scispace - formally typeset
Search or ask a question
Author

Jenny Kestemont

Bio: Jenny Kestemont is an academic researcher from Vrije Universiteit Brussel. The author has contributed to research in topics: Sleep disorder & Attribution. The author has an hindex of 7, co-authored 9 publications receiving 224 citations.

Papers
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Findings on fMRI adaptation are interpreted as indicating that a trait code is represented in the ventral mPFC only during trait conditions, as expected.
Abstract: Neuroimaging studies on trait inference about the self and others have found a network of brain areas, the critical part of which appears to be medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). We investigated whether the mPFC plays an essential role in the neural representation of a trait code. To localize the trait code, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) adaptation, which is a rapid suppression of neuronal responses upon repeated presentation of the same underlying stimulus, in this case, the implied trait. Participants had to infer an agent's (social) trait from brief trait-implying behavioral descriptions. In each trial, the critical (target) sentence was preceded by a sentence (prime) that implied the same trait, the opposite trait, or no trait at all. The results revealed robust adaptation from prime to target in the ventral mPFC only during trait conditions, as expected. Adaptation was strongest after being primed with a similar trait, moderately strong after an opposite trait and much weaker after a trait-irrelevant prime. This adaptation pattern was found nowhere else in the brain. In line with previous research on fMRI adaptation, we interpret these findings as indicating that a trait code is represented in the ventral mPFC.

51 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: FMRI research explores how observers make causal beliefs about an event in terms of the person or situation, and shows common activation in areas related to mentalizing, across all types of causes or instructions.
Abstract: This functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) research explores how observers make causal beliefs about an event in terms of the person or situation. Thirty-four participants read various short descriptions of social events that implied either the person or the situation as the cause. Half of them were explicitly instructed to judge whether the event was caused by something about the person or the situation (intentional inferences), whereas the other half was instructed simply to read the material carefully (spontaneous inferences). The results showed common activation in areas related to mentalizing, across all types of causes or instructions (posterior superior temporal sulcus, temporo-parietal junction, precuneus). However, the medial prefrontal cortex was activated only under spontaneous instructions, but not under intentional instruction. This suggests a bias toward person attributions (e.g. fundamental attribution bias). Complementary to this, intentional situation attributions activated a stronger and more extended network compared to intentional person attributions, suggesting that situation attributions require more controlled, extended and broader processing of the information.

43 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
01 Jan 2012-Emotion
TL;DR: A direct comparison of the two emotion regulation strategies revealed that participants who were instructed to apply an experiential approach showed less fragmentation of sleep than participants who are instructed to applies an analytical approach.
Abstract: Despite a long history of interest in emotion regulation as well as in the mechanisms that regulate sleep, the relationship between emotion regulation and sleep is not yet well understood. The present study investigated whether “an experiential approach”—defined by coping through affectively acknowledging, understanding, and expressing actual emotional experience and affective feeling about a situation— compared with a “cognitive analytical approach”—defined by the cognitive analysis of the causes, meanings and implications of the situation for the own self—would buffer the impact of an emotional failure experience on (1) emotional experience and (2) sleep structure assessed by EEG polysomnography. Twenty-eight healthy volunteers participated in this study. A direct comparison of the two emotion regulation strategies revealed that participants who were instructed to apply an experiential approach showed less fragmentation of sleep than participants who were instructed to apply an analytical approach. The use of an experiential approach resulted in a longer sleep time, higher sleep efficiency, fewer awakenings, less % time awake, and fewer minutes wake after sleep onset. Implications of the differential effects of these two forms of emotion regulation on sleep are discussed.

40 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The results suggest that counterfactual reasoning is a more complex cognitive process than false belief reasoning, showing stronger activation of the dorsomedial, left dorsolateral PFC, cerebellum and left temporal cortex.

34 citations


Cited by
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A comprehensive review of functional neuroimaging, electrophysiological, lesion, and structural connectivity studies on the emotion-related functions of 8 subregions spanning the entire PFC is provided and the appraisal-by-content model is introduced, which provides a new framework for integrating the diverse range of empirical findings.
Abstract: The prefrontal cortex (PFC) plays a critical role in the generation and regulation of emotion. However, we lack an integrative framework for understanding how different emotion-related functions are organized across the entire expanse of the PFC, as prior reviews have generally focused on specific emotional processes (e.g., decision making) or specific anatomical regions (e.g., orbitofrontal cortex). Additionally, psychological theories and neuroscientific investigations have proceeded largely independently because of the lack of a common framework. Here, we provide a comprehensive review of functional neuroimaging, electrophysiological, lesion, and structural connectivity studies on the emotion-related functions of 8 subregions spanning the entire PFC. We introduce the appraisal-by-content model, which provides a new framework for integrating the diverse range of empirical findings. Within this framework, appraisal serves as a unifying principle for understanding the PFC's role in emotion, while relative content-specialization serves as a differentiating principle for understanding the role of each subregion. A synthesis of data from affective, social, and cognitive neuroscience studies suggests that different PFC subregions are preferentially involved in assigning value to specific types of inputs: exteroceptive sensations, episodic memories and imagined future events, viscero-sensory signals, viscero-motor signals, actions, others' mental states (e.g., intentions), self-related information, and ongoing emotions. We discuss the implications of this integrative framework for understanding emotion regulation, value-based decision making, emotional salience, and refining theoretical models of emotion. This framework provides a unified understanding of how emotional processes are organized across PFC subregions and generates new hypotheses about the mechanisms underlying adaptive and maladaptive emotional functioning. (PsycINFO Database Record

391 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This review synthesizes some of the most current empirical findings with regard to the effects of sleep (with an emphasis on sleep deprivation) on subsequent emotional state, and the effects on subsequent sleep of possible mechanisms underlying some of these associations.

375 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The ALE results revealed common regions shared across all ToM tasks and broader task parameters, but also some important dissociations, which provide the most accurate picture to date of the neural networks that underpin ToM function.

341 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The relationship between emotion perception (EP) and theory of mind (ToM) is sought at multiple levels, from concept to neuroanatomy, to produce distinct task manipulations and inform models of socio-cognitive processing.

173 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The meta‐analytic co‐activations as indices of functional connectivity between the cerebellum and the cerebrum during social cognition confirm substantial and distinct connectivity with respect to the functions of action understanding and mentalizing and suggest that cerebellar functions are connected with corresponding functional networks in the cereBRum.
Abstract: This meta-analytic connectivity modeling (MACM) study explores the functional connectivity of the cerebellum with the cerebrum in social cognitive processes. In a recent meta-analysis, Van Overwalle, Baetens, Marien, and Vandekerckhove (2014) documented that the cerebellum is implicated in social processes of "body" reading (mirroring; e.g., understanding other persons' intentions from observing their movements) and "mind" reading (mentalizing, e.g., inferring other persons' beliefs, intentions or personality traits, reconstructing persons' past, future, or hypothetical events). In a recent functional connectivity study, Buckner et al. (2011) offered a novel parcellation of cerebellar topography that substantially overlaps with the cerebellar meta-analytic findings of Van Overwalle et al. (2014). This overlap suggests that the involvement of the cerebellum in social reasoning depends on its functional connectivity with the cerebrum. To test this hypothesis, we explored the meta-analytic co-activations as indices of functional connectivity between the cerebellum and the cerebrum during social cognition. The MACM results confirm substantial and distinct connectivity with respect to the functions of (a) action understanding ("body" reading) and (b) mentalizing ("mind" reading). The consistent and strong connectivity findings of this analysis suggest that cerebellar activity during social judgments reflects distinct mirroring and mentalizing functionality, and that these cerebellar functions are connected with corresponding functional networks in the cerebrum.

147 citations