Evidence for domain-general arousal from semantic and neuroimaging meta-analyses reconciles opposing views on arousal.

ABSTRACT: Arousal refers to changes in brain-body state underpinning motivated behavior but lacks a proper definition and taxonomy. Neuroscience and psychology textbooks offer surprisingly different views on what arousal is, from a global brain-wide modulation of neuronal activity to a multidimensional construct, with specific brain-body patterns tuned to a given situation. The huge number of scientific articles mentioning arousal (~50,000) highlights the importance of the concept but also explains why such a vast literature has never been systematically reviewed so far. Here, we leverage the tools of natural language processing to probe the nature of arousal in a data-driven, comprehensive manner. We show that arousal comes in seven varieties: cognitive, emotional, physiological, sexual, related to

SUBMITTER: Sabat M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11831115 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature