1 Department of Psychology, Swansea University, United Kingdom; Department of Statistics, Mathematical Analysis, and Operational Research, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
2 Department of Psychology, Swansea University, United Kingdom.
3 Department of Psychiatry, Amsterdam UMC, Location VUMC, GGZ InGeest Research & Innovation, Amsterdam Neuroscience, the Netherlands.
4 Universidad de Los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia.
5 UMR 1253, iBrain, Université de Tours, Inserm, Tours, France.
6 Department of Psychology, Concordia University Montreal, Canada; CHU Sainte-Justine, University of Montreal, Montreal, Canada.
7 Department of Psychiatry, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil.
8 School of Psychology, University of East London, United Kingdom; Centre for Affective Disorders, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London, United Kingdom.
9 Institute of Cognitive and Translational Neuroscience (INCYT), INECO Foundation, Favaloro University, Buenos Aires, Argentina; National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), Buenos Aires, Argentina; Center for Social and Cognitive Neuroscience (CSCN), School of Psychology, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, Santiago, Chile; Universidad Autonoma del Caribe, Barranquilla, Colombia; Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, Australian Research Council (ARC), New South Wales, Australia.
10 School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Australia.
11 Neuroqualia (NGO), Turo, Nova Scotia, Canada.
12 Department of Psychology, Swansea University, United Kingdom; Department of Psychiatry, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil; Discipline of Psychiatry, and School of Psychology, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia. Electronic address: a.h.kemp@swansea.ac.uk.

The Neuroscience of Sadness: A Multidisciplinary Synthesis and Collaborative Review for the Human Affectome Project.

Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2020 Jan 27;:

Authors: Arias JA, Williams C, Raghvani R, Aghajani M, Baez S, Belzung C, Booij L, Busatto G, Chiarella J, Fu CH, Ibanez A, Liddell BJ, Lowe L, Penninx BWJH, Rosa P, Kemp AH

Abstract

Sadness is typically characterized by raised inner eyebrows, lowered corners of the mouth, reduced walking speed, and slumped posture. Ancient subcortical circuitry provides a neuroanatomical foundation, extending from dorsal periaqueductal grey to subgenual anterior cingulate, the latter of which is now a treatment target in disorders of sadness. Electrophysiological studies further emphasize a role for reduced left relative to right frontal asymmetry in sadness, underpinning interest in the transcranial stimulation of left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex as an antidepressant target. Neuroimaging studies - including meta-analyses - indicate that sadness is associated with reduced cortical activation, which may contribute to reduced parasympathetic inhibitory control over medullary cardioacceleratory circuits. Reduced cardiac control may - in part - contribute to epidemiological reports of reduced life expectancy in affective disorders, effects equivalent to heavy smoking. We suggest that the field may be moving toward a theoretical consensus, in which different models relating to basic emotion theory and psychological constructionism may be considered as complementary, working at different levels of the phylogenetic hierarchy.

PMID: 32001274 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]