Separate neural circuits for primary emotions? Brain activity during self-induced sadness and happiness in professional actors Mario Pelletier, Alain Bouthillier, Johanne Le¤ vesque, 1 Serge Carrier, 2 Claude Breault, 3 Vincent Paquette, 3 Boualem Mensour, Jean-Maxime Leroux, Gilles Beaudoin, Pierre Bourgouin and Mario Beauregard 2,4,5,6,CA Centre hospitalier de l’Universite¤ de Montre¤ al, Ho“ pital Notre-Dame, Montre¤ al (Que¤ bec); 1 De¤ partement de psychologie and Groupe de Recherche en Neuropsychologie Expe¤ rimentale et Cognition; 4 Centre de recherche en sciences neurologiques; 5 Department de radiologie, Universite¤ de Montre¤ al, Montre¤ al (Que¤bec); 2 De¤ partement de psychologie, Universite¤ Concordia, Montre¤ al (Que¤ bec); 3 Centre de recherche, Institut universitaire de ge¤ riatrie de Montre¤ al), 4565 Queen Mary Rd, Montre¤ al (Que¤ bec) Canada, H3W1W5 CA,3 Corresponding Author and Address: mario.beauregard@umontreal.ca Received10 February 2003; accepted 28 February 2003 DOI: 10.1097/01.wnr.0000075421.59944.69 The question of whether distinct or similar neural substrates un- derlie primary emotions has not been resolved yet. To address this issue, we used fMRI to scan professional actors during self-induced states of sadness and happiness. Results demonstrated that, rela- tive to an emotionally Neutral state, both the Sad and the Happy states were associated with signi¢cant loci of activation, bilaterally, in the orbitofrontal cortex, and in the left medial prefrontal cortex, left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, left anterior temporal pole, and right pons. These loci of activation were localized dis- tinctly within these regions, that is, in di¡erent sub-regions. These results suggest that sadness and happiness may be associated with similar brain regions but distinct sub-regions and neural circuits. NeuroReport 14 :1111^1116  c 2003 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Key words: Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI); Happiness; Primary emotions; Professional actors; Sadness INTRODUCTION A fundamental goal within the fields of affective and cognitive neurosciences is the identification of the neural circuitry underlying primary emotions. Several functional neuroimaging studies have been carried out during the last decade to address this issue. In particular, a number of functional neuroimaging studies have attempted to identify the neural circuitry of sadness and/or happiness in healthy subjects [1–7]. Collectively, the results of these studies are plagued by a serious lack of consistency. Despite this state of affairs, a commonly held view is that separate neural circuits exist for primary emotions (for discussion of this segregationist stance, see [8,9]). The present fMRI study sought to test the validity of the view that separate neural circuits exist with respect to the experiential dimension (the feeling) of primary emotion. In order to do so, professional actors were scanned during self- induced states of sadness and happiness. These profession- ally trained individuals were selected on the basis of their capacity to self-induce and experience powerful emotional states. MATERIALS AND METHODS Subjects: Nine professional right-handed actors (five males and four females; mean age 33 years; age range 25–41 years) living in Montreal participated in the study. None had a history of neurological or psychiatric disorder. All subjects gave written informed consent and the study was approved by the ethics committee of Centre hospita- lier de l’Universite ´ de Montre ´al (CHUM), Ho ˆ pital Notre- Dame. Behavioral procedures: Blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signal changes were measured during three condi- tions: Sad, Happy and emotionally Neutral state. The week preceding the experiment, subjects were asked to recall powerful and personal emotional episodes involving sad- ness or happiness (the saddest life episode and the happiest life episode), as well as an emotionally neutral life episode. During that week, subjects were also requested to re- experience, on a daily basis, the three episodes selected. Subjects were not constrained to recall life episodes related to a specific time span or implicating the same individuals 0959- 4965  c Lippincott Williams & Wilkins Vol 14 No 8 11 June 2003 1111 BRAIN IMAGING NEUROREPORT Copyright © Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Unauthorized reproduction of this article is prohibited.