The circumplex model of affect proposes that all affective states arise from cognitive interpretations of core neural sensations that are the product of two independent neurophysiological systems. This model stands in contrast to theories of basic emotions, which posit that a discrete and independent neural system subserves every emotion. We propose that basic emotion theories no longer explain adequately the vast number of empirical observations from studies in affective neuroscience, and we suggest that a conceptual shift is needed in the empirical approaches taken to the study of emotion and affective psychopathologies. The circumplex model of affect is more consistent with many recent findings from behavioral, cognitive neuroscience, neuroimaging, and developmental studies of affect. Moreover, the model offers new theoretical and empirical approaches to studying the development of affective disorders as well as the genetic and cognitive underpinnings of affective processing within the central nervous system.

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The circumplex model of affect: an integrative approach to affective neuroscience, cognitive development, and psychopathology

The authors present an overview of the neural bases of emotion. They underscore the role of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and amygdala in 2 broad approach- and withdrawal-related emotion systems. Components and measures of affective style are identified. Emphasis is given to affective chronometry and a role for the PFC in this process is proposed. Plasticity in the central circuitry of emotion is considered, and implications of data showing experience-induced changes in the hippocampus for understanding psychopathology and stress-related symptoms are discussed. Two key forms of affective plasticity are described--context and regulation. A role for the hippocampus in context-dependent normal and dysfunctional emotional responding is proposed. Finally, implications of these data for understanding the impact on neural circuitry of interventions to promote positive affect and on mechanisms that govern health and disease are considered.

Emotion, plasticity, context, and regulation: perspectives from affective neuroscience.

Anterior cerebral asymmetry and the nature of emotion

http://www.wisebrain.org/papers/EmotGenderHemispheres.pdf

Valence, gender, and lateralization of functional brain anatomy in emotion: a meta-analysis of findings from neuroimaging.

Anxiety and affective style : role of prefrontal cortex and amygdala

• Evidence from psychiatric patients has suggested that depressive affect may coincide with a decrement in the functioning of the right cerebral hemisphere. We have observed that college students who reported greater depression also reported less vivid imagery. Students undergoing experimental induction of depressive and euphoric moods in the laboratory showed an auditory attentional bias and impaired imagery during the depression condition, while their arithmetic task performance was unchanged. A second mood-induction experiment indicated a depressed mood to be characterized by asymmetrical EEG activation over the frontal lobes, with relatively greater activity in the right frontal region. These observations suggest that anterior regions of the brain may modulate the differential effects of emotional arousal on the information-processing capacities of the cerebral hemispheres.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/psych/articlepdf/492485/archpsyc_38_2_007.pdf

Right frontal lobe activation and right hemisphere performance. Decrement during a depressed mood.

Right hemisphere activation during stress

\s=b\Evidence from psychiatric patients has suggested that depressive affect may coincide with a decrement in the functioning of the right cerebral hemisphere. We have observed that college students who reported greater depression also reported less vivid imagery. Students undergoing experimental induction of depressive and euphoric moods in the laboratory showed an auditory attentional bias and impaired imagery during the depression condition, while their arithmetic task performance was unchanged. A second mood-induction experiment indicated a depressed mood to be characterized by asymmetrical EEG activation over the frontal lobes, with relatively greater activity in the right frontal region. These observations suggest that anterior regions of the brain may modulate the differential effects of emotional arousal on the information-processing capacities of the cerebral hemispheres. (Arch Gen Psychiatry 38:169-174, 1981)

Right Frontal Lobe Activation and Right Hemisphere Performance

Summary.-15 seminary students who regularly practiced a form of Christian meditation were given the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) . Electroencephalographic (EEG) signals were recorded and analyzed for percent time alpha during performance of a series of mental arithmetic tasks and also during a period of meditation. Higher scores on the Hypochondriasis scale of the MMPI were associated with increase in alpha as the subject proceeded from the mental arithmetic tasks to the meditation period. This result is discussed in terms of previous research, the pre-meditation level of alpha, and the implications for the use of meditation as a therapeutic procedure. Several recent studies have demonstrated beneficial effects from the practice of meditacion of Eastern tradition. Most of this research has focused on Transcendencal Meditation, although some researchers have also investigated 2kn meditative techniques. Effects in the physiological domain include changes in metabolic, autonomic, and EEG systems (cf. Wallace & Benson, 1972). Studies of psychological effects have generally shown that meditators reported they are more at ease than non-meditators. Two abstracts of studies using the MMPI, for example, reported Transcendencal Meditators scored lower on some MMPI scales (Hypochondriasis, Psychasthenia, Schizophrenia, Social Introversion) and on the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Test than control groups of nonmeditators (Orme-Johnson, Author, Franklin, O'Connell, & Zold, 1973; OrmeJohnson, Kiehlbauch, Moore, & Bristol, 1973). Smith (1975) reviewed the literature on the beneficial psychological effects of meditation and suggested that comparisons of meditators and controls on psychological variables may be complicated by a self-selection tendency, since persons choosing to undertake a self-improvement program may differ from those who do not. Pretreatment personality variables have been examined directly by Maupin ( 1965), not as a methodological control, but rather in terms of which individuals are likely to respond best to a meditative training procedure. Maupin found that individuals having greater capacity for regression and tolerance for unrealistic experience (as measured by Rorschach responses) responded more favorably to a Zen meditacion exercise. The present data, collected in 1964 by the first author, were re-examined in light of the current interest in meditation, with a particular focus on the personality variables which influence an individual's response to meditation. The specific response examined was the change in the alpha rhythm of the EEG during meditation. The

Randy S. Roth

Papers

Right frontal lobe activation and right hemisphere performance. Decrement during a depressed mood.

Right hemisphere activation during stress

Right Frontal Lobe Activation and Right Hemisphere Performance

Personality correlates of EEG change during meditation.