Inga Laeger

Publications (2)9.1 Total impact

• Source

  Available from: Kati Keuper

  Article: How 'love' and 'hate' differ from 'sleep': Using combined electro/magnetoencephalographic data to reveal the sources of early cortical responses to emotional words.

  Kati Keuper, Peter Zwanzger, Marisa Nordt, Annuschka Eden, Inga Laeger, Pienie Zwitserlood, Johanna Kissler, Markus Junghöfer, Christian Dobel
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  ABSTRACT: Emotional words-as symbols for biologically relevant concepts-are preferentially processed in brain regions including the visual cortex, frontal and parietal regions, and a corticolimbic circuit including the amygdala. Some of the brain structures found in functional magnetic resonance imaging are not readily apparent in electro- and magnetoencephalographic (EEG; MEG) measures. By means of a combined EEG/MEG source localization procedure to fully exploit the available information, we sought to reduce these discrepancies and gain a better understanding of spatiotemporal brain dynamics underlying emotional-word processing. Eighteen participants read high-arousing positive and negative, and low-arousing neutral nouns, while EEG and MEG were recorded simultaneously. Combined current-density reconstructions (L2-minimum norm least squares) for two early emotion-sensitive time intervals, the P1 (80-120 ms) and the early posterior negativity (EPN, 200-300 ms), were computed using realistic individual head models with a cortical constraint. The P1 time window uncovered an emotion effect peaking in the left middle temporal gyrus. In the EPN time window, processing of emotional words was associated with enhanced activity encompassing parietal and occipital areas, and posterior limbic structures. We suggest that lexical access, being underway within 100 ms, is speeded and/or favored for emotional words, possibly on the basis of an "emotional tagging" of the word form during acquisition. This gives rise to their differential processing in the EPN time window. The EPN, as an index of natural selective attention, appears to reflect an elaborate interplay of distributed structures, related to cognitive functions, such as memory, attention, and evaluation of emotional stimuli. Hum Brain Mapp, 2012. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
  Human Brain Mapping 12/2012; · 5.88 Impact Factor
• Article: Amygdala responsiveness to emotional words is modulated by subclinical anxiety and depression.

  Inga Laeger, Christian Dobel, Udo Dannlowski, Harald Kugel, Dominik Grotegerd, Johanna Kissler, Katharina Keuper, Annuschka Eden, Pienie Zwitserlood, Peter Zwanzger
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  ABSTRACT: Several neuroimaging studies underlined the importance of the amygdala and prefrontal brain structures (e.g. dorsolateral prefrontal cortex [DLPFC]) for the processing of emotional stimuli and for emotion regulation. Many studies used visual scenes or faces as emotion-inducing material, and there is evidence that negative or positive words activate emotion-processing brain regions in the same way. However, no study so far focused on the influence of subclinical measures of anxiety or depression on the neural processing of emotional words. In this fMRI-study, we therefore investigated brain activation to emotional words in relation to subclinical measures of trait anxiety and depression in a sample of 21 healthy subjects. We also assessed effects of subclinical anxiety and depression on amygdala-prefrontal coupling during negative (versus neutral) word reading. Both negative and positive words activated the amygdala, and negative-word processing revealed a positive correlation between amygdala activity and scores of trait anxiety and subclinical depression. During negative versus neutral word reading, subjects with high trait anxiety also showed a stronger functional coupling between left amygdala and left DLPFC. These results suggest a modulation of negative-word processing by subclinical depression and anxiety, as well as possible prefrontal compensatory processes during unintentional emotion regulation in subjects with higher trait anxiety.
  Behavioural brain research 05/2012; 233(2):508-16. · 3.22 Impact Factor