Neuronal coding of implicit emotion categories in the subcallosal cortex in patients with depression
Abstract
Background The subcallosal cingulate and adjacent ventromedial prefrontal cortex (collectively referred to here as the subcallosal cortex or SCC) have been identified as key brain areas in emotional processing. The SCC's role in affective valuation as well as severe mood and motivational disturbances, such as major depression, has been largely inferred from measures of neuronal population activity using functional neuroimaging. On the basis of imaging studies, it is unclear whether the SCC predominantly processes 1) negatively valenced affective content, 2) affective arousal, or 3) category-specific affective information.Methods To clarify these putative functional roles of the SCC, we measured single neuron activity in the SCC of 15 human subjects undergoing deep brain stimulation for depression while they viewed emotionally evocative images grouped into categories that varied in emotional valence (pleasantness) and arousal.Results We found that the majority of responsive neurons were modulated by specific emotion categories, rather than by valence or arousal alone. Moreover, although these emotion-category-specific neurons responded to both positive and negative emotion categories, a significant majority were selective for negatively valenced emotional content.Conclusions These findings reveal that single SCC neuron activity reflects the automatic valuational processing and implicit emotion categorization of visual stimuli. Furthermore, because of the predominance of neuronal signals in SCC conveying negative affective valuations and the increased activity in this region among depressed people, the effectiveness of depression therapies that alter SCC neuronal activity may relate to the down-regulation of a previously negative emotional processing bias.
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Electrical stimulation of the subcallosal region, which includes parts of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, that may relieve depression, may do so at least in part by activating connections involving the OFC, other parts of the anterior cingulate cortex, and the striatum.
“Furthermore, the possibility is considered that electrical stimulation of the subcallosal region, which includes parts of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (Laxton et al., 2013), that may relieve depression, may do so at least in part by activating connections involving the OFC, other parts of the anterior cingulate cortex, and the striatum (Johansen-Berg et al., 2008; Hamani et al., 2009; Lujan”
From The orbitofrontal cortex: reward, emotion and depression (2020) · cites this paper as Laxton et al., 2013
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- Authors
- Laxton, A. W., Neimat, J. S., Davis, K. D., Womelsdorf, T., Hutchison, W. D., Dostrovsky, J. O., Hamani, C., Mayberg, H. S., & Lozano, A. M.
- Affiliations
- Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist (US)
- Vanderbilt University (US)
- University of Toronto (CA)
- York University (CA)
- Emory University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Laxton, Adrian W.
- ORCID
- Venue
- Biological Psychiatry
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2013-11
- Volume
- 74
- Issue
- 10
- Pages
- 714-719
- ISSN
- 0006-3223 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2158554050
- Cited by
- 62
- References
- 45
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 1 · 2016: 6 · 2015: 11 · 2014: 6 · 2013: 4
- FWCI
- 4.92
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Biological Psychiatry (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Canadian Institutes of Health Research
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Neurology › Neurological disorders and treatments
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior
- Keywords
- subcallosal cortex, subcallosal cingulate, depression, single-unit activity, emotional valence, emotional arousal, affective valuation, deep brain stimulation, ventromedial prefrontal cortex
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Affect, Major Depressive Disorder, Emotions, Female, Gyrus Cinguli, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Neurons, Prefrontal Cortex, Deep Brain Stimulation
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