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Although it is well established that prior experience with faces determines their subsequent social-emotional evaluation, recent work shows that top-down inhibitory mechanisms, including response inhibition, can lead to social devaluation after even a single, brief exposure. These rapidly induced effects indicate interplay among perceptual, attentional, response-selection and social-emotional networks; yet, the brain mechanisms underlying this are not well understood. This study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate the neural mechanism mediating the relationship between inhibitory control and emotional devaluation. Participants performed two tasks: (i) a Go/No-Go task in response to faces and (ii) a trustworthiness rating task involving the previously seen faces. No-Go faces were rated as significantly less trustworthy than Go faces. By examining brain activations during Task 1, behavioral measures and brain activations obtained in Task 2 could be predicted. Specifically, activity in brain areas during Task 1 associated with (i) executive control and response suppression (i.e. lateral prefrontal cortex) and (ii) affective responses and value representation (i.e. orbitofrontal cortex), systematically covaried with behavioral ratings and amygdala activity obtained during Task 2. The present findings offer insights into the neural mechanisms linking inhibitory processes to affective responses.

Original publication

DOI

10.1093/scan/nsr031

Type

Journal article

Journal

Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci

Publication Date

08/2012

Volume

7

Pages

649 - 659

Keywords

Adult, Brain, Brain Mapping, Emotions, Face, Female, Humans, Image Processing, Computer-Assisted, Inhibition, Psychological, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Neuropsychological Tests, Oxygen, Pattern Recognition, Visual, Photic Stimulation, Reaction Time, Statistics as Topic, Young Adult