The anterior insula channels prefrontal expectancy signals during affective processing

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Cognitive Psychology
• Affective Science

Background:

• Expectancy significantly influences perception and is often disrupted in mental disorders.
• The precise mechanisms by which top-down expectancy signals modulate affective processing remain unclear.
• Understanding these neural pathways is crucial for identifying potential biomarkers for mental health conditions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how top-down expectancy signals modulate affective processing in the brain.
• To map the temporal dynamics of information flow between cognitive and affective brain networks.
• To explore the role of the anterior insula cortex (AIC) in mediating expectancy-based affective responses.

Main Methods:

• Utilized functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in two independent studies (N=37, N=55).
• Employed task-specific cross-correlations and resting-state cross-correlations to analyze brain activity.
• Applied factorial and hierarchical linear modeling to examine lagged connectivity and expectancy signal modulation.

Main Results:

• Expectancy signals in the AIC modulated brain responses in the anterior cingulate and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex in opposing directions.
• Lagged connectivity analysis confirmed that AIC expectancy signals preceded these opposing prefrontal patterns.
• Replication in a second study with higher temporal resolution validated the robustness of the task-specific cross-correlation approach.

Conclusions:

• The AIC plays a critical role in arbitrating the recruitment of prefrontal networks based on triggered expectations during cued picture processing.
• This study elucidates the neuronal pathways connecting cognition and affect within specific brain networks.
• Findings offer potential avenues for tracking aberrant information processing in mental disorders.