence will be provided, focusing on structures such as hypothalamus, basal forebrain, amygdala, cingulate cortex, orbitofrontal cortex, and insula. Data on functional interactions will then be discussed, followed by a discussion of a dual competition framework, which describes cognitive-emotional interactions in terms of perceptual and cognitive competition mechanisms.

Figure 1.. Hypothalamic ascending connectivity. Summary of the four major pathways from the hypothalamus to the cerebral cortex schematized on a flattened representation of the rat brain The basal ganglia here refer to the magnocellular basal forebrain and the amygdala complex. Note that one of the indirect connections first “descends” to the brain stem. BG, basal ganglia; BS, brain stem; CTX, cortex; HY, hypothalamus; TH, thalamus. Adapted from ref 1: Risold PY, Thompson RH, Swanson LW. The structural organization of connections between hypothalamus and cerebra cortex. Brain Res Brain Res Rev. 1997;24:197-254. Copyright © Elsevier, 1997

Figure 2.. Cognitive-emotional interactions. Affective value interacts with both perceptual and executive processes.

Figure 3.. Interactions between emotion and perception. (A) Visual processing is suggested to be modulated by affective value via several mechanisms, including those involving projections from the amygdala, basal forebrain, orbitofrontal cortex, and possibly hypothalamus (not shown). (B) Another class of modulatory mechanisms relies on interactions between “evaluative” sites (shown in color) and “control” sites (shown in white), the latter located in frontoparietal cortex and known to exert top-down influences on visual processing. Dotted ines indicate possibly indirect connections. All locations are approximate, and the positions of the amygdala, basal forebrain, hypothalamus, and pulvinar are shown on the latera surface for schematic purposes. A, amygdala; BF, basal forebrain; FEF, frontal eye field; Hyp, hypothalamus; IPS, intraparietal sulcus; OFC, orbitofrontal cortex; Pul, pulvinar.

Figure 4.. Executive competition and threat. Executive functions can be viewed as relying on multiple mechanisms, also referred to as resources (R1 through R4; eg, “shifting,” “updating”), that are partly independent but, critically, are also shared (indicated by the orange circle). When threat content is high, these shared resources (SR) are engaged, thus detracting from the ability to recruit specific mechanisms at optimal levels Consequently, behavioral performance relying on those mechanisms will be impaired

Figure 5.. Interactions between emotion and cognition. The anterior nsula and the anterior cingulate cortex are important sites nvolved in determining affective significance and value. In so doing, they are closely affiliated with an extended set of regions, some of which are shown here in the orange ellipse The anterior insula and anterior cingulate cortex interact closely with the lateral prefrontal cortex, a region involved in several cognitive functions. In this manner, cognitive-emotional interactions occur during complex behaviors. Notably, these interactions can be either beneficial or detrimental to behavior. In the latter case, for instance, when threat level is high, resources required for cognitive operations are partly consumed, thereby compromising behavioral performance ACC, anterior cingulate cortex; Amyg, amygdala; Ant insula, anterior insula; BF, basal forebrain; Hyp, hypothalamus; LPFC, lateral prefrontal cortex