The Biological Bases
of Positive Affective Styles
Principal Investigator: Dr. Richard Davidson
Summary
In the context of Dr. Davidson's basic research on the nature
of individual differences in emotional reactivity, the opportunity
has arisen to examine some of the biological substrates giving
rise to individual differences in certain dimensions of positive
emotionality. Dr. Davidson has written extensively on this topic
and has attempted to use recent findings from the brain sciences
to help parse the domain of positive emotion. Emotion researchers
have failed to make adequate distinctions among different types
of positive emotion, in part because the majority have not been
guided by new information from recent brain research. Dr. Davidson
and his researchers have described a network of associations that
characterize a type of positive emotionality that they have termed
"approach-related positive emotion." Such individuals are characterized
by enthusiasm, alertness, energy, persistence in goal-orientation,
etc. It has been found that these people display a pattern of
left prefrontal activation, precisely the opposite pattern of
prefrontal activation that is found among depressed patients,
as well as enhanced immune function on certain measures. In infancy
and early childhood, those individuals displaying this pattern
of brain function exhibit behavioral signs of "exuberance" and
are highly sociable. Using modern neuroimaging methods (positron
emission tomography and functional magnetic resonance imaging)
the detailed neural circuitry associated with this type of positive
affective style is being examined. In conjunction with Dr. Kalin's
research, similar biological patterns in rhesus monkeys have been
observed and it has been found that those monkeys with accentuated
left prefrontal activation display lower levels of the stress
hormone cortisol. Studies in primates nicely complement the human
studies because biochemical mechanisms underlying the processing
of emotions can be explored.
This research is supported primarily by a Center grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) that supports the Wisconsin Center for Affective Science.