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Ahmad R. Hariri
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Journal Articles
The Temporal Dynamics of Spontaneous Emotional Brain States and Their Implications for Mental Health
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (2022) 34 (5): 715–728.
Published: 31 March 2022
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Temporal processes play an important role in elaborating and regulating emotional responding during routine mind wandering. However, it is unknown whether the human brain reliably transitions among multiple emotional states at rest and how psychopathology alters these affect dynamics. Here, we combined pattern classification and stochastic process modeling to investigate the chronometry of spontaneous brain activity indicative of six emotions (anger, contentment, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise) and a neutral state. We modeled the dynamic emergence of these brain states during resting-state fMRI and validated the results across two population cohorts—the Duke Neurogenetics Study and the Nathan Kline Institute Rockland Sample. Our findings indicate that intrinsic emotional brain dynamics are effectively characterized as a discrete-time Markov process, with affective states organized around a neutral hub. The centrality of this network hub is disrupted in individuals with psychopathology, whose brain state transitions exhibit greater inertia and less frequent resetting from emotional to neutral states. These results yield novel insights into how the brain signals spontaneous emotions and how alterations in their temporal dynamics contribute to compromised mental health.
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (2015) 27 (9): 1766–1774.
Published: 01 September 2015
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Here we provide novel convergent evidence across three independent cohorts of healthy adults ( n = 531), demonstrating that a common polymorphism in the gene encoding the α2 subunit of neuronal voltage-gated type II sodium channels ( SCN2A ) predicts human general cognitive ability or “ g .” Using meta-analysis, we demonstrate that the minor T allele of a common polymorphism (rs10174400) in SCN2A is associated with significantly higher “ g ” independent of gender and age. We further demonstrate using resting-state fMRI data from our discovery cohort ( n = 236) that this genetic advantage may be mediated by increased capacity for information processing between the dorsolateral PFC and dorsal ACC, which support higher cognitive functions. Collectively, these findings fill a gap in our understanding of the genetics of general cognitive ability and highlight a specific neural mechanism through which a common polymorphism shapes interindividual variation in “ g. ”