Neural correlates underlying humans’ differential sensitivity to emotionally negative stimuli of varying valences: an ERP study

The present study aims to investigate the neural correlates underlying humans’ sensitivity to valence differences in negative stimuli. Event-related potentials (ERPs) for highly negative (HN), moderately negative (MN), and Neutral pictures were recorded while subjects perform a standard/deviant categorization task, irrespective of the emotional valence of the deviants. The results show more negative ERP deflections during HN condition than during MN condition at each 50 ms interval from 350 to 650 ms after stimulus onset (at P3 and slow negative wave (SNW) components). Moreover, emotional effect was also observed for MN stimuli at P3 component (350—450 ms interval). Dipole analyses on the HN-MN difference wave during 350—450 ms interval (P3 component) and that during 450—650 ms interval (SNW component) were both localized to the right medial temporal lobe. Thus, the present study confirmed the human sensitivity to valence variations in emotionally negative stimuli, and further showed that the right medial temporal lobe, in particular, the right hippocampus/amygdala complex, may be the critical neural substrates underlying humans’ differential sensitivity to emotionally negative stimuli of varying valences.