Showing papers by "Gregory McCarthy published in 2006"
TL;DR: These results provide the first direct evidence that the detrimental effect of emotional distracters on ongoing cognitive processes entails the interaction between a dorsal neural system associated with “cold” executive processing and a ventral system associatedwith “hot” emotional processing.
Abstract: Flexible behavior depends on our ability to cope with distracting stimuli that can interfere with the attainment of goals. Emotional distracters can be particularly disruptive to goal-oriented behavior, but the neural systems through which these detrimental effects are mediated are not known. We used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the effect of emotional and nonemotional distracters on a delayed-response working memory (WM) task. As expected, this task evoked robust activity during the delay period in typical WM regions (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and lateral parietal cortex). Presentation of emotional distracters during the delay interval evoked strong activity in typical emotional processing regions (amygdala and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex) while simultaneously evoking relative deactivation of the WM regions and impairing WM performance. These results provide the first direct evidence that the detrimental effect of emotional distracters on ongoing cognitive processes entails the interaction between a dorsal neural system associated with "cold" executive processing and a ventral system associated with "hot" emotional processing.
606 citations
TL;DR: Findings provide evidence that coping with emotional distraction entails interactions between brain regions responsible for detection and inhibition of emotional distraction, and identified a hemispheric specialization in the inferior frontal cortex in controlling the impact of distracting emotions on cognitive performance vs. controlling the subjective feeling of being distracted.
Abstract: The role of inferior frontal cortex in coping with emotional distracters presented concurrently with a working memory task was investigated using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging. The study yielded two main findings: (i) processing of emotional distracters was associated with enhanced functional coupling between the amygdala and the inferior frontal cortex and (ii) the inferior frontal cortex showed a left-lateralized activation pattern discriminating successful from unsuccessful trials in the presence of emotional distraction. These findings provide evidence that coping with emotional distraction entails interactions between brain regions responsible for detection and inhibition of emotional distraction, and identified a hemispheric specialization in the inferior frontal cortex in controlling the impact of distracting emotions on cognitive performance (left hemisphere) vs. controlling the subjective feeling of being distracted (right hemisphere).
155 citations
TL;DR: Findings reveal brain mechanisms that integrate emotional input and current mood state, with implications for understanding cognitive distractibility in depression.
75 citations
TL;DR: Using event-related functional MRI, strong activation was obtained in those regions previously identified as important for face and body perception, including portions of the fusiform and lingual gyri within ventral occipitotemporal cortex, andParts of the middle occipital gyrus and adjacent medial FFG were obtained.
72 citations