PET SCANNING OF THE BRAIN DURING INDUCED EMOTION

The research program elaborates upon a PET study recently conducted in
Arizona by Dr. Lane and colleagues in which happiness, sadness and disgust
were successfully induced in normal women in the PET laboratory. Subjects
were carefully selected to maximize the likelihood that they would have
intense experiences and could describe their experiences accurately. The
analysis of cerebral blood flow (BF) data, a marker of local neuronal
activity, is currently being completed. To prepare for the two major PET studies supported by this grant, three
psychometric studies will aim to enhance the effectiveness of the film and
imagery stimuli for unselected subjects in a manner specifically suited for
PET utilizing the radiotracer 15O-water. A psychophysiological study
(N=200) will then determine whether the variance in the autonomic response
to emotion-evoking stimuli explained by self-report varies as a function of
individual differences in the style of emotion self-regulation. Two PET
studies involving absolute quantitation of BF using the radiotracer 15O-
water will then follow (Total N=40). The goals of these two studies are to
identify the functional neuroanatomy of happiness, sadness, disgust, anger
and fear in normal women and to determine whether sex differences exist in
BF patterns during anger, fear and happiness. Another goal is to compare
two groups differing in their style of emotion self-regulation if supported
by the psychophysiological data, or to compare that of right and left-
handers if not.