Both animal studies and studies using deep brain stimulation in humans have demonstrated the involvement of the subthalamic nucleus (STN) in motivational and emotional processes; however, participation of this nucleus in processing human emotion has not been investigated directly at the single-neuron level. We analyzed the relationship between the neuronal firing from intraoperative microrecord...

Decision-making about affective value may occur after the reward value of a stimulus is represented and may involve different brain areas to those involved in decision-making about the physical properties of stimuli, such as intensity. In an fMRI study, we delivered two odors separated by a delay, with instructions on different trials to decide which odor was more pleasant or more intense or to...

Emotional memories are vividly remembered for the long-term. Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep has been repeatedly proposed to support the superior retention of emotional memories. However, its exact contribution and, specifically, whether its effect is mainly on the consolidation of the contents or the processing of the affective component of emotional memories is not clear. Here, we investigated...

Family affect was examined as a predictor of difficulty implementing a 9-month, manual-based, psychoeducational family therapy for recently manic bipolar patients. Prior to therapy, family members were administered measures to assess both their expressed emotion and affective behavior during a family interaction task. Following family treatment, both therapists and independent observers rated t...

BACKGROUND The high rates of dropout from exercise programs may be attributed in part to the poor ability of most individuals to accurately self-monitor and self-regulate their exercise intensity. The point of transition from aerobic to anaerobic metabolism may be an appropriate level of exercise training intensity as it appears to be effective and safe for a variety of populations. Possible pr...

Incentive motivation theories of addiction suggest that behavioural concomitants of compromised mesocorticolimbic reward activity during abstinence might include decreased affective reactions to natural reinforcers. This study tested implications for hedonic reactions in abstinent smokers. It was hypothesised that positively valenced (pleasurable) film clips would elicit lower ratings of happin...

Affective dysfunction is a defining schizotypy feature; yet the majority of studies examining affective dysfunction have largely relied on self-report of trait affect, which reflects only one dimension of emotional experience. Emerging research has explored a second dimension, state affect, using laboratory manipulation, with most finding that schizotypal participants report experiencing less p...

In this paper, we describe the methods designed for extracting the affective features from the given music and predicting the dynamic emotion ratings along the arousal and valence dimensions. The algorithm called Arousal-Valence Similarity Preserving Embedding (AV-SPE) is presented to extract the intrinsic features embedded in music signal that essentially evoke human emotions. A standard suppo...

Cognitive factors such as catastrophic thoughts regarding pain, and conversely, one's acceptance of that pain, may affect emotional functioning among persons with chronic pain conditions. The aims of the present study were to examine the effects of both catastrophizing and acceptance on affective ratings of experimentally induced ischemic pain and also self-reports of depressive symptoms. Sixty...

In a cross sectional study on a purposive sample, Kumar et al.(2001) assessed the re la t ionsh ip be tween psychosocial variables, subsyndromal affective psychopathologv, and psychosocial functioning in 68 bipolar patients stabilized on prophylactic lithium. They found that higher daily hassles and life events scores were associated with higher depression ratings, while lower perceived social ...