Executive Attention Attenuates Early Emotional Processing – Evidence from Pupillary Response
 
Pupil response has unique ability to indicate initial activation of the autonomic nervous system, both parasympathetic and sympathetic. Parasympathetic activity controls the pupil constriction muscle through inhibitory connections between the locus coeruleus (LC) and the Edinger-Westphal nucleus. Activation of the parasympathetic system can be examined during the light reflex, in which the pupil automatically constricts in response to light. Sympathetic activity controls pupil dilation through connections between the anterior epithelium and the pupil dilation muscle. Studies demonstrated that both pupillary light reflex and pupillary dilation are influenced by cognitive load and by emotional states. More specifically, both cognitive load and emotional states decreased constriction and increased dilation, meaning decreased parasympathetic and increased sympathetic activity.
Recently, we demonstrated that executive control can attenuate pupil dilation for emotional stimuli. Namely, emotional stimuli were found to increase dilation, as compared to neutral stimuli, only when preceded by congruent flanker targets. This difference between negative and neutral stimuli was attenuated when the stimuli were preceded by incongruent targets. We suggest that the subcortical routes dealing with automatic emotional processing may be constantly monitored by executive-related brain regions.
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Lab member: Noga Cohen​


 

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