The functional neuroanatomy of emotional representation, integration, and control

情绪信息很快就会优先进入我们大脑的处理资源。这种“情感关注”使我们能够迅速发现环境中危险或愉快的方面并作出反应。然而，沉湎于情感信息可能是破坏性的，甚至是危险的。在某些情况下，即使我们受到情绪上明显的暗示的轰炸（例如，紧急反应或创伤手术），也需要冷静的精确。幸运的是，人类大脑也进化出了一些系统，可以帮助重新安排信息处理的优先级，最大限度地减少分心，并将我们的注意力偏向于与行为最相关的信息。我的研究旨在确定人类大脑是如何实现这种心理平衡的。虽然注意力的各个方面已经得到了很好的研究，但我们才刚刚开始研究大脑是如何优先考虑和控制竞争性情绪信息对行为的影响的。在人类中，这项工作主要集中在不同视觉线索之间的竞争。在视觉领域还有很多东西需要学习，而我们对听觉系统中的这些过程所知甚少。最近的研究结果表明，大脑中存在一定程度的专门化来处理不同类型的情绪信息（例如，积极的刺激和令人厌恶的刺激）。然而，我们对人类大脑中感觉系统内部和感觉系统之间的情感信息的优先级或表现方式知之甚少。我的研究使用行为和脑成像技术来衡量情绪上显著的信息对大脑活动和行为的影响。这些技术用于健康个体和外科手术或损伤后获得性脑病变的人。这些方法提供了有关大脑区域的基本知识，这些区域涉及并必须代表和控制情绪信息。由于这项研究考察了相关和不相关的情感信息的竞争流吸引我们的注意力并影响我们的判断的条件，因此它将适用于外科医生、应急人员、空中交通管制员、飞行员和国防人员的选择和培训。

Emotional information gains rapid and often preferential access to our brain's processing resources. This "emotional attention" enables us to quickly detect and respond to dangerous or pleasant aspects of our environment. However, dwelling on emotional information can be disruptive or even dangerous. Some situations require calm precision even while we are being bombarded with emotionally salient cues (e.g., emergency response or trauma surgery). Fortunately, the human brain has also evolved systems that help reprioritize information processing, minimize distraction, and bias our attention towards the most behaviourally relevant information. My research aims to determine how the human brain performs this mental balancing act. Although aspects of attention have been well-researched, we have only begun to investigate how the brain prioritizes and controls the effects of competing emotional information on behaviour. In humans, this work has focussed on competition between different visual cues. There is still much to be learned in the visual domain, and we know even less about these processes in the auditory system. Recent findings suggest that a degree of specialization exists in the brain for processing distinct classes of emotional information (e.g., positive versus disgusting stimuli). Yet we know little about how conflicting classes of emotional information are prioritized or represented in the human brain within and between sensory systems. My research uses behavioural and brain imaging techniques to measure the impact of emotionally salient information on brain activity and behaviour. These techniques are used with healthy individuals and people with acquired brain lesions following surgical procedures or injuries. These methods provide fundamental knowledge about the brain regions involved in and necessary for representing and controlling emotional information. Because this research examines the conditions under which competing streams of relevant and irrelevant emotional information capture our attention and influence our judgement, it will have applications for the selection and training of surgeons, emergency response personnel, air-traffic controllers, pilots, and defence personnel.