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Poster B149 in Poster Session B - Thursday, August 8, 2024, 1:30 – 3:30 pm, Johnson Ice Rink
Are different kinds of subjective fears represented differently in the human br
Marjorie Côté1, Vincent Taschereau-Dumouchel2; 1Université de Montréal, 2Institut universitaire en santé mentale de Montréal
The brain mechanisms that generate subjective emotional experiences are still poorly understood. Fear is often considered to be represented similarly in the brain regardless of its origin. However, research suggests that subjective experience may be altered depending on the types of memory involved in the experience. For example, previous machine learning studies indicate that decoders of brain activity trained to predict situational fear (semantic information) can predict the subjective experience triggered by fear patterns (episodic information). However, the reverse does not appear to be true. This finding indicates that fear patterns probably comprise broader brain representations than those generated by situational fear. To better understand these differences, we analyzed two fMRI datasets from experiences of frightening situations (semantic memory) and schema-based fears (episodic memory). By comparing decoder performance in 214 brain regions, we identified specific representations of the two types of subjective fear. More specifically, we showed that fear schemas were predicted more accurately than situational fear in the occipital, superior temporal and ventrolateral prefrontal cortices. By better understanding the different facets of subjective fear, we hope to identify the brain structures more directly involved in the maintenance of incapacitating and long-lasting fear schemas in humans.
Keywords: subjective fear affective neuroscience machine learning memory