Brain activity in ventromedial prefrontal cortex correlates with individual differences in negative affect

doi:10.1073/pnas.042457199

Brain activity in ventromedial prefrontal cortex correlates with individual differences in negative affect

^*Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, 301 Wilson Hall, 111 21st Avenue South, Nashville, TN 37203; ^†Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit, Psychiatry Service, Veterans Affairs Medical Center, 1 Veterans Drive, Minneapolis, MN 55417; and ^‡Division of Neuroscience Research, Department of Psychiatry, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455

Edited by Marcus E. Raichle, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, and approved December 27, 2001 (received for review August 30, 2001)

Abstract

Individuals differ in the extent to which they experience negative mood states over time. To explore the relationship between individual differences in negative affect (NA) and brain activity, we asked healthy subjects participating in positron-emission tomography scans to rate the extent to which they had experienced NA terms during the month before scanning. In two independent samples of subjects, resting regional cerebral blood flow within the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC) correlated with ratings of NA. The finding converges with recent evidence implicating the VMPFC in emotional and autonomic processing. Moreover, it demonstrates that variability in basal VMPFC activity across subjects is related to individual differences in subjective emotional experience.

Footnotes

↵ § To whom reprint requests should be addressed at: Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit–11P, Veterans Affairs Medical Center, 1 Veterans Drive, Minneapolis, MN 55417. E-mail: jvpardo{at}james.psych.umn.edu.
This paper was submitted directly (Track II) to the PNAS office.
↵ ¶ Ball, S., Fox, P., Herscovitch, P. & Raichle, M. (1988) Neurology 38, Suppl. 1, 363 (abstr.).
↵ ‖ Ball, S., Fox, P., Pardo, J. V. & Raichle, M. (1988) Neurology 38, Suppl. 1, 362 (abstr.).
↵ ** Dickhaut, J. W., Nagode, J. C. & Pardo, J. V. (2000) Neuroimage 11, 591 (abstr.).
Abbreviations:

NA,

negative affect;

PA,

positive affect;

VMPFC,

ventromedial prefrontal cortex;

PET,

positron-emission tomography;

rCBF,

regional cerebral blood flow;

POMS,

Profile of Mood States