Negative emotions impact lateral prefrontal cortex activation during theory of mind: An fNIRS study

Abstract

The lateral prefrontal cortex (lPFC) plays a critical role in inhibiting self-perspective information, which is necessary for theory of mind (ToM) processing. Additionally, previous research has indicated that negative emotions interfere with lPFC activation during executive tasks. In this study, we hypothesized that negative emotions would inhibit lPFC activation during a ToM task. While female participants performed the director task following the observation of emotionally laden movies (neutral/negative/positive), their prefrontal hemodynamic activity was measured using near-infrared spectroscopy. After viewing the neutral movie, bilateral lPFC activity was significantly enhanced during ToM process compared to the control condition. In contrast, after viewing the negative movie, left lPFC activity during ToM process was significantly impaired. These results were interpreted to support the idea that negative emotions interfere with inhibition of self-perspective information through inactivation of the lPFC.

Keywords:

• Lateral prefrontal cortex
• Theory of mind
• Negative emotion
• Perspective-taking
• Executive function

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas, “Face perception and recognition” from MEXT KAKENHI [23119712], by Grant-in-Aid for JSPS Fellows from JSPS [13J05732] and by the Alumni Association of the Kyoto University Department of Education. We appreciate Mr Fumikazu Furumi for giving helpful advice about the Director task. We also appreciate Dr Jean Decety for giving helpful comments to draft manuscript.