Neural Representations and Functional Connections Underlie Subjective Positive Affect.

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Affective Science
• Computational Psychiatry

Background:

• Positive feelings guide behavior, but the neural mechanisms of subjective positive affect across varied experiences remain unclear.
• Research often focuses on monetary rewards, overlooking the dynamic and multifaceted nature of daily positive experiences.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how dynamic, personalized positive experiences are encoded in the brain using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and predictive modeling.
• To determine if mechanisms for subjective positive affect are shared across different types of positive experiences.

Main Methods:

• Utilized fMRI to capture neural representations and functional integration during experiences of monetary reward, social media engagement, music listening, and recalling positive autobiographical memories.
• Employed predictive modeling to correlate brain activity patterns and functional connectivity with participants' subjective affect ratings for each experience.

Main Results:

• Positive affect, across diverse experiences, was encoded in multivariate neural patterns and functional coupling across distributed cortical and subcortical brain areas, including the orbitofrontal cortex.
• Stimulus-specific positive affect was sparsely encoded by neural representations and functional connections associated with sensory processing.

Conclusions:

• Subjective positive affect is computed and communicated via widespread patterns of neural activity and functional integration throughout the brain.
• Complementary neural mechanisms, involving both general affect processing and stimulus-specific sensory encoding, underlie positive feelings.