TY - JOUR
T1 - A systematic review of studies that used NIRS to measure neural activation during emotion processing in healthy individuals
AU - Westgarth, Matthew M.P.
AU - Hogan, Christy A.
AU - Neumann, David L.
AU - Shum, David H.K.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press.
PY - 2021/3/24
Y1 - 2021/3/24
N2 - Functional neuroimaging provides an avenue for earlier diagnosis and tailored treatment of psychological disorders characterised by emotional impairment. Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) offers ecological advantages compared to other neuroimaging techniques and suitability of measuring regions involved in emotion functions. A systematic review was conducted to evaluate the capacity of NIRS to detect activation during emotion processing and to provide recommendations for future research. Following a comprehensive literature search, we reviewed 85 journal articles, which compared activation during emotional experience, regulation or perception with either a neutral condition or baseline period among healthy participants. The quantitative synthesis of outcomes was limited to thematical analysis, owing to the lack of standardisation between studies. Although most studies found increased prefrontal activity during emotional experience and regulation, the findings were more inconsistent for emotion perception. Some researchers reported increased activity during the task, some reported decreases, some no significant changes, and some reported mixed findings depending on the valence and region. We propose that variations in the cognitive task and stimuli, recruited sample, and measurement and analysis of data are the primary causes of inconsistency. Recommendations to improve consistency in future research by carefully considering the choice of population, cognitive task and analysis approach are provided.
AB - Functional neuroimaging provides an avenue for earlier diagnosis and tailored treatment of psychological disorders characterised by emotional impairment. Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) offers ecological advantages compared to other neuroimaging techniques and suitability of measuring regions involved in emotion functions. A systematic review was conducted to evaluate the capacity of NIRS to detect activation during emotion processing and to provide recommendations for future research. Following a comprehensive literature search, we reviewed 85 journal articles, which compared activation during emotional experience, regulation or perception with either a neutral condition or baseline period among healthy participants. The quantitative synthesis of outcomes was limited to thematical analysis, owing to the lack of standardisation between studies. Although most studies found increased prefrontal activity during emotional experience and regulation, the findings were more inconsistent for emotion perception. Some researchers reported increased activity during the task, some reported decreases, some no significant changes, and some reported mixed findings depending on the valence and region. We propose that variations in the cognitive task and stimuli, recruited sample, and measurement and analysis of data are the primary causes of inconsistency. Recommendations to improve consistency in future research by carefully considering the choice of population, cognitive task and analysis approach are provided.
KW - emotion
KW - near-infrared spectroscopy
KW - neuroimaging
KW - prefrontal cortex
KW - review
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85103607530&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1093/scan/nsab017
DO - 10.1093/scan/nsab017
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 33528022
AN - SCOPUS:85103607530
SN - 1749-5024
VL - 16
SP - 345
EP - 369
JO - Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
JF - Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
IS - 4
ER -