THE APPLICATION OF POSITRON-EMISSION-TOMOGRAPHY TO THE STUDY OF NORMAL AND PATHOLOGICAL EMOTIONS

This report reviews six studies in which positron emission tomography (PET) was used to investigate the neuroanatomic correlates of emotion, anxiety, and anxiety disorders. PET was used to study brain regions t hat participate in film-and recall-generated discrete emotions (happin ess, sadness, and disgust), picture-generated positive and negative em otions, and normal anticipatory anxiety; participate in the predisposi tion to, elicitation of, and treatment of panic attacks; participate i n social phobic anxiety; and participate in specific phobic anxiety. R esults of these investigations suggest that thalamic and medial prefro ntal regions may participate in aspects of normal emotion unrelated to its type, valence, or stimulus; that modality-specific sensory associ ation areas and anterior temporal lobe regions appear to participate i n the evaluation procedure that invests exteroceptive sensory informat ion with emotional significance; that anterior insular regions appear to participate in the evaluation procedure that invests potentially di stressing cognitive and interoceptive sensory information with negativ e emotional significance; and that anterior cingulate, cerebellar verm is, midbrain, and other brain regions appear to participate in the ela boration of normal and pathologic forms of anxiety. As a complement to other research strategies, PET promises to help determine how multipl e brain regions and the mental operations to which they are related wo rk in concert to produce emotions and how they conspire to produce emo tional disorders.