[Functional neuroanatomy of emotions]
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Updated: Aug 20, 2026

Brain Imaging Investigation of the Neural Correlates of Emotion Regulation
Published on: August 26, 2011
Johannes Schwerdtner1, Monika Sommer, Tatjana Weber
1Klinik und Poliklinik für Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie der Universität Regensburg. johannes.schwerdtner@medbo.de
Objective:
In the present study, functional neuroanatomy of the frontal lobe and limbic system could be uncovered as emotion processing neural substrates. fMRI was used to test the influence of induced emotions on a non-affective, attention-demanding, cognitive task.
Method:
6 Psychopaths versus 7 controls were analyzed by fMRI with a simon-paradigm after emotion induction.
Results:
Emotion induction differentially influenced cortical activation patterns in emotion related brain areas like the amygdala and the medial prefrontal cortex.
Conclusion:
Structural-morphological neural areas of emotion regulation in "psychopathy" show variant activation patterns in fMRI. The neural basis of emotional impairment could be a dysfunctional medial prefrontal cortex and amygdala.
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