article i nfo Keywords: Emotion Affect Threat Movement Spinal cord Spinal fMRI Previous research has demonstrated that emotional stimuli receive preferential processing in the brain. In the currentstudy,functionalmagneticresonanceimagingwasutilizedtodetermineifemotion-specificresponsesare detectable in the cervical spinal cord. During the passive (i.e., non-motoric) perception of images, activity was detected in the left dorsal and right ventral spinal cord in response to negative emotional stimuli; however, this pattern was reversed in response to neutral and positive stimuli. Critically, during active motoric responses to images, there was greater activity in the ventral cervical spinal cord in response to negative emotional stimuli thantoneutralstimuli.These results demonstrate preferential motor responses tonegative emotionalimagesby the spinal cord, likely indicating an enhancement of activity in response to threat.
['Stephen D. Smith', 'Jennifer Kornelsen']
Emotion-dependent responses in spinal cord neurons: a spinal fMRI study.