What is in a word? No versus Yes differentially engage the lateral orbitofrontal cortex.

ABSTRACT: The words "No" and "Yes" are involved in conditioning to prohibit or encourage behavior, respectively. The authors, therefore, hypothesized that these words would be attributed to endogenous valence, activating neuronal circuits involved with valence and emotional control. Functional MRI (fMRI) at 4 Tesla was used to record regional brain activity while participants were exposed to emphatic vocalizations of the words. Results showed that No and Yes were associated with opposite brain-behavior responses; while No was negatively valenced, produced slower response times, and evoked a negative signal in the right lateral orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), Yes was positively valenced, produced faster response times, and evoked a positive signal in a contiguous region of the OFC. Attribution of negativ

SUBMITTER: Alia-Klein N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2443710 | biostudies-literature | 2007 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature