Emotion and the prefrontal cortex: An integrative review.

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Affective Neuroscience
• Psychology

Background:

• The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is crucial for emotion generation and regulation.
• Existing research lacks an integrated framework for PFC's emotion-related functions, often focusing narrowly on specific processes or regions.
• Discrepancies exist between psychological theories and neuroscientific findings due to the absence of a common framework.

Purpose of the Study:

• To provide a comprehensive review of emotion-related functions across the entire PFC.
• To introduce the appraisal-by-content model as an integrative framework for PFC function in emotion.
• To unify psychological and neuroscientific approaches to PFC and emotion.

Main Methods:

• Comprehensive review of functional neuroimaging, electrophysiological, lesion, and structural connectivity studies.
• Analysis of data from affective, social, and cognitive neuroscience.
• Focus on 8 subregions spanning the entire PFC.

Main Results:

• The appraisal-by-content model integrates diverse empirical findings on PFC and emotion.
• Appraisal is a unifying principle, while content-specialization differentiates PFC subregion roles.
• Specific PFC subregions are preferentially involved in assigning value to distinct input types (sensations, memories, actions, self, emotions, etc.).

Conclusions:

• The proposed framework offers a unified understanding of how emotional processes are organized across PFC subregions.
• This model has implications for understanding emotion regulation, decision-making, and emotional salience.
• The framework generates novel hypotheses regarding adaptive and maladaptive emotional functioning mechanisms.